Hand-Me-Down Dreams: How Families Influence Our Career Paths and How We Can Reclaim Them [Hardcover]

Mary H. Jacobsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1999

"My son the doctor! My daughter the lawyer!" Or whatever you heard while growing up. Sure, Mom and Dad are proud of what you've accomplished, but has anyone asked you (the one with the supposedly wonderful career) how you feel? If you feel trapped or disappointed in your current career or job, or if you feel you let your family's wishes, rather than your own natural talents, interests, and passions, guide your ultimate choice of career, you are living someone else's dream.
        
If you are in this position, Mary Jacobsen's insightful wisdom, culled from her professional expertise and from her own personal life, illuminates the problems you'll encounter when you try to change this family dynamic. Then, by using her 7 Steps to Reclaim Your Career, you'll be armed with the knowledge you'll need to find the motivation and, finally, the courage to make the changes needed to fulfill your own dreams and attain success on your own terms.
        
Over the last fifteen years, Mary H. Jacobsen has helped many people in this situation work through career transitions, and she can help you, too. You'll understand how even well-intentioned family expectations about work are passed on from one generation to the next, sometimes openly, but often in subtle and indirect ways, and how these expectations influence not only your career choice but also color your role, relationships, and values on the job.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this clear-sighted and sympathetic primer on achieving career satisfaction, Jacobsen argues that all children are given straightforward and subtle messages by their families about career choices they should make as adults. In many cases, mothers and fathers influence children to fulfill the parents' thwarted dreams rather than encourage them to decide for themselves. A clinical social worker who has presented workshops on this subject for college students and management professionals for the past seven years, Jacobsen aims her message at young adults who are making initial career choices, older adults who are unhappy in their work and looking for a change, and retirees who now have an opportunity to try something more in harmony with their inner yearnings. Drawing on the tenets of family systems therapy, she believes that finding genuine career satisfaction entails understanding one's family history and the dynamics that may have resulted in a poor original career choice. To that end, she provides a series of exercises designed to identify family influences, as well as a chapter that specifically addresses the subject of abusive parents. Once these family influences become clear, Jacobsen recommends further exercises to assist in discovering one's true self and the best ways to express it through one's life work. Agent, Felicia Eth.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

How does family background affect an individuals career path and/or job performance? Jacobsen, a clinical social worker and workshop leader, examines this question, defining hand-me-down dreams as inherited dreams, goals, values and beliefs from our families. She presents her analysis in five parts: how these dreams are passed down in families; how family members are connected emotionally and as a system; family values regarding the purpose of work, the meaning of success, and the importance of money; a workbook and checklist for self-analysis; and strategies for the future. The appendixes include a bibliography and a guide to professional support and counseling. Helpful case studies are presented throughout, and various family issues and problems are discussed, including sibling rivalry, self-esteem, gender roles, and child abuse. This thoughtful and innovative study is recommended for college students and young professionals at both academic and public libraries.Lucy T. Heckman, St. Johns Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harmony (April 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609602314
• ISBN-13: 978-0609602317
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #391,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Unfinished Business in your Career, July 5, 2001

By 

Anne S. Headley (University Park, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Hand-Me-Down Dreams: How Families Influence Our Career Paths and How We Can Reclaim Them (Hardcover)

Jacobsen, a psychotherapist and career counselor, has written an extensive examination of family dynamics and how one generation affects another in terms of career limits/expectations/success/failure. It's a painful topic, and one which affects us all. Through her questions and exercises, the reader can take a fresh look at the unfulfilled quests of one's parents and grandparents, because these desires are as much your inheritance as the old silver and the family Bible. As a career counselor, I know that clients can become frustrated with probing of family patterns, wondering what that has to do with writing a resume or accepting a new position, but I know that if we don't look for patterns, the client is doomed to continue living out an unsatisfactory legacy. Furthermore, one can find surprising strength and affirmation in the process, so the quest is well worth it. Caution to parents: If you read this little book, you might be overwhelmed at times by ways you have stunted your children's vocational development. Whether you have given specific feedback or all-purpose reinforcement, there's something wrong with it. Before reporting yourself as a career thwarter, turn to the last section called Helping Your Children Follow their Dreams. Jacobsen is to be commended for tackling a difficult and painful subject. This book is useful for those in stuck places as well as those who serve them.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Family Dynamics and Personal Development Helpfully Explored, June 25, 2000

By 

Robert L. Rose (Blooming Glen, PA, 18911-0064, Bucks County,United States)) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Hand-Me-Down Dreams: How Families Influence Our Career Paths and How We Can Reclaim Them (Hardcover)

I found this book to be very helpful in working through family dreams in a sense not directly related to career but having to do more with a hand me down dream about a way of life. Growing up in Brooklyn, in a large family always financially challenged, we moved from apartment to apartment under a shared dream that we would someday have the "house in the country." My father, myself and other siblings were also involved in show business for a time, although I did not continue beyond what I needed to do then to be part of this other hand me down family dream: Making it in the big time. Jacobsen's book helped me to clarify this dual aspect of my family's influence (quest for rootedness and finding a voice) on my life course (or "career"), to acknowledge that one was put on hold (voice) while I achieved the other (rootedness), and that I can now reclaim and develop the other on my own terms even if it does not yield a career in the conventional sense. So even if you are not unhappy with your current job or career, read this book for transformational insight on the family dreams animating your life.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, October 11, 2009

By 

Maureen M. "maura" (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hand-Me-Down Dreams: How Families Influence Our Career Paths and How We Can Reclaim Them (Hardcover)

I found the concepts of hand-me-down dreams an important one as I looked at issues with my family of origin.
However, I suspect that a person might need to work with a counselor to really benefit from the book's ideas--the exercises did not seem enough to me.