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It’s nearly impossible for a parent not to project on her kids to some degree. The generation above yours will always project onto you—someone a few decades older than you will always feel as if, in some way, you’re walking in her footsteps—whether or not they’re related to you. Add the fact that, when that person is your parent, you probably look so much like her and have so many of her same attributes and interests, and you can see why your parents see so much of themselves in you. Though, that experience can stir up a lot of mixed feelings for your parents. We’d like to think that parents would just be proud and supportive of us—that they wouldn’t hang any particular hopes on us related to their own egos or narcissism. But, your parents are only human, after all. If you truly follow their footsteps, doing many of the same things they did, particularly in the career field, they can feel…proud…worried…embarrassed…overjoyed. It really all depends on how they lived their lives and how they feel about it. If one of your parents had a major dream that she never quite saw come to fruition, and then you become an ambitious go-getter yourself—in the same field even—then witnessing that can be confusing and even painful for a parent. She wants to protect you. She may feel competition towards you. She might want to coach you, since she’s been there herself. Of course your parents want you to succeed, but remember, they see a bit of themselves in you. They can’t just disconnect from what you’re doing and be purely proud. It’s not just your path to them—it’s theirs, too. If your parents gave up on their dreams, here’s how they may project onto you.
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Bringing up the competition
Your parent might see you put on a great performance, give a great speech, or do what you do very well. But then, she just brings up the competition—everyone else going after the same thing you’re doing, what they’re doing better, what they’re doing more of, and why they may win out. She’s looking at this as if she’s the one competing, all over again. Perhaps, when she did, she compared herself to others too much, and it’s what ultimately held her back. Maybe she drove herself crazy thinking about everyone else who was better or stronger than her. She stayed up at night, fixating on the fact that someone out there might be working harder than her, and it drove her over the edge. But it’s hard for her to stop thinking that way. Naturally, it can feel painful to listen to your parent obsess over how everyone else did, rather than how well you did.
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Belittling the time demands
If your parent had to tell herself, at one point in her life, that going after her dreams wasn’t worth it—that things like family time or social obligations should take precedent—then she has that mindset for everyone else, too. That includes you. So when, for example, she asks when you’ll be up for Thanksgiving, and you say the day before—that you can’t come up earlier because you have an exciting opportunity two days before—she won’t get excited for you. She’ll just talk about your dreams as something that get in the way of “real life” (she may use those words). She may ask if you can move your thing, so you can visit earlier. As if your dreams are, like, a hair appointment.
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Making it about them
Your parent might state that you always choose your ambitions over your relationship with her. She creates a competition there—one between her, and your goals—that wasn’t even there. That’s not quite normal or healthy. A parent should see her child’s dreams as something that enriches not just her child’s life, but also her relationship with her child, rather than something that gets in the way of that relationship.
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Zoning out
When you talk about your progress—particularly when you become animated and excited—your parent may zone out. You may hear, from the tone of her voice if you’re on the phone, or see, if you’re sitting with her, that she tunes out. She drifts off. She stops paying attention. If she had to kill that part of herself a long time ago—that dreamer who believed great things could happen—then it’s hard for her to listen to that part of you come out.
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Treating it like a hobby
She talks about your true career aspirations as if they’re a hobby. Perhaps you’d like to become a novelist, and in the meantime, you work as a bartender to pay the bills. When you talk to your mother about how the book writing is going, she shifts the talk back to bartending, saying things like, “That’s nice, I’m glad you’re having fun with that, but how is work going? Your real work? Are you getting enough shifts?”
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Mentioning how tired you must be
Your parent may focus on all of the negative aspects of chasing one’s dreams, like being tired. When you tell her about the crazy week you had—the good crazy week you’ve had—between this meeting and that late night presentation and that networking event, she says, “Hm. You must be very tired. Is this perhaps all too much for you to handle?” She doesn’t say, “Wow, things are going well for you!”
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Discussing the statistics
The statistics never boost anybody’s hopes, but your parent is obsessed with them. She knows all of the statistics about the likelihood that you’ll ever actually make money at this, that that book will ever get published, that your business will ever actually take off, and things like that. She knows all the numbers. And she recites them to you. That’s what she did to herself—that’s why she gave up on her dreams. The numbers are not encouraging. Don’t look at them.
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Taking your setbacks too far
When you have a setback that you do not think is the end of the world, your parent treats it like it is the end of the world. You call her for some support and encouragement, but she overreacts, saying things like, “This is very bad. This is what I’ve been talking about. It’s very hard what you do. It can be very painful. This will be hard to recover from.”
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Neglecting to tell friends about it
When you tell close family friends and other family members about your goals, you learn that they’ve never heard of it before. Your parent spends a lot of time with these people, and talks to them regularly. And yet…she’s never mentioned what you’re pursuing to them. So, essentially, she’s hiding it. It’s almost as if she’s embarrassed of it or wants to deny it.
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Asking about the money
You get an opportunity about which you’re very excited. Your parent, however, just focuses on the money. “How much does it pay? Is that enough? Is that normal? How much is everyone else getting paid?” She may have justified giving up on her goals for more financial security, so that’s how she thinks now for everyone.
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Belittling your victories
Your parent focuses on what you haven’t accomplished—not what you have. You get third place in a short story contest out of hundreds of writers, but she says, “Well, you didn’t get first.” Your work is featured in a great publication and your parent says, “Well, it’s quite far back, all the way on page 34—not really featured.” She may have had this attitude about her own work, once, always focusing on the negative.
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Scrutinizing and criticizing
She may scrutinize your every move. You invite her to see your work, and the dinner afterwards isn’t a celebration of all you’ve done—it’s a scrutinization. She wants to talk about what you can improve on and what you should do different next time. She may see you as her second chance to succeed. She didn’t make it but her kid might. She’s putting stock in your success now, treating your mistakes like her own.
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Overinvesting
If your parent does see you as her second chance at victory, she may overinvest, too. She may send you a coach or mentor you didn’t ask for. She may call you daily to make sure you’re doing your work. She may act like your boss. She may do this a lot if she’s retired, because she has time on her hands.
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Hinting that you quit
Your parent may spend the majority of your career hinting that you quit. Every setback you tell her about—she suggests it’s the universe telling you something. She often sends you job listings for other types of work, attempting to pull you away from what you are doing. She says things like, “There are other pursuits that wouldn’t be so hard on you…”
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Urging that you quit
Your parent may outright urge you to quit. She’s been down that road—that road of believing that big, great things could happen—and she had her heart broken. She comes from a can’t-do way of thinking. She doesn’t mean to question your ability, but she just thinks the road you are pursuing is very challenging, and she doesn’t want you to get hurt the way she did.
