I think one reason we see our parents differently later is that when we're kids, many parents try to teach us Values and Principles, and they try to be somewhat consistent. They think exceptions to the rule are too complicated for kids to understand. Then they get stuck in that mindset and keep applying it when we're teenagers, and only give it up once we move out. If even then.
I find it amusing how many people say they are smarter than their parents.
I'm just as smart as my dad, and maybe smarter, but I'm not even remotely as 'motivated' as him. He's the kind of guy whose life focuses on what he does at work, my life focuses on what I do outside of work. Of course, I'm not yet into a real career and he's at his peak, but he doesn't seem have any hobbies, while I spend the day thinking about what I'll do when I can get back to mine.
So all in all, I'll probably never accomplish as much as him, at least professionally.
I find it amusing how many people say they are smarter than their parents.
My parents were raised in bad situations, during a screwed up time in history. My dad's siblings all live within a block of their parents -- one of them lives WITH the parents, and another only moved out few years ago -- RIGHT NEXT DOOR.
There's just only so much progress a generation can make with so much working against it.
At age 25, I have a degree, which puts me, already, one category above him education-wise, and I'm planning my life around getting an MFA eventually, which is ANOTHER step beyond him. Hell, I don't know if his parents even graduated high school. I mean, shit. That side of the family basically came from Grapes of Wrath backgrounds. My dad HUNTED FOR FOOD. Not fun. FOOD.
Each generation is leaps and bounds above those who came before, learning from the mistakes of their elders. If I was crazy enough to have a kid, she'd probably be a professor before she turned gray, and would consider me an absolute retard.
I think one reason we see our parents differently later is that when we're kids, many parents try to teach us Values and Principles, and they try to be somewhat consistent. They think exceptions to the rule are too complicated for kids to understand. Then they get stuck in that mindset and keep applying it when we're teenagers, and only give it up once we move out. If even then.
And seeing as a Teenaged life is full of "not a good answer, just the best I can make" situations thats pretty annoying.
I find it amusing how many people say they are smarter than their parents.
I'm just as smart as my dad, and maybe smarter, but I'm not even remotely as 'motivated' as him. He's the kind of guy whose life focuses on what he does at work, my life focuses on what I do outside of work. Of course, I'm not yet into a real career and he's at his peak, but he doesn't seem have any hobbies, while I spend the day thinking about what I'll do when I can get back to mine.
So all in all, I'll probably never accomplish as much as him, at least professionally.
This is my dad right here, and how I feel right now. One day that might change, but really, my dad finished his Ph.D. in like two years, I just don't have that in me.
The posts in this thread by 17-18 year olds saying "I'm smarter than my parents!" make me laugh. Missing the point.
Part of the maturing process is learning that you're a flawed person, and another part of it is learning to correct those flaws, or at least live with them. That's the kind of wisdom parents end up with when their kids are 10-12 years old, when it starts to matter what parents tell their kids rather than do with/for/to them. Anyone who's been a (decent) parent that long has had to come to terms with their imperfection, and has had to structure a family life around that.
I learned this recently from my mother, when she told me that she's suffered from clinical depression ever since about the time us kids were born (somewhere in that five year span is when it started). For about twenty years she had to deal with crippling anxiety, self-doubt, lack of motivation, and the ensuing guilt that comes with knowing you're a worse parent for being the way you are. And she raised three kids pretty damn well, if I may say so.
That's the kind of stuff you learn from your parents at adolescence: how to not suck as a human being, despite being imperfect.
Sure there are cases where this doesn't happen. Abusive, criminal, negligent, or mentally ill parents are exceptional cases. But just about anyone who can't point to an obviously disfunctional parental relationship probably can learn something very valuable from them. After all, if you don't go absolutely fucking crazy from raising a kid over 18 years, you've got to be a pretty decent person at the end of it. Being a shitty parent is really the easy way out, being a good one is a really long and hard road.
I mean, shit. I was a good kid growing up, never got into serious trouble or anything, and when I think about some of the petty crap I put my parents through for no real reason I feel really guilty. Even good kids are obnoxious little shits, when you think about it.
I don't know - I'm smarter then my parents in different areas. They're both doctors though, so they certainly kick my ass there, and I know I'm a lot more philosophically inclined then my father and identify more strongly with the mindset of my mother.
Comparing yourself to your parents is always difficult though because it's such a close weird relationship.
I'm really not sure this entirely applies to me. By the way, I'm 17.
My dad is a bipolar Columbia/MIT grad who now works as a ski patroller. He is a libertarian who comes from a family of conservatives, and fully believes in the whole "Norman Rockwell" idea. As far as our differences go, his basic opinion is that because I'm younger than he is, my opinion doesn't count for shit. At all. I don't mean that in a teenager-y "my parents don't hear me" way, I mean the few times I've asked for a curfew extension or something like that he just completely shuts me down, and if I keep talking, trying to justify whatever I'm asking for, he'll just leave.
My mom is a Smith graduate who now works as a homeopath. Her advice is maybe stuff I can see agreeing with in the future (just because of its nature, not because I agree with it now) but I've seen her one month in the past year, so I'm not really sure she knows enough about who I am or what's going on with me to be telling me how I need to change myself.
EDIT: Also, my parents both tell me that I'm smarter than them. My dad wasn't expected to even graduate high school, and my mom was too busy with gymnastics and weed to really learn the material presented with her. I get the feeling that I'm definitely not smarter than my dad mechanically or mathematically or anything like that, given his rather impressive resume of nautical engineering, but asides from that and the simple wisdom that comes with age I do feel like I am smarter than them, if only because, unlike them, I was actually paying attention and learning during high school. Sure, that's only book-smarts, but nonetheless.
I find it amusing how many people say they are smarter than their parents.
I'm pretty sure that you're parents haven't done the greatest job in the world if you're not smarter than them, plainly because they should have learnt from their mistakes enough to teach you not to make them, and they should know enough to give you their collective knowledge.
