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Chapter 5 81 she must desire this trouble somehow, for example because it will teach the child a lesson. 60 Yet, as the flourishing of children is a desirable outcome, parents’ hope and expectation do not differ in that respect. Parental hopes and expectations with regard to the flourishing of their children do differ in an important other respect. As discussed, expectations involve a belief that their object will (probably) come true. For hope this is not necessarily so. Rather, ‘hope falls within a range of physical probabilities which includes the improbable but excludes the certain and the merely logically possible’. 61 In other words, to hope that something will happen in the future logically implies the belief that this something is possible , whereas to expect something to happen in the future implies the belief that it is probable . Hope and expectations thus differ (among other things) in the degree to which the agent believes in the probability of the realisation of the future object or event. When the agent has a role to play in bringing the object or event about hope also implies a lesser confidence in her own capacity to contribute to its realisation. Therefore, if it is the case that the agent can contribute to the possible realisation of the object or event (which is true for parents and the flourishing of their children), ‘to say “I hope to do so” is to concede that there are limits to one’s power’. 62 In sum, in comparing hope to expectations, what strikes us most is that an attitude of expectation is easily connected to parental pressure, competitiveness, and terms such as hyperparenting and the like. As we have shown, hope can also be performative; in the sense that when one hopes, one not only desires that the object of one’s hope comes true, but is also actively committed to contributing to its realisation. But contrary to expectations, to say ‘I hope so’ implies an awareness of the limits of human powers, and as such is intrinsically connected to a sense of humility, and openness to the unforeseen. An ultimate, abstract, and many-sided ideal aim such as flourishing ‘requires’ such humility and flexibility, therefore we argue that an attitude of hope captures better how parents should relate to it. 63 Even when flourishing is mistaken for a goal, humility requires to bear in mind the fact that realisation of the goal is not certain. Second, an attitude of hope embodies an important characteristic of the idea(l) of a flourishing life, namely that it is always a combination of effort and good luck. 64 In other words; something that cannot be 60 This does not mean though that the hope of the parent is necessarily good; that a parent desires that something be the case does not mean that it is desirable (from a more objective standpoint). If for example the parent hopes that the child gets into trouble, because the parent desires ‘to get back at’ the child, because she is angry with or disappointed in her child, her hope would not be desirable, as this hope is harmful for the child. 61 Downie 1963, p. 249. 62 Eagleton 2015, p. 69. 63 Although we see a difference between (reasonable or proper) hope and expectations, it is possible that parents express such strong ‘hopes’ towards their children, that such hopes are really more like expectations. In such cases parents may use the word ‘hope’, but in fact hold expectations. 64 Aristotle 2009; Nussbaum 1986.