In the field of vocational choice the parental role is often too much a determining factor. Psychologists have developed the term "projection" to describe the tendency of parents to force their own evaluations upon their children. Students of projection find that parents are most likely to project their ambitions on their children in the vocational field. Two types of parents are most guilty:
1. The parent who has been frustrated in his own vocation projects his ambition on his children. Having failed to achieve his own life goals, he expects his children to do it for him. For example, the father who wanted to be a doctor but never had the money to get the education and, therefore, has had to be a merchant, may almost force his son to enter medical school. The mother who wanted to be a missionary, but who instead married a professor, may wish her daughter to be a missionary.
2. The parent who is so completely absorbed by his vocation and supremely happy in it may not be able to imagine his children being happy in any other vocation.
The third case of brother and sister turned out rather badly.
My father is a successful doctor. He insists that I be a nurse, and that Joe, my twin brother, be a doctor. He sent us to school and insisted that we register in courses leading to these professions. Both of us are primarily interested in athletics and coaching. I am continuing my work but find that I have no interest in nursing. My brother tried medicine but became so disgusted with his college course that he got into trouble and was expelled from school.
It is probably true that in our society mothers are more often tempted to project their ambitions on their children than are fathers, for mothers are more often thwarted in ambition and have need for realizing their ambitions through their children. They had barely tasted vocational success when marriage and motherhood terminated their careers. Some always experience resentment against their fate and try to pick a career for their sons or daughters, or at least to prejudice their daughters against marriage and in favor of a career.
Work with college students leads the writer to believe that comparatively few parents take extreme positions. The common methods of projection as judged from the autobiographies of students are directing the selection of a school course that leads to what the parents consider a desirable type of work; expressing anxiety or hope that the child will enter a certain line of work; praising success in those activities which point toward the vocation considered desirable by the parent; discouraging entrance into some types of work by calling attention to undesirable features; promising to provide the initial capital for business, farming, or some other work; suggesting several desirable alternatives and calling attention to advantages and disadvantages of each; and idealizing the desired profession in the home.
It is apparent from these autobiographies that parents frequently take into account such factors as social status and economic reward. They wish their children to pursue work that is dignified and that pays well. Often they express the hope that their children may have an easier life than they have had.
Parental projection is not harmful, providing the final choice is left to the child. The facts of the case are that children more often follow their parents' vocations than other vocations. There
is a great advantage in doing so, providing the vocation fits the needs, interests, and ambitions of the child. But the decision should be the child's, not the parent's. The admonition of the Talmud is an appropriate motive: "Limit not thy children to thine own desire. They were born in a different time."
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