Unless the parents are really smart, or you are naturally not very bright.
I find it amusing how many people say they are smarter than their parents.
I'm pretty sure that you're parents haven't done the greatest job in the world if you're not smarter than them, plainly because they should have learnt from their mistakes enough to teach you not to make them, and they should know enough to give you their collective knowledge.
Unless the parents are really smart, or you are naturally not very bright.
You have a really funny sig.
YosemiteSam on
0
SerpentSometimes Vancouver, BC, sometimes Brisbane, QLDRegistered Userregular
I find it amusing how many people say they are smarter than their parents.
I'm pretty sure that you're parents haven't done the greatest job in the world if you're not smarter than them, plainly because they should have learnt from their mistakes enough to teach you not to make them, and they should know enough to give you their collective knowledge.
Unless the parents are really smart, or you are naturally not very bright.
My Dad has about 60 years life behind him. I do not.
It's pretty hard to be smarter than my dad just based on that alone, regardless the amount of advice he has given me, of the countless extra years of schools i have, and the number of letters after my name.
The posts in this thread by 17-18 year olds saying "I'm smarter than my parents!" make me laugh. Missing the point.
edit:
Take, for example, the situation where i'm considering a 3rd life insurance policy. I'm not going to just dive right in, I'm going to call up my dad because he's probably dealt with a similiar situation, and I'm going to get some advice. He has 60 years of experience and I do not.
Same with mortages, renting stuff out, buying cars, switching careers, starting my own business, firing people, hiring people, getting married, having kids, etc etc etc etc.
I mean any monkey can learn to triple integrate the electric potential over a transistor or whatever. That's just a process. Life skills take experience and alot of people never figure them out.
Serpent on
0
SerpentSometimes Vancouver, BC, sometimes Brisbane, QLDRegistered Userregular
edited August 2007
Similiarly, when I first started working as a consultant, I was under a 65 year old guy who had been in the industry for 40 years. There were tons of things that made me feel smarter than him... the guy couldn't do any type of calculus, was horrible with computers, bad at addition, blah blah blah. We often chaffed at first because I felt I was smarter than him, I was the guy straight out of this high and mighty whatever program i took at whatever university and he hadn't done a real calculation in however many years and probably couldn't.
Who do you think got put in his place after a project or two? Me or him? those years of experience allowed him to see the big picture, the consequences of things, the actual understanding of what a number meant.
There's a reason a senior consultant gets paid $100k+ while his underlings get less, even though the underlings do all the real 'actual' work.
Intelligence and wisdom aren't the same thing. When people say they are smarter than their parents I believe they are just referring to intelligence, not intelligence and wisdom. I think you are just kind of stating the obvious right now.
Also, there is a fine line (and one often crossed) between "wisdom" and "stupid fucking mindless conservatism". Doing something they way you've always done it depite changes in the environment passes for "wisdom" far too often.
My mother is very much the the all too common type who has basicially not learned anything since high school. She has no memory to speak of, absolutely refuses to change her mind based on trivial matters like "facts" and is generally an intellecutally lazy person. My dad, while not the best parent ever, at least I can connect with. Has spent his entire life improving himself and is actually worthy of the respect usually given mistakenly to those who just get older not wiser.
And, just to shut up the "oh you're just being an angsty teenager" crowd I am in fact 26 with a child of my own.
RiemannLives on
Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
0
SerpentSometimes Vancouver, BC, sometimes Brisbane, QLDRegistered Userregular
Intelligence and wisdom aren't the same thing. When people say they are smarter than their parents I believe they are just referring to intelligence, not intelligence and wisdom. I think you are just kind of stating the obvious right now.
What is intelligence other than the ability to take something in and make a decision on it?
Smartness, intelligence, wisdom, whatever. It doesn't matter how you start breaking up that crap, I'm still going to trust alot of what my dad says more than I would trust what random 20 year old says.
Intelligence and wisdom aren't the same thing. When people say they are smarter than their parents I believe they are just referring to intelligence, not intelligence and wisdom. I think you are just kind of stating the obvious right now.
What is intelligence other than the ability to take something in and make a decision on it?
Smartness, intelligence, wisdom, whatever. It doesn't matter how you start breaking up that crap, I'm still going to trust alot of what my dad says more than I would trust what random 20 year old says.
Well, if we want to play D&D here, wisdom is making good choices, while intelligence is for things like books smarts. It's possible to have one and not the other, and depending on the circumstances, lacking either one can be a big problem.
You never know. There's still lots of old hippies and goths and so forth.
It's not like emo is anything new. It's as ancient as nerds vs. jocks (philosophers vs. soldiers..).
I'm not talking about the emo mindset, I'm talking about the emo style (which is new). I never saw anyone that looked like this when I went to school. There were goths and hippies, sure, but those subcultures didn't have nearly the amount of conformity with regards to their hair, clothing and behavior. Emo is a lot worse in that sense, which is why I don't think you'll ever see some 45 year old dude moping around with his hair died black (except for maybe one carefully placed color streak) and parted in only one direction (make sure it covers one of your eyes!).
There's the music too, which is just.... well, I would try really hard to prevent anyone from knowing that I listened to Fall Out Boy when I was a teenager, if that was the case. I just can't imagine anyone looking back on that as an adult and not cringing.
My mother used to work with retarded children and now works with kids in "Reading Recovery," which is all of those kids who don't learn how to read properly in elementary school and are probably below average intelligence/mexicans who don't know English anyway. As a result of this, I think, she hates it when her authority is questioned. This poses a problem, as I like knowing the why and background of problems so that I can fully understand what is going on/ propose a simpler solution. From about the time I was twelve, I'd start asking why certain things needed to be done, and over the years she slowly stopped trying to answer and just start yelling about how I'm back talking and how I'm a horrible kid who is spoiled because she had to cook for her brother when she was younger than I was, had a tougher time as a kid, and so forth. She is controlling to to the point of buying me a cellphone just so that she could call and demand that my brother and I do something while not at home.
