Related to your Questing thoughts: When I was in seventh grade, I attended an awards ceremony where the speaker was an extremely charismatic young man who told us all to follow our passion. This wasn't the only time I heard this -- I feel like it was a message that was everywhere when I was in high school and college -- but it might have been the first time; it's certainly the one that made the biggest impression on me. So for a very very long time I thought I had to have something to be passionate about, and then for a very very long time I felt like a failure because I don't, in fact, have anything I'm particularly passionate about. (I have a lot of things I like a lot, a lot of things I enjoy and am reasonably good at, but I don't have anything where I'm like, yes, that, that's The Thing.) Eventually (after a number of years) I reached the conclusion that I could be like that: I could enjoy a lot of things, I could have a job that I wasn't, in fact, passionate about, but which I enjoyed a lot and which was very comfortable; I could write fanfic stories and try to write them well without being a author writing the Great American Novel; I could make a difference by volunteering for music at my church for ~100 people without having to Make a Difference for Everyone in the World; I could be a parent without having to be a 100% perfect parent whose kids grew up to save the world.
I think you're right about there being a bit of bait-and-switch with the Family Person cultural messaging. A Significant Other is built up culturally, I think, as that person who will always understand and validate you and fill all your needs, and while maybe that's true for some people (just like there in fact are people who follow their passions/Quests and are wildly successful at it) I don't think that really is the case to that strong of a degree for most (and I've seen at least one instance where someone who grew up with that messaging had a hard time working through it as an adult with a significant other). And same with kids, where there is a sort of parallel issue to the Quester issue, where the kid could grow up to be and do anything! ...but of course they can't actually do everything or even anything, so one is just pushing out the disillusionment to another generation :)
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Related to your Questing thoughts: When I was in seventh grade, I attended an awards ceremony where the speaker was an extremely charismatic young man who told us all to follow our passion. This wasn't the only time I heard this -- I feel like it was a message that was everywhere when I was in high school and college -- but it might have been the first time; it's certainly the one that made the biggest impression on me. So for a very very long time I thought I had to have something to be passionate about, and then for a very very long time I felt like a failure because I don't, in fact, have anything I'm particularly passionate about. (I have a lot of things I like a lot, a lot of things I enjoy and am reasonably good at, but I don't have anything where I'm like, yes, that, that's The Thing.) Eventually (after a number of years) I reached the conclusion that I could be like that: I could enjoy a lot of things, I could have a job that I wasn't, in fact, passionate about, but which I enjoyed a lot and which was very comfortable; I could write fanfic stories and try to write them well without being a author writing the Great American Novel; I could make a difference by volunteering for music at my church for ~100 people without having to Make a Difference for Everyone in the World; I could be a parent without having to be a 100% perfect parent whose kids grew up to save the world.
I think you're right about there being a bit of bait-and-switch with the Family Person cultural messaging. A Significant Other is built up culturally, I think, as that person who will always understand and validate you and fill all your needs, and while maybe that's true for some people (just like there in fact are people who follow their passions/Quests and are wildly successful at it) I don't think that really is the case to that strong of a degree for most (and I've seen at least one instance where someone who grew up with that messaging had a hard time working through it as an adult with a significant other). And same with kids, where there is a sort of parallel issue to the Quester issue, where the kid could grow up to be and do anything! ...but of course they can't actually do everything or even anything, so one is just pushing out the disillusionment to another generation :)