Conscientiousnous is a trigger word for me
My to-do list when the kids were home was divided into A’s, B’s and C’s. The A’s were emergencies — like ordering a SpongeBob cake. The B’s were waiting to become emergencies, like seeing if swimsuits still fit. The C’s were things I couldn’t admit I wasn’t doing. It was like my off-site storage for wishes.
Once both kids were in college I did what everyone does with off-site storage: ignore it. But after a year, I took a peek. And this jumped out at me: attack people who think there’s virtue in conscientiousness. I felt an urgent need to do this because people think I would have more money saved—any money saved—if I were more conscientious. But I know the truth: conscientiousness has no impact on success except being a gateway drug to perfectionism.
While I suffered at Harvard among the masters of conscientiousness, I was moonlighting in the kingdom of passion, where research shows that conscientiousness does not cause success. Passion causes grit, and grit causes success. And passion is genetic.
My conclusion: Conscientiousness is something people tell you is important when they want you to stop paying attention to what you care about and focus on what they care about.
This is because we all have the same amount of time in the day, so each of us is paying attention to something. Just some of us are less practical than others. Maybe it’s the video game where we’re so close to leveling up—just one more game, really. Maybe it’s the Nancy Drew series we can’t read out of order so we have to find #23, right now. Or, in my case, it’s writing post after post after post, and next week will be for earning money, for sure.
It has always been difficult for me to focus on what other people see as conscientious. But every time I’ve done something I’m proud of, it’s been with a crowd of people telling me I’m failing because I’m not following their blueprint for conscientiousness.
This was true with parenting as well. I was not a conscientious parent. I did what was interesting. Practicing string instruments with kids six hours a day is not for the conscientious, because the rest of life falls apart. I think I was driven by learning something new. Not the music—I still can’t read music. But I learned an intricate, effective way to practice something very difficult. Skipping meals? Fine. I’d forget all the time. But I never forgot to outline the short-term tactics and long-term strategies that framed every hour of practice.
It’s true that my career success came from devotion to my internal drive. But here’s the thing: every time I could push that devotion down, even for fifteen minutes, I was a better parent.
The problem is that passionate people are inattentive parents. Y and I went to Colorado to hunt for dinosaur bones. My memory of the trip was exploring Aspen together after he decided digging in the dirt wasn’t for him. His memory is that I was really excited about Aspen because we finally had phone reception and I spent the whole time screaming at coworkers. I said, “What about that picture of you in the mountains?”
He said, “I liked the trip to San Francisco better. ”
“Was I on that trip?”
“No.”
Being devoted to our passion means learning all about whatever we’re interested in. But parenting is not about passion—it’s about love. Parenting is repetitive; it’s the same topic over and over again: how to love and be loved. This is very difficult for everyone obsessed with their special interests, and everyone raised by a parent obsessed with their special interests.
Last week Z called me with a business idea he and his friend had. I talked to them at least ten times a day the rest of the week helping them figure out the pitch. At the end of one of the calls, Z said, “Bye, Mom, I love you!” It shocked me out of passion mode: I need to be helping with the business idea because I’m a caring mom, not because I’m fascinated with making business ideas work.
I need to get a grip. I’m lying to myself that I waited twenty years to finally be able to focus on business ideas again. Because if I loved that so much, I wouldn’t have had kids. But I was so enthralled with being a parent that I even had a second kid. So I need to admit that whatever I think I’m going back to from that life before I had kids, it was not better.
So I picked a life that requires conscientiousness. Because while it’s not directly related to career success, conscientiousness is great for parenting. Kids need sensitive parents who have self-control. That gives kids the best space for developing themselves. Even now my kids don’t care about my passions. They want me to have money for their plane ticket home, or their $500 textbook.
I guess I take back the part about attacking people who are conscientious. I acknowledge that it’s a trait of a good parent. And I want to be a good parent more than I want to engage in my passions. So I am going back to my list of A’s, B’s and C’s. And in a nod to conscientiousness, I’m putting empathy and being present in the A’s, engaging my passions in the C’s. The hardest part of all: earning money in the B’s.