She's also too lazy to actually come into the same room when telling me to do something, so I slowly started just ignoring her whenever she was yelling at me to do something. As time went on, she did less and less and just told my brother and I to do it instead, including minimal tasks like getting her ass off of the couch to get herself a drink from the kitchen. Now that my brother can drive, she basically doesn't leave the house except for work/ when she's already coming home from work, and tells us to do all her errands for her. She is horribly overweight and will never slim down, but keeps all of her ten-twenty year old clothes in our attic, filling it up, for "when she loses weight."
My father is a bit of an oddity. He skipped most of highschool when he was a kid because the classes were too easy for him, and he could just flip through the textbook and ace the test, and instead got into drugs and sex from about 12 through his teenage years. He was only accepted to college because at the time the state had a program of forcing college to accept anyone who enrolled, and yet in college he managed a 3.9 GPA because he found the classes to be interesting and not babysitting. He bummed around in near poverty, to the point of my mom and dad living in my grandmothers home up until I was seven, and then moved to Arkansas where, because of Wal-mart, the city of Bentonville was expanding rapidly, which was amazing business for appraisers like him (the people who exam property that is to be bought in order to determine its worth).
Even so, he's apathetic and lazy and, upon coming home from work, goes to his room, where he listens to books on tape/watches TV for hours on end. He refuses to do any household chores, which cause my siblings and I to pick up the slack he left. He has such a short temper that if the slightest of annoyances comes up, like a glass breaking, he'll start yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs, and yelling at the person who caused such a thing to happen. He inevitably apologizes later, and says he's sorry, but that doesn't have the slightest affect for the next time anything slightly stressful happens.
My mother and father should be divorced, and are so not in love that they sleep in separate bedrooms/generally tend to avoid each other. My mother was told four years before my birth by my father that "he didn't become married to be a wife," and has not even tried to separate from him, though she will always tell me that "when you become a husband, you shouldn't treat your wife like this."
I'm so estranged from both of them that I haven't hugged either of them in years and actually meant it, and I feel very odd when I do.
They've only been moderately wealthy for part of my life, and are so bad at saving money that they don't have any savings account of any type (my mom has around $1300 in the bank, total), and my father plans to work until he dies. I also don't have a college fund, which means that, since my sister is in college for her sixth year and will probably still be in college next year when my brother and I go at the same time, the two of us basically have to get scholarships to pay for anything outside of gas/clothing.
So no, I don't think either of them are smart, and I don't look up to them at all, but what do I know, I'm just a 17 year old angst filled teen.
My mother used to work with retarded children and now works with kids in "Reading Recovery," which is all of those kids who don't learn how to read properly in elementary school and are probably below average intelligence/mexicans who don't know English anyway. As a result of this, I think, she hates it when her authority is questioned. This poses a problem, as I like knowing the why and background of problems so that I can fully understand what is going on/ propose a simpler solution. From about the time I was twelve, I'd start asking why certain things needed to be done, and over the years she slowly stopped trying to answer and just start yelling about how I'm back talking and how I'm a horrible kid who is spoiled because she had to cook for her brother when she was younger than I was, had a tougher time as a kid, and so forth. She is controlling to to the point of buying me a cellphone just so that she could call and demand that my brother and I do something while not at home.
She's also too lazy to actually come into the same room when telling me to do something, so I slowly started just ignoring her whenever she was yelling at me to do something. As time went on, she did less and less and just told my brother and I to do it instead, including minimal tasks like getting her ass off of the couch to get herself a drink from the kitchen. Now that my brother can drive, she basically doesn't leave the house except for work/ when she's already coming home from work, and tells us to do all her errands for her. She is horribly overweight and will never slim down, but keeps all of her ten-twenty year old clothes in our attic, filling it up, for "when she loses weight."
My father is a bit of an oddity. He skipped most of highschool when he was a kid because the classes were too easy for him, and he could just flip through the textbook and ace the test, and instead got into drugs and sex from about 12 through his teenage years. He was only accepted to college because at the time the state had a program of forcing college to accept anyone who enrolled, and yet in college he managed a 3.9 GPA because he found the classes to be interesting and not babysitting. He bummed around in near poverty, to the point of my mom and dad living in my grandmothers home up until I was seven, and then moved to Arkansas where, because of Wal-mart, the city of Bentonville was expanding rapidly, which was amazing business for appraisers like him (the people who exam property that is to be bought in order to determine its worth).
Even so, he's apathetic and lazy and, upon coming home from work, goes to his room, where he listens to books on tape/watches TV for hours on end. He refuses to do any household chores, which cause my siblings and I to pick up the slack he left. He has such a short temper that if the slightest of annoyances comes up, like a glass breaking, he'll start yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs, and yelling at the person who caused such a thing to happen. He inevitably apologizes later, and says he's sorry, but that doesn't have the slightest affect for the next time anything slightly stressful happens.
My mother and father should be divorced, and are so not in love that they sleep in separate bedrooms/generally tend to avoid each other. My mother was told four years before my birth by my father that "he didn't become married to be a wife," and has not even tried to separate from him, though she will always tell me that "when you become a husband, you shouldn't treat your wife like this."
I'm so estranged from both of them that I haven't hugged either of them in years and actually meant it, and I feel very odd when I do.
They've only been moderately wealthy for part of my life, and are so bad at saving money that they don't have any savings account of any type (my mom has around $1300 in the bank, total), and my father plans to work until he dies. I also don't have a college fund, which means that, since my sister is in college for her sixth year and will probably still be in college next year when my brother and I go at the same time, the two of us basically have to get scholarships to pay for anything outside of gas/clothing.
So no, I don't think either of them are smart, and I don't look up to them at all, but what do I know, I'm just a 17 year old angst filled teen.
