St. Louis Business Journal
Some adults have career problems because of their well-intentioned parents

By Anna Navarro

July 2003 - Every day I work with adults whose careers have been derailed by their well-intentioned parents. Sometimes it takes years of effort for them to get back on track.

One set of mistakes that parents make has to do with drawing conclusions from their own personal experiences and urging children to follow (or not follow) certain careers as a result.

Edward's father had always wanted to be a lawyer, but he never had the opportunity. So he urged his son to be a lawyer.

The problem was that Edward wasn't cut out to be a lawyer. He had gotten a law degree and had a job as an associate in a prestigious law firm, but he was miserable, and had no idea what else to do.

It took over a year of patient work to discover that his natural talents and interests pulled him in the direction of visual design and construction. He hadn't gotten in touch with that earlier because his well-meaning father had so promoted the law that Edward hadn't really ever asked himself what he wanted to do. Being saddled with a large debt from law school made the shift harder. He eventually did move in the direction he wanted. But he wasted years and money following his father's dream.

I've also worked with adults whose parents have urged them not to do what they did, because they were unhappy doing it.

Adam's entire family had been in the real estate business for several generations, but his father hated it, and urged his son to do something else. Adam pursued accounting as a profession, but was bored with the work. It didn't take long after we started working together to discover he was drawn to real estate. But it took a long time for Adam to work through the negative messages his father had given him about the field so he could move in that direction.

Both Adam's and Edward's fathers had made the same fundamental mistake: they failed to realize that they were separate human beings from their children. As a result, both young men got off on the wrong track and spent years recovering the error.

What's a better way? To encourage kids themselves to wrestle with the difficult questions of what they want to do, and help them explore their own interests instead of providing pre-digested solutions that might not fit.

Other adults I've worked with have had to deal with different but equally disruptive parental career influences.

Beth reported that as a child her parents had provided her with everything she wanted. She'd always had plenty of spending money, and never worked summers when she was going to school.

The result was that she considered entry level jobs not worth having and had trouble getting started in any field. She found the tasks too menial and the pay too low. The problems she was dealing with were beyond what I could help her with as a career strategist. I referred her to a psychologist.

Another seemingly opposite, but in reality similar, situation was brought to me by Judy. She'd come to see me because she was frustrated by her lack of career advancement. As I talked with her I realized she was a bright woman who was skilled at what she did. But she was also very timid and lacked confidence in herself.

As I worked with Judy I learned that her mother had been a very critical person, and that no achievement ever seemed enough. If she got four A's and one A minus, the focus was on why she'd gotten the A minus. In her later years, Judy's mother had confided that she had been harsh with Judy because she believed that the world was a cruel place, and she wanted to toughen Judy up so she could handle it.

What Judy's mother failed to realize is that praise, when it is genuinely merited, is an important ingredient in a healthy growing up. Without it, it can be hard to trust ourselves as adults, in the workplace and elsewhere.

Both Judy's mother and Beth's parents made mistakes that revolved around overprotecting their children -- Beth's by overindulging her and Judy's by trying to toughen her up. Both resulted in adults who had trouble adapting successfully in the workplace.

In all four situations I've described, the individuals would have been better off if their parents had allowed them to encounter the world directly. Sometimes parental efforts, though well intentioned, can inadvertently derail their children's careers.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that trains independent career strategists and consults with individual clients.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.