Comments on: Your Take: What Unintended Lessons Did Your Parents Teach?

By: Yana

Yana — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:08:00 +0000

That’s a great question, and I think parents teach more naturally/unintentionally than intentionally. I accidentally learned to be resourceful, true to myself, hopeful, happily interdependent and genuine. If I learned a negative, it is that there are times when people use certain words or promote certain ideas, when their intended message is not what is clearly stated.

By: JazGram

JazGram — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:07:55 +0000

When my father was teaching me to drive I was very nervous and only thinking about staying ON the road. He finally said to me, “Try ro steer AROUND the potholes.”

At the next one, I did and said so. He then said, “Always try to do that in life too.” It became a joke between us that whenever a difficulty that could be avoided came up, one of us would comment, “another pothole”.

To this day (at 68 years old) I think of difficulties as potholes, and try to steer around them in a positive way.

By: Alice

Alice — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:12:32 +0000

My parents, especially my mother, taught me to “work hard and play hard.”

I was born in China, and for the first nine years of my life, I played hard. I was never really a good student in school, and never wore the 3-striped badge (president of the school), the 2-striped badge (president of the grade), nor the 1-striped badge (president of the class). I just had a lot of fun…

And when I came to America, all that ended. No, seriously, I think that’s where my childhood ended. My mom forbade me taking English lessons in China because apparently, Americans won’t be able to understand anyways. So, I was 9 years old, and trying to memorize the alphabet.

In elementary school, I worked hard to catch up to my classmates. In middle school, I worked hard to catch up with ideal STAR-testing scores.

But in high school, I started to slack off hard. I sat at my desk all afternoon not really doing anything… I didn’t know what I wanted and didn’t have any goals or plans in mind.

One day, my mother walked in on me doodling in my notebook, and told me that I could either study hard or go outside and play hard. I was only wasting time doing anything in-between.

By sophomore year, my parents not-so-gently reminded me that I was going to become a failure. I cried my eyes out, and stared at my transcript. Well, I have to at least get into a UC, I thought to myself. It was doable… So I started to work my butt off. Junior year was the hardest year ever, especially at my high school, but it was my BEST year ever. I ended up with a 4.4.

Now that I’m a senior, I get to play hard again (or experiencing life…) But I also realize that I would have to study hard again in college.

Seriously… it’s stupid not doing either.

By: saladdin

saladdin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:44:39 +0000

The post above is mine.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:26:49 +0000

Never heard my father tell a racist joke or see him park in a handicap spot.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:13:28 +0000

A truly unintended lesson came from my parents’ divorce. After 24 years of marriage they entered a 3 year, ugly, destructive divorce. During this process they actively sought to ruin each other financially out of petty spite and jealousy, while at the same time they were ruining themselves and feeding money to lawyers. This bankrupted my mother and cost them their house.

The lesson is to prepare for the future because you truly don’t know what waits. People change, yet they are still flawed humans. My father never let my mother have savings of her own. My mother didn’t act on her own to build her savings. Since my mother and father were retired, their incomes were fixed and she depended heavily on my father’s income. I’ve encouraged my wife to set up her own savings to fall back on specifically to avoid this sort of situation.

I learned to be frugal because they were not. My whole childhood was without want, but at what cost? There is nothing to show for it now. While I want to provide for my son, I also want to insure his future and keep my finances in order so he might never witness the downward spiral I had to. If I can accomplish that then the whole mess was not a complete travesty.

By: deb

deb — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:53:22 +0000

My parents taught me to care for others in need. Even though my parents struggled to make ends meet, they would turn a helping hand or give something away to a person or family who had need of help.
When my brother was in the hospital, my mother returned home telling me that two little girls in the same ward as my brother had no dolls. She then asked me to choose two dolls that I could share with the girls in the hospital.
My parents taught me not to wait for others to fix your problems. That meant in one of the heaviest snowstorms on record, our family worked on clearing both the street and the alley in our neighborhood along with the neighbors.