Woah, that's so creepy. That actually reminds me of my own family, except things sort of went into a different direction...
Few things to understand about my dad...he's paranoid, OCD (he counts the silverware as he puts them into the washer and then freaks out if any are missing), and explodes sometimes. As a kid, he reminded me of your father in how if anything little went wrong, it would be bitching for hours. I've got a lot of weird memories as a kid that for some reason I do not forget...like one time i was sitting on the stairs, just watching my mom cook...my dad was pissed off at my brother for some reason, walked up the stairs and proceeded to hit him quite a bit behind closed doors. I Just remember my bro screaming a bit. That's how he was when we were kids.
I was the last to be born, so the most I got was a belt once or twice for refusing to go to CCD. In high school I remember taking the dogs out and my father coming up to me, talking about my mom, and then somehow he got into how if he had to do it all over again, he would have gone with someone different. My dad, even if you were joking, would sometimes turn around and punch you in the arm or something. Afterwards he would always feel guilty and apologize...but as you say, apologies are just words...they only go so far.
Today my dad is radically different from the person he used to be. Old age has kind of mellowed him out...he tries really hard to control his anger, apologizes a lot more, and really tries to show that he's sorry for what happened when we were kids. In all honesty, he thinks he is going to hell. I remember him crying one time after returning from spain (he visited his grand parents who are radical catholics) and talking about how there isn't any hope for someone like him. I just told him that if he was going to hell, then a whole mess of this planet's population would be as well.
And jesus ain't going to do shit if satan has a pimp army.
But anyway - sometimes I can still see that older side of him when he does something...or says something like an ass. He basically doesn't think before he speaks, and he was probably my greatest motivation for losing weight after receiving all of his comments. But he's the reason why I am so laid back these days...and as painful or as annoying as those memories may be, I'm sorta happy that things worked out the way they did, cause I wouldn't want to be as uptight as some people I know.
Although, consequently his behavior dropped some apathy into my blood. As a kid, when he did come in and yell, I would just sort of space out, nod, and let him go on for a half hour. This sort of scenario may have made me more laid back, but has made me apathetic about quite a few things.
This thread needs to be separated, one for 18 and under, one for 18-26 or 30 or whatever, and one for "over." And you know EVERYONE will hop into the next bracket up, thinking that they're mature enough to handle the viewpoints of others. Hell, I would. I can hang with the old farts.
Anyway.
Sometimes the nature of humans truly irritates me, especially when I realize how it's always been a certain way and will likely never change. Examples: people thinking that fads will stick around forever; people thinking that we'll eventually have no war or violence; children thinking they understand perspective merely because they comprehend a series of words without context ("children" in this case can go for any age, really). That crap really drives me nuts. I probably do it constantly, too, which is even more infuriating.
I do feel pretty badly for those of you actually did have bad parents (angsty dim-witted teens need not attempt to perceive my sympathy for this part). I know for a fact I was born lucky as hell, and wish everyone could be given the same shot I was. Middle-middle class, christian, solid family, father works and mother stays home, yellow lab and a white picket fence, the whole deal. Being so generic, and this being the United States, that basically means you can turn into anything at all. If you're tall, white, male, straight, and love alcohol and golf anyway.
Now that I've grown older, I realize that almost none of the political values that they tried to teach me stuck, but almost all of the social/intellectual ones did. Morals seem to be hit and miss, honestly. I'm not christian, which has caused some fairly intense discussions that were very thinly restrained from being screaming matches. I'd also be pissed if a woman decided she didn't want to work (I mean no kids, nothing special, just thought she should play video games and shop all day while I work), which my dad thinks is odd.
However, I'd never HIT a woman, or expect her to do more physical work than me other things being equal. I cognitively know that it is not fair, but I do it anyway. I think I just like it when pretty girls smile, and that's worth a bit of sweating to earn. Dunno. I also believe that mairrage is an important thing that should not be considered a goddamned "trial" like most Americans treat it. My parents stuck together through some nasty crap. I think mostly because they're the least selfish people who've ever lived, and don't give up when their temper tantrums don't work. Seems like about 98% of divorces are like that, even though everyone says "Well, it couldn't be helped" or "It just wasn't working, nothing could be done." I call bullshit.
So this post turned into a life-story with ranting every other sentence, and I think I need my medicine. Note to self: delete this later.
I'm 25 and every day realize how right my parents were when they gave me advice. Except for the Jesus stuff, which thankfully they didn't base their lives on.
You never know. There's still lots of old hippies and goths and so forth.
It's not like emo is anything new. It's as ancient as nerds vs. jocks (philosophers vs. soldiers..).
I'm not talking about the emo mindset, I'm talking about the emo style (which is new). I never saw anyone that looked like this when I went to school. There were goths and hippies, sure, but those subcultures didn't have nearly the amount of conformity with regards to their hair, clothing and behavior. Emo is a lot worse in that sense, which is why I don't think you'll ever see some 45 year old dude moping around with his hair died black (except for maybe one carefully placed color streak) and parted in only one direction (make sure it covers one of your eyes!).
There's the music too, which is just.... well, I would try really hard to prevent anyone from knowing that I listened to Fall Out Boy when I was a teenager, if that was the case. I just can't imagine anyone looking back on that as an adult and not cringing.
"cause people who listen to Fall Out Boy(or say an Emo band instead of a Pop-Punk band) do so because they are stupid teenagers and not because of differrent taste's, after all, all Adults used to like their kids music, its not like The Beatles, Black Sabath, The Sex Pistols and all those famed band's were hated by most adults when they were formed amirite?
The fashion is the worst fasion ever. Dark colors and arm bands and a crazy hair style. What idiots. Certainly worse than the Mullet.
You never know. There's still lots of old hippies and goths and so forth.
It's not like emo is anything new. It's as ancient as nerds vs. jocks (philosophers vs. soldiers..).