“I need to get a grip. I’m lying to myself that [fill in the blank]” is a phrase I repeat to myself almost every day about something, anything!
I love the connection I have with my kid. And then I see him doing or saying something for my approval and I die a little bit inside and think to myself, “no no no, don’t do anything for me, just do what you believe in!”.
Fortunately he is stubborn as shit, I mean conscientious about his own passions, so that doesn’t happen very often.
This makes me laugh. Such great reframing at the end there.
You are free to be the parent you want to be and no one has to understand or approve. Freedom is a truly beautiful thing. Wishing you the best.
I actually think “free to parent the way you want” is a really big problem. We’ve fought really hard for women’s rights, but children have no rights. So there’s an imbalance. It’s true that all of us are free to parent however we want, but there’s some messed up parts of that.
Like, I don’t believe parents should be free to put an infant in group daycare in the first three months of life. Every developed country besides the US gives everyone maternity leave for three months. And so does California. Because the research is irrefutable that the infant needs to be with a single caretaker during that time.
So I think we do need a discussion of what parents should do. We are so scared of making standards for parenting because that will somehow infringe on parent’s rights. But there needs to be a balance. And right now the balance is too far in favor of parents.
I can’t disagree with you there. Truth be told, I wrote my comment very differently at first and tried to make it more general but what I wanted to say was something more personal and specific to you so I will say it this time…you are completely dedicated to your children and other people’s opinions about your choices in parenting or anything else are meaningless….
Even if you .make . mistakes, it’s no one’s business as you know in your heart that you give your kids your absolute best. You can’t do more than that. Cruel, sick people or even parents who are just negligent are not you so I really wasn’t emphasizing the glories of freedom that some people abuse.
Truth be told, my opinion one way or another doesn’t matter either. I just have an instinct to encourage and it didn’t work here! I think you get the point!
I really appreciate that instinct to encourage. I have such a difficult time balancing wanting to be the person that says what’s true and wanting to be encouraging. The truths that no one wants to say are never encouraging. I am not really sure what to do about that. I want to give parents an opening to make choices that are more true to them. I want us to be our very best selves when we care for a child. But what I sound like is telling everyone they’re wrong, including myself.
Your comment is powerful to me because you can agree with what I’m saying and still express compassion. Thank you.
You can TOTALLY use passion mode in helping your kids with business ideas. 100%. Your passion will be contagious and it will let them fully engage with this part of you, rather than just see it from the sidelines (where they might be wishing you were paying attention to them instead).
I think part of adult parent-child relationships is the kids figuring out how to meet their parents where they are (where they’ve always been). Part of it, not all of it. But it can really enrich the relationship.
The execs I’ve worked for tend to be low-conscientiousness people. WIll you please approve my frigging reimbursement request? Goddammit, you blew off our 1×1 without notice AGAIN and I had important things we needed to go through. Stuff like that.
I’m on the high end of the conscientiousness scale and I feel it has slowed my career roll. Too much time making sure I’m good to the people taking away from time deeply focused on results.
I’m certain that I get along with you so well because of your high conscientiousness. You bring something to my life that I don’t naturally have. Your viewpoint is refreshing to me.
News about me and Z’s startup. When I take off my founder hat and put on my mom hat I hate that he’s doing it. I hate that he has a great cofounder who works nonstop on the idea. I hate that they have a decent idea because I want it to fail and they both go get summer internships that turn into jobs when they graduate. Why would anyone want the tumultuous roller coaster of a life that I’ve had building startups? And I’ve exited multiple times. And it still sucked.
I hope they get boring jobs with paychecks. But probably every parent who had a boring job with a paycheck hopes their kids takes risks on themselves and does something interesting.
Does Z know that the mom side of you hates this for him? If not, I hope you’ll tell him! This isn’t about dissuading him from living his own life as he chooses, but rather hey kid here’s a dose of reality from the trenches and I hope you consider it deeply.