Turning into your parents?

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  • sw33tp3a1
    sw33tp3a1 Posts: 5,065 Member
    As much as I love my mother, I have done everything in my power to not be like her. As for my father, he's a hardheaded, silly old man who likes to drink beer. A lot of people would say I'm just like my dad. They might be right!
  • JeepHair77
    JeepHair77 Posts: 1,291 Member
    newmeadow wrote: »
    Interesting thread so far. Seems like the daughters raised in two parent homes with the biologicals prefer the father to the mother.

    I have this theory - there is a funny phenomenon that I think is unique to my generation. I know that some of my friends share my experience - we were a generation of girls being raised to value education and career goals in ways that our mothers were not. So, regardless of the careers and goals our mothers may have had, their values tended to seem inconsistent to a lot of us, and we had difficulty relating to our moms and their choices.

    My mom, for example, is more educated than my dad. Yet his career was always the priority in the family, we moved across the state twice for his job, dropped everything when he needed to travel or work late or whatever, and much ado was made about supporting him. And even though she had a career as well, there was never any question whatsoever that keeping house, running errands, serving meals, and dealing with all things related to the children were her responsibilities, and her career was sort of an afterthought. It's like her generation was stuck in the middle - they were raised by these 1940's housewives, and they got hit with all of this feminism as young adults and while they wanted to embrace it, it just wasn't who they were, really. I love her, and I respect her, no doubt, but I don't understand her, and it was difficult for me to get the "role model" thing from her. She wanted to raise strong, independent daughters (and she did) but she wasn't really raising us to be LIKE her.

    Whereas my dad kind of was. He ALSO wanted us to be strong and independent, and it came more easily to him, maybe, to just assume that's who we already were, rather than seeing it as some sort of uphill battle. So my relationship with him was always just easier.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
    JeepHair77 wrote: »
    newmeadow wrote: »
    Interesting thread so far. Seems like the daughters raised in two parent homes with the biologicals prefer the father to the mother.

    I have this theory - there is a funny phenomenon that I think is unique to my generation. I know that some of my friends share my experience - we were a generation of girls being raised to value education and career goals in ways that our mothers were not. So, regardless of the careers and goals our mothers may have had, their values tended to seem inconsistent to a lot of us, and we had difficulty relating to our moms and their choices.

    My mom, for example, is more educated than my dad. Yet his career was always the priority in the family, we moved across the state twice for his job, dropped everything when he needed to travel or work late or whatever, and much ado was made about supporting him. And even though she had a career as well, there was never any question whatsoever that keeping house, running errands, serving meals, and dealing with all things related to the children were her responsibilities, and her career was sort of an afterthought. It's like her generation was stuck in the middle - they were raised by these 1940's housewives, and they got hit with all of this feminism as young adults and while they wanted to embrace it, it just wasn't who they were, really. I love her, and I respect her, no doubt, but I don't understand her, and it was difficult for me to get the "role model" thing from her. She wanted to raise strong, independent daughters (and she did) but she wasn't really raising us to be LIKE her.

    Whereas my dad kind of was. He ALSO wanted us to be strong and independent, and it came more easily to him, maybe, to just assume that's who we already were, rather than seeing it as some sort of uphill battle. So my relationship with him was always just easier.

    I think that's really insightful and I can relate to it, though not so much firsthand as my mom was a super assertive/aggressive career oriented woman with just one child who didn't fit the "mold" of most of her generation. But when I think about my friends of similar age (30s-40s currently), and their moms, the whole phenomenon you describe sounds absolutely on point.

  • EHollander89
    EHollander89 Posts: 169 Member
    I definitely have similar personality traits to my dad. We're both type-A and would always get the same results on any kind of personality test or leadership style test. I recently learned, however, that I tell stories just like my mom! Which makes me cringe bc I hate how she tells stories. My boyfriend pointed this out to me. Apparently I talk just like my mom.

    As far as phrases, my dad would always say "plan to work, and work the plan." Another classic from dad "If you get in a fight with a pig, even if you win you still smell like a pig."
  • Heather4448
    Heather4448 Posts: 908 Member
    Haha! One of my Mom's favorite sayings was, "I don't raise pu-sies."

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