I'm not talking about the emo mindset, I'm talking about the emo style (which is new). I never saw anyone that looked like this when I went to school. There were goths and hippies, sure, but those subcultures didn't have nearly the amount of conformity with regards to their hair, clothing and behavior. Emo is a lot worse in that sense, which is why I don't think you'll ever see some 45 year old dude moping around with his hair died black (except for maybe one carefully placed color streak) and parted in only one direction (make sure it covers one of your eyes!).
There's the music too, which is just.... well, I would try really hard to prevent anyone from knowing that I listened to Fall Out Boy when I was a teenager, if that was the case. I just can't imagine anyone looking back on that as an adult and not cringing.
"cause people who listen to Fall Out Boy(or say an Emo band instead of a Pop-Punk band) do so because they are stupid teenagers and not because of differrent taste's, after all, all Adults used to like their kids music, its not like The Beatles, Black Sabath, The Sex Pistols and all those famed band's were hated by most adults when they were formed amirite?
The fashion is the worst fasion ever. Dark colors and arm bands and a crazy hair style. What idiots. Certainly worse than the Mullet.
Nothing will ever match the same outrage from one generation to another as boys having long hair. Ever.
Oldies hated the Black Sabbath for more the same reason they hated Marilyn Manson, because they pervert and corrupt the youth.
Nearly everyone hates Emo because it's ultra-conformist and trite. I want it to be clear I'm not talking about the music, I'm talking about the superfans and the followers, listen to whatever makes you happy as long as it doesn't turn you into a douche.
Though that does bring me to an interesting thought. What if the emos organized like the hippies and protest groups during the Vietnam war and had a million emo march. I think you'd see a huge chunk of the population go "so what?" all the emos would also go home once their cellphone batteries died.
Not quite the same type of thing. One is a movement the other is generic teenage angst. I am wondering if we ever see old emo types though, the way you see aging hippies now. I've never seen one over their early 20's myself.
Also: Parents can both tell you the right thing to do and not do it themselves. A lot of parents made a whole lot of mistakes... and simply don't want you to repeat them. A crying alcoholic father telling his kids not to drink may be a fuck up, but it doesn't mean he wants you to be one too.
The thought of a 90 year old man wearing eye shadow and saying very slowly that he likes to cut himself... and then shitting hit pants... scares the hell out of me.
I was discussing the idea that as a person gets older they become more and more aware of the fact that many of the things their parents were telling them or trying to teach them when they were kids become more and more true.
For me the older I get, the more I read, the more I learn, and the more I pay attention to things I realize that my parents are fucking stupid with regard to pretty much everything they told me growing up.
I think it would help for people to remember that a lot of our parents grew up in the fifties.
Duck and cover in case of nuclear attack.
Incenjucar on
0
The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited August 2007
As a sixteen year old and an almost total outcast from social groups, I beleive I have pretty good observation skills due to little else to do. Thats not to say I don't get pissy when told to do something or avoid my folks at all times, but i do try to learn as much as possible.
I look back over what I've done from ages 12 up, and to be honest I am shocked at how much of a retard I was, by 13 years olds standards I was a total fuckup in anything socially directed, and even now I have the conversational ability of a stuttering, hyperactive chimp. Though I am trying to come out of this as normal as possible.
I also look at my parents as humans now. I have started noticing various things, mostly just their petty habits, and it isnt particularly enjoyable. For example my mum almost definately couldn't live on her own, that my dad isn't exactly a hit with what friends he has, even though he seems perfectly regular guy, he justdoesn't seem to have any friends outside his one. He attributes this to my mum, disturbingly, i agree with him. At times, he can be just a bit weird.
A harder thing to realise is that a divorce amongst my parents is almost imminent, and it is crushing the air in the household.
My dad isn't amazingly intelligent. He even says this about himself, but he has some great tips for life, things that could save me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of my life. My mum is more like a teenage girl in her behaviour. She impulse buys, everything, that comes into her head, she then states that it's her money. This unfortunately leaves all my dad's money floating in the bills and taxes. I love my mum, but she has very little positive input into the family.
"cause people who listen to Fall Out Boy(or say an Emo band instead of a Pop-Punk band) do so because they are stupid teenagers and not because of differrent taste's, after all, all Adults used to like their kids music, its not like The Beatles, Black Sabath, The Sex Pistols and all those famed band's were hated by most adults when they were formed amirite?
I hope you didn't just compare to Fall Out Boy to The Beatles.
"cause people who listen to Fall Out Boy(or say an Emo band instead of a Pop-Punk band) do so because they are stupid teenagers and not because of differrent taste's, after all, all Adults used to like their kids music, its not like The Beatles, Black Sabath, The Sex Pistols and all those famed band's were hated by most adults when they were formed amirite?
I hope you didn't just compare to Fall Out Boy to The Beatles.
Sigh* I knew this waste of a post would eventurally show itself, I said The Beatles and fall Out Boy have been recieved by "Music experts" in the same way. As complete trash. This isn't something that can be argued. Wether I think they can compare isn't at all my point. My pont is that new music types are always recieved by old "Experts" in the same way, Badly.
Duck and cover had utility in preventing flash blindness and burns from the direct radiation exposure of the bomb. Presuming then that you survived the following blast (something which this might also aid) then you had a better chance of being alive to take over the highways of the new post-apocalyptic world.
electricitylikesme on
0
The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
Duck and cover had utility in preventing flash blindness and burns from the direct radiation exposure of the bomb. Presuming then that you survived the following blast (something which this might also aid) then you had a better chance of being alive to take over the highways of the new post-apocalyptic world.
Then your only problem is obtaining the water pass before your bunker dehydrates.
But seriousely:
Even if it wasnt a nuke, the desks may well stop the classroom door from entering your face.
If it was "Duck and cover and for fuck's sake cover your face"...
But my actual point was it was an era of really deranged education practices aimed at controlling rather than broadening minds, and it was just one of a number of really screwed up things.
