Children as trophies?

In public, when your children do something - like saying some socially inappropriate words, do you feel ashamed of them or that they have let you down? Or, conversely, when your children attain some achievements - such as winning a competition, do you feel proud of them, as if some of their 'glory' rub on to you? I do- all the time. I guess it is a fact: that whether we accept it or not, we are often judged by the 'performance' of our children. Using modern parlance, one of the KPIs of a successful person (esp a successful woman) is that our children are 'successful' (however 'success' is defined). In other words, the world at large judge us using this KPI, and we csnt change others' perception of us through how they look at our children.

But i think it is quite another thing to let this mindset get into our heads and affect our parenting decisions. If we do, then our children become a mere trophy in our collection. When this trophy-mentality takes root, we convey a very strong (perhaps unintended) message to our children: you must behave and do well because your parents' reputation hang on you. This message in itself is not wrong, i think; but if this becomes a predominant message, I fear it can distort their ultimate motivation for doing good - that it should focus on pleasing the parents and on the external observables instead of an intrinsic value for doing well.

The clearest example in my life is that of my children's behavior whenever we are in a social gathering. You know, in such gatherings, children can get hyped up and wander into all sorts of mischief. I used to get very perturbed when they 'shame' me by their mischiefs and I would punish them severely when we got home - far more severely than when they committed the same faults in private. Quite clearly, the increased severity of punishment has got to do with my anger - that they made me 'lose face' in front of my friends. To me, it is morally wrong to punish a child (more) because of my personal pride. Moreover, it sends the signal to them that something is 'more wrong' when done in public than in the privacy of the home. This runs against the grain of my belief that a child should weigh the merits of an act based on his internal set of values rather than the external consequences of the act.

I am now trying not to see them as my trophies. I want them to know that they should grow up as men and women in their own ways, and not shadowed by the mould of their parents. I am trying to accept their faults, even when they are laid bare under the glaring lights of the public. It is humbling for me when that happens, but I guess this is the price we need to pay as parents for them to develop as authentic people that are true to their own beliefs - whether at home or otherwise.