Oooooooh, this is an interesting one.

Because I always felt like I had nothing in common with my family because I was a bit of a brainiac, I have always sought out 'smart' people and used to think that if someone wasn't smart, witty and/or academic that I wouldn't spend time with them. Really, it was because I was lonely as a kid and that was the key quality that I was seeking.

That's an attitude I didn't really kick until my mid-thirties so if you'd asked me any earlier than that I would have said that I'd hoped my kid would be smart.

Luckily I had DD late in life!

I guess now I have a much different view of life and what qualities are meaningful/important. Education/qualifications mean much less to me than they once did and I'm more interested in warmth, kindness and deriving enjoyment out of life.

Being a fairly shy person, however, I can't help but think that being outgoing makes life somewhat smoother and DD has that in bucket loads. She's also a little girl who gets great enjoyment out of life. I guess I would love her to carry on being like that and those are my expectations.

To a certain extent, I am trying to live my life through DD. She seems to have qualities that are sorely lacking in me which I think have made my life less fulfilled than it would otherwise be. But I am very conscious of this and am aiming to work on my 'issues' so that I don't put pressure on DD to have the life I could have had.

Hope that makes sense!