Of course, we have crap like "Freedom Fries," but we at least have a much easier time of accessing varied information rather than government feeds. Makes it a lot easier to figure out how wide a consensus is.
I used to fucking despise my parents, but the first week of being at college changed that outlook completely. It's one thing going to college, but going to a hard college and being told to suck it up and work...it changes you.
Then as I went through those 4-years and moved on, I really begin to appreciate my parents a whole lot more. I used to resent having to do stuff around the house, now I actually make a trip back home every 2nd weekend or so to help out, just to spend some time with them and talk.
Fucking surreal.
And yea, I really don't like teenagers either and I'm only 24.
Posts
I'm just as smart as my dad, and maybe smarter, but I'm not even remotely as 'motivated' as him. He's the kind of guy whose life focuses on what he does at work, my life focuses on what I do outside of work. Of course, I'm not yet into a real career and he's at his peak, but he doesn't seem have any hobbies, while I spend the day thinking about what I'll do when I can get back to mine.
So all in all, I'll probably never accomplish as much as him, at least professionally.
My parents were raised in bad situations, during a screwed up time in history. My dad's siblings all live within a block of their parents -- one of them lives WITH the parents, and another only moved out few years ago -- RIGHT NEXT DOOR.
There's just only so much progress a generation can make with so much working against it.
At age 25, I have a degree, which puts me, already, one category above him education-wise, and I'm planning my life around getting an MFA eventually, which is ANOTHER step beyond him. Hell, I don't know if his parents even graduated high school. I mean, shit. That side of the family basically came from Grapes of Wrath backgrounds. My dad HUNTED FOR FOOD. Not fun. FOOD.
Each generation is leaps and bounds above those who came before, learning from the mistakes of their elders. If I was crazy enough to have a kid, she'd probably be a professor before she turned gray, and would consider me an absolute retard.
And seeing as a Teenaged life is full of "not a good answer, just the best I can make" situations thats pretty annoying.
Part of the maturing process is learning that you're a flawed person, and another part of it is learning to correct those flaws, or at least live with them. That's the kind of wisdom parents end up with when their kids are 10-12 years old, when it starts to matter what parents tell their kids rather than do with/for/to them. Anyone who's been a (decent) parent that long has had to come to terms with their imperfection, and has had to structure a family life around that.
I learned this recently from my mother, when she told me that she's suffered from clinical depression ever since about the time us kids were born (somewhere in that five year span is when it started). For about twenty years she had to deal with crippling anxiety, self-doubt, lack of motivation, and the ensuing guilt that comes with knowing you're a worse parent for being the way you are. And she raised three kids pretty damn well, if I may say so.
That's the kind of stuff you learn from your parents at adolescence: how to not suck as a human being, despite being imperfect.
Sure there are cases where this doesn't happen. Abusive, criminal, negligent, or mentally ill parents are exceptional cases. But just about anyone who can't point to an obviously disfunctional parental relationship probably can learn something very valuable from them. After all, if you don't go absolutely fucking crazy from raising a kid over 18 years, you've got to be a pretty decent person at the end of it. Being a shitty parent is really the easy way out, being a good one is a really long and hard road.
I mean, shit. I was a good kid growing up, never got into serious trouble or anything, and when I think about some of the petty crap I put my parents through for no real reason I feel really guilty. Even good kids are obnoxious little shits, when you think about it.
Comparing yourself to your parents is always difficult though because it's such a close weird relationship.
My dad is a bipolar Columbia/MIT grad who now works as a ski patroller. He is a libertarian who comes from a family of conservatives, and fully believes in the whole "Norman Rockwell" idea. As far as our differences go, his basic opinion is that because I'm younger than he is, my opinion doesn't count for shit. At all. I don't mean that in a teenager-y "my parents don't hear me" way, I mean the few times I've asked for a curfew extension or something like that he just completely shuts me down, and if I keep talking, trying to justify whatever I'm asking for, he'll just leave.
My mom is a Smith graduate who now works as a homeopath. Her advice is maybe stuff I can see agreeing with in the future (just because of its nature, not because I agree with it now) but I've seen her one month in the past year, so I'm not really sure she knows enough about who I am or what's going on with me to be telling me how I need to change myself.
EDIT: Also, my parents both tell me that I'm smarter than them. My dad wasn't expected to even graduate high school, and my mom was too busy with gymnastics and weed to really learn the material presented with her. I get the feeling that I'm definitely not smarter than my dad mechanically or mathematically or anything like that, given his rather impressive resume of nautical engineering, but asides from that and the simple wisdom that comes with age I do feel like I am smarter than them, if only because, unlike them, I was actually paying attention and learning during high school. Sure, that's only book-smarts, but nonetheless.
I'm pretty sure that you're parents haven't done the greatest job in the world if you're not smarter than them, plainly because they should have learnt from their mistakes enough to teach you not to make them, and they should know enough to give you their collective knowledge.
Unless the parents are really smart, or you are naturally not very bright.
My Dad has about 60 years life behind him. I do not.
It's pretty hard to be smarter than my dad just based on that alone, regardless the amount of advice he has given me, of the countless extra years of schools i have, and the number of letters after my name.
I'll just quote this one:
edit:
Take, for example, the situation where i'm considering a 3rd life insurance policy. I'm not going to just dive right in, I'm going to call up my dad because he's probably dealt with a similiar situation, and I'm going to get some advice. He has 60 years of experience and I do not.
Same with mortages, renting stuff out, buying cars, switching careers, starting my own business, firing people, hiring people, getting married, having kids, etc etc etc etc.
I mean any monkey can learn to triple integrate the electric potential over a transistor or whatever. That's just a process. Life skills take experience and alot of people never figure them out.
Who do you think got put in his place after a project or two? Me or him? those years of experience allowed him to see the big picture, the consequences of things, the actual understanding of what a number meant.