By: Linda El

Linda El — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:58:11 +0000

My Mom taught me that good food need not be expensive food. For example, a meal of Pintoe Beans, stewed potatoes, corn bread and coleslaw is not only just about the best tasting, economical meal one could eat but is also one of the healthiest.
Todays prices: 1lb. Pintoe beans $1.oo, 2 lbs. potatoes $1.00, small bag of self rising cornmeal $1.00, 2lb. head cabbage $1.oo along with staples most people have on hand, cup of milk, a little mayonaise, etc.
Mom fed this meal to her family of 7, with leftovers, many times. I have served the same meal to my family of 7 many times as well. I have eaten in Paris, Geneva, Stuttgart, London, N.Y., all over, and no meal that I have eaten at these places has ever tasted as good as this one.

When teaching me to drive my dad told me about the “blind spot” on the side of the car that
can’t be seen in the mirrors on the drivers side or the rear view mirror. Dad told me to always turn my head and look for coming cars. “Don’t rely on the mirrors”, he said. Doing this small action has saved my life many times. Now, some 50 years later I always say, “thank you Daddy”, when a “near miss” happens.

By: MikeG

MikeG — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:38:25 +0000

Mine taught me the importance of being informed about current affairs and understanding what is really going on, instead of what some people want you to believe. This has been of inestimable value at work and in personal life. I made a little money last year instead of losing a lot.

They read the newspaper every day and watched the morning news. I was raised on the Today show and never saw Captain Kangaroo. I still have a memory of watching Dave Garroway while I downed a baby bottle of orange juice. BTW, when I say morning news and the Today show, I don’t mean today’s entertainment shows, but real news shows as they existed in the 1950’s.

By: headknocker

headknocker — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:17:15 +0000

My dad taught me that whenever someone asked me to do a job, I should strive to do it better than anyone else possibly could. After the job was complete and I had done my absolute best, I shouldn’t look for a pat on the back or a bonus, because if I had done my best, that was what was expected.

By: Red

Red — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:09:42 +0000

My dad taught me to question anyone who told me I couldn’t accomplish something. Or rather, he taught me to believe in myself and prove anyone who doubted me wrong.

I was the little kid that would ask why? why? why?. Until the person I was harassing got frustrated and walked away from me. Anytime I said that “I can’t…” my dad played the why? game with me. Asking “why?” to every “because” I had to offer. Eventually, I would get so frustrated that I would give up explaining and go figure out a way to do what I said I can’t do. I reality, he was screwing with me, but it unintentionally trained me to not give up and prove that I could.

By: Charity

Charity — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:23:19 +0000

I was raised in another country. My father taught me, actually all nine of us children to change a flat tire. He would make sure he counted all nine before he started.

As I was leaving for work one morning in the mid-nineties, I noticed that I had a flat tire and called one of those ‘rescue’ companies whose service I paid for. But then I realized the hours were ticking by, and I really needed to get going. Although I was dressed in an Irish green pleated skirt-suit, I couldn’t help but cancelling the order and to what I was taught to. Needless to say, I was done in no time and it saved the day.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:19:54 +0000

Even though I was not born in the US my father made me go through the same exercise of understanding the tenses of every verb. Back in India the English schools also put a lot of emphasis on grammar and one was expected to write and speak well.

Although a lot of Indians do not speak English, it is the preferred language in most colleges, corporate offices and central government services. In fact most competitive exams in India are in English. You do hear a lot of hinglish terms which is a form of english only Indians can understand. I think earlier Indian English had more British influence but with the growth of outsourcing and BPO, American English is beginning to have it’s effect on the queen’s language.

By: Start-Up

Start-Up — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:15:59 +0000

My parents were two of the hardest working people throughout my entire childhood. My dad ran his own small company that sterilized and packaged medical products. He always made time for use, but he worked super hard on his company.

My mom was stay at home until I was a little older, but after that she started working with my dad at his company. I can definitely say that work ethic is 100% attributable to them. I probably picked up some entrepreneurial ambitions from my dad.

By: tom

tom — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:18:51 +0000

My parents are also first generation here in Canada.
And one thing my dad especially grilled into me was finish the job, don’t leave it half assed.

It was irritating to me for years but now I appreciate what he has done because whenever I do something, i do the complete job, and not cut corners.
It is almost like impossible for me to avoid it.