There's a reason a senior consultant gets paid $100k+ while his underlings get less, even though the underlings do all the real 'actual' work.
A lot of the posters here (at least not the punk kids) have baby boomers as their parents. It's really, really hard not to be smarter than them.
My mother is very much the the all too common type who has basicially not learned anything since high school. She has no memory to speak of, absolutely refuses to change her mind based on trivial matters like "facts" and is generally an intellecutally lazy person. My dad, while not the best parent ever, at least I can connect with. Has spent his entire life improving himself and is actually worthy of the respect usually given mistakenly to those who just get older not wiser.
And, just to shut up the "oh you're just being an angsty teenager" crowd I am in fact 26 with a child of my own.
What is intelligence other than the ability to take something in and make a decision on it?
Smartness, intelligence, wisdom, whatever. It doesn't matter how you start breaking up that crap, I'm still going to trust alot of what my dad says more than I would trust what random 20 year old says.
Well, if we want to play D&D here, wisdom is making good choices, while intelligence is for things like books smarts. It's possible to have one and not the other, and depending on the circumstances, lacking either one can be a big problem.
You never know. There's still lots of old hippies and goths and so forth.
It's not like emo is anything new. It's as ancient as nerds vs. jocks (philosophers vs. soldiers..).
I'm not talking about the emo mindset, I'm talking about the emo style (which is new). I never saw anyone that looked like this when I went to school. There were goths and hippies, sure, but those subcultures didn't have nearly the amount of conformity with regards to their hair, clothing and behavior. Emo is a lot worse in that sense, which is why I don't think you'll ever see some 45 year old dude moping around with his hair died black (except for maybe one carefully placed color streak) and parted in only one direction (make sure it covers one of your eyes!).
There's the music too, which is just.... well, I would try really hard to prevent anyone from knowing that I listened to Fall Out Boy when I was a teenager, if that was the case. I just can't imagine anyone looking back on that as an adult and not cringing.
These stupid fads?
They're nothing compared to some of the shit people USED to do.
She's also too lazy to actually come into the same room when telling me to do something, so I slowly started just ignoring her whenever she was yelling at me to do something. As time went on, she did less and less and just told my brother and I to do it instead, including minimal tasks like getting her ass off of the couch to get herself a drink from the kitchen. Now that my brother can drive, she basically doesn't leave the house except for work/ when she's already coming home from work, and tells us to do all her errands for her. She is horribly overweight and will never slim down, but keeps all of her ten-twenty year old clothes in our attic, filling it up, for "when she loses weight."
My father is a bit of an oddity. He skipped most of highschool when he was a kid because the classes were too easy for him, and he could just flip through the textbook and ace the test, and instead got into drugs and sex from about 12 through his teenage years. He was only accepted to college because at the time the state had a program of forcing college to accept anyone who enrolled, and yet in college he managed a 3.9 GPA because he found the classes to be interesting and not babysitting. He bummed around in near poverty, to the point of my mom and dad living in my grandmothers home up until I was seven, and then moved to Arkansas where, because of Wal-mart, the city of Bentonville was expanding rapidly, which was amazing business for appraisers like him (the people who exam property that is to be bought in order to determine its worth).
Even so, he's apathetic and lazy and, upon coming home from work, goes to his room, where he listens to books on tape/watches TV for hours on end. He refuses to do any household chores, which cause my siblings and I to pick up the slack he left. He has such a short temper that if the slightest of annoyances comes up, like a glass breaking, he'll start yelling and cursing at the top of his lungs, and yelling at the person who caused such a thing to happen. He inevitably apologizes later, and says he's sorry, but that doesn't have the slightest affect for the next time anything slightly stressful happens.
My mother and father should be divorced, and are so not in love that they sleep in separate bedrooms/generally tend to avoid each other. My mother was told four years before my birth by my father that "he didn't become married to be a wife," and has not even tried to separate from him, though she will always tell me that "when you become a husband, you shouldn't treat your wife like this."
I'm so estranged from both of them that I haven't hugged either of them in years and actually meant it, and I feel very odd when I do.
They've only been moderately wealthy for part of my life, and are so bad at saving money that they don't have any savings account of any type (my mom has around $1300 in the bank, total), and my father plans to work until he dies. I also don't have a college fund, which means that, since my sister is in college for her sixth year and will probably still be in college next year when my brother and I go at the same time, the two of us basically have to get scholarships to pay for anything outside of gas/clothing.
So no, I don't think either of them are smart, and I don't look up to them at all, but what do I know, I'm just a 17 year old angst filled teen.
Woah, that's so creepy. That actually reminds me of my own family, except things sort of went into a different direction...
Few things to understand about my dad...he's paranoid, OCD (he counts the silverware as he puts them into the washer and then freaks out if any are missing), and explodes sometimes. As a kid, he reminded me of your father in how if anything little went wrong, it would be bitching for hours. I've got a lot of weird memories as a kid that for some reason I do not forget...like one time i was sitting on the stairs, just watching my mom cook...my dad was pissed off at my brother for some reason, walked up the stairs and proceeded to hit him quite a bit behind closed doors. I Just remember my bro screaming a bit. That's how he was when we were kids.
I was the last to be born, so the most I got was a belt once or twice for refusing to go to CCD. In high school I remember taking the dogs out and my father coming up to me, talking about my mom, and then somehow he got into how if he had to do it all over again, he would have gone with someone different. My dad, even if you were joking, would sometimes turn around and punch you in the arm or something. Afterwards he would always feel guilty and apologize...but as you say, apologies are just words...they only go so far.
Today my dad is radically different from the person he used to be. Old age has kind of mellowed him out...he tries really hard to control his anger, apologizes a lot more, and really tries to show that he's sorry for what happened when we were kids. In all honesty, he thinks he is going to hell. I remember him crying one time after returning from spain (he visited his grand parents who are radical catholics) and talking about how there isn't any hope for someone like him. I just told him that if he was going to hell, then a whole mess of this planet's population would be as well.
And jesus ain't going to do shit if satan has a pimp army.
But anyway - sometimes I can still see that older side of him when he does something...or says something like an ass. He basically doesn't think before he speaks, and he was probably my greatest motivation for losing weight after receiving all of his comments. But he's the reason why I am so laid back these days...and as painful or as annoying as those memories may be, I'm sorta happy that things worked out the way they did, cause I wouldn't want to be as uptight as some people I know.
Although, consequently his behavior dropped some apathy into my blood. As a kid, when he did come in and yell, I would just sort of space out, nod, and let him go on for a half hour. This sort of scenario may have made me more laid back, but has made me apathetic about quite a few things.
Anyway.
Sometimes the nature of humans truly irritates me, especially when I realize how it's always been a certain way and will likely never change. Examples: people thinking that fads will stick around forever; people thinking that we'll eventually have no war or violence; children thinking they understand perspective merely because they comprehend a series of words without context ("children" in this case can go for any age, really). That crap really drives me nuts. I probably do it constantly, too, which is even more infuriating.
I do feel pretty badly for those of you actually did have bad parents (angsty dim-witted teens need not attempt to perceive my sympathy for this part). I know for a fact I was born lucky as hell, and wish everyone could be given the same shot I was. Middle-middle class, christian, solid family, father works and mother stays home, yellow lab and a white picket fence, the whole deal. Being so generic, and this being the United States, that basically means you can turn into anything at all. If you're tall, white, male, straight, and love alcohol and golf anyway.
Now that I've grown older, I realize that almost none of the political values that they tried to teach me stuck, but almost all of the social/intellectual ones did. Morals seem to be hit and miss, honestly. I'm not christian, which has caused some fairly intense discussions that were very thinly restrained from being screaming matches. I'd also be pissed if a woman decided she didn't want to work (I mean no kids, nothing special, just thought she should play video games and shop all day while I work), which my dad thinks is odd.
However, I'd never HIT a woman, or expect her to do more physical work than me other things being equal. I cognitively know that it is not fair, but I do it anyway. I think I just like it when pretty girls smile, and that's worth a bit of sweating to earn. Dunno. I also believe that mairrage is an important thing that should not be considered a goddamned "trial" like most Americans treat it. My parents stuck together through some nasty crap. I think mostly because they're the least selfish people who've ever lived, and don't give up when their temper tantrums don't work. Seems like about 98% of divorces are like that, even though everyone says "Well, it couldn't be helped" or "It just wasn't working, nothing could be done." I call bullshit.
So this post turned into a life-story with ranting every other sentence, and I think I need my medicine. Note to self: delete this later.
I mean, "As we grow older we understand our parents more." - says the 34 year old.
"Nuh uh, my parents are always dumbheads!" - says the 17 year old.
The fashion is the worst fasion ever. Dark colors and arm bands and a crazy hair style. What idiots. Certainly worse than the Mullet.
Nothing will ever match the same outrage from one generation to another as boys having long hair. Ever.
Nearly everyone hates Emo because it's ultra-conformist and trite. I want it to be clear I'm not talking about the music, I'm talking about the superfans and the followers, listen to whatever makes you happy as long as it doesn't turn you into a douche.
Though that does bring me to an interesting thought. What if the emos organized like the hippies and protest groups during the Vietnam war and had a million emo march. I think you'd see a huge chunk of the population go "so what?" all the emos would also go home once their cellphone batteries died.
Not quite the same type of thing. One is a movement the other is generic teenage angst. I am wondering if we ever see old emo types though, the way you see aging hippies now. I've never seen one over their early 20's myself.
Also: Parents can both tell you the right thing to do and not do it themselves. A lot of parents made a whole lot of mistakes... and simply don't want you to repeat them. A crying alcoholic father telling his kids not to drink may be a fuck up, but it doesn't mean he wants you to be one too.
For me the older I get, the more I read, the more I learn, and the more I pay attention to things I realize that my parents are fucking stupid with regard to pretty much everything they told me growing up.
Duck and cover in case of nuclear attack.
I look back over what I've done from ages 12 up, and to be honest I am shocked at how much of a retard I was, by 13 years olds standards I was a total fuckup in anything socially directed, and even now I have the conversational ability of a stuttering, hyperactive chimp. Though I am trying to come out of this as normal as possible.
I also look at my parents as humans now. I have started noticing various things, mostly just their petty habits, and it isnt particularly enjoyable. For example my mum almost definately couldn't live on her own, that my dad isn't exactly a hit with what friends he has, even though he seems perfectly regular guy, he justdoesn't seem to have any friends outside his one. He attributes this to my mum, disturbingly, i agree with him. At times, he can be just a bit weird.
A harder thing to realise is that a divorce amongst my parents is almost imminent, and it is crushing the air in the household.
My dad isn't amazingly intelligent. He even says this about himself, but he has some great tips for life, things that could save me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of my life. My mum is more like a teenage girl in her behaviour. She impulse buys, everything, that comes into her head, she then states that it's her money. This unfortunately leaves all my dad's money floating in the bills and taxes. I love my mum, but she has very little positive input into the family.
Then your only problem is obtaining the water pass before your bunker dehydrates.
But seriousely:
Even if it wasnt a nuke, the desks may well stop the classroom door from entering your face.
But my actual point was it was an era of really deranged education practices aimed at controlling rather than broadening minds, and it was just one of a number of really screwed up things.
Of course, we have crap like "Freedom Fries," but we at least have a much easier time of accessing varied information rather than government feeds. Makes it a lot easier to figure out how wide a consensus is.
Then as I went through those 4-years and moved on, I really begin to appreciate my parents a whole lot more. I used to resent having to do stuff around the house, now I actually make a trip back home every 2nd weekend or so to help out, just to spend some time with them and talk.
Fucking surreal.
And yea, I really don't like teenagers either and I'm only 24.