Becoming like your parents

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I don't see my Dad much despite him living in London too. The other weekend we met up and chatted, and it occurred to me (again) how i'm just becoming sooo like him. There are lots of little things, behaviour (playing with hair), mannerisms, verbal tics, etc.

Also this year I've started to jog 1-2 times a week. nothing fantastic, just spurred on by the usual middle-age spread, and then it hit me that i recall him going through a jogging phase when i was about 10 -- i.e. WHEN HE WAS 32. gah!

Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

not really a question that, so... anyone else care to relate their spine-chilling tales of parental determinism?

Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i = my mom

mark s, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i = my mum as well!

katie, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I've posed this question to my friends who've met both my parents and they can't decide. I'm content to be a fusion. But my dad never grew out his hair -- military job and all, see. ;-)

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I'm definately becoming more like my dad, even in appearance. It's disturbing in a way, because it means I'm getting old(er), but I can't complain; my father was and is a very good looking, intelligent and successful guy. Things could be much worse.

Sean, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I = my dad too, though I don't know if I'll ever be as happy or successful as him. Though I do know that as a younger chap he was a lazy fucker too. Tho8ugh he probably grew out of it by the time he was 27...

Mark C, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I, too am my dad. Since he left her three and a half years ago, this doesn't exactly tickle my mum.

Ally C, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Well, I think I will become like my dad...we both like getting on eachother's nerves, argueing, and then going back to civil terms five minutes later! Though I don't like jazz.

james, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

My relatives have always told me that I look exactly like my dad... which is a really life-long awkwardness for me, as the last time I saw him, I was 8 years old. He passed away when i was 18.

Apparently, he was the kind of guy that was very selfless and loved to help people out -- always more than himself, but at the same time let himself be easily taken advantage of. In one way, I hope I do take after him; in another way, I hope I don't.

Brian MacDonald, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I'm starting to combine the worst of both of them.

dave q, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I am nothing like either of my parents.

Mandee, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

i = my mum

i wear her bras sometimes

ogden, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Ogden, as long as you aren't drawing little pictures of your face in the cups, I think you're barely on this side of crazy.

I was shocked to discover that my sweet, even-toned librarian mother is as hyper-cynical as I am.

Dan Perry, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Dear god, I hope I'm not going to turn into my mom.

Ally, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

If you turned into your dad, Ally, I admit I'd be amused.

Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

That'd be like the bizarro world, Ned.

Ally, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I like my parents. But I must never spend as much time playing fantasy computer games as my dad does. I must never spend ANY time doing this.

Maria, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I'm not in the least like my parents or anyone else in my family. What can it all meaaaan?

DavidM, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

You're adopted. Next question!

ogden, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

Dude, my mom is crazy. I am not turning into my mom. And Wheeler, you shut your pie hole about Ramon and my dad.

Ally, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

My mum is the bomb, apart from her politics, but I so don't want to turn into her!

suzy, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

actually i'm a bit like my dad, but not much like my mum. all the worst traits of my dad are ones that i have acquired. like being a self-righteous curmudgeonly surly argumentative mean nasty gossippy hotheaded bigot. i'm a bigot in reaction to him though: he hates queers, women, and people of color. i hate him, that is white heterosexual men.

hows that for psychoanalysis? so i guess you could say, i didn't learn man-hating in Womens Studies 101, dear Mr. Anonymous Poster from the heterosexuality thread. i learnt to hate men (this is one of MANY factors) because the men in my family are arseholes.

di, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I'm still in denial about it all. If I shut my eyes, put my hands over my ears and not speak it will all go away.....

Mascara, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

About a year ago my friends Nick and Gilles went on tour and stopped in Minneapolis. I couldn't be there and wanted my mom to meet Nick just to give myself wonderful mental pictures for years to come (she's the type of person who when confronted with a dangerous animal says, 'honey, it's more scared of you than you are of it', so...). So my mom and my sister go down to the 400 and they're totally nervous. Mom slams down three beers in a row while my sis is basically praying Nick is not the weird skinny guy in the kilt and eye patch but is instead the tall, gorgeous French guy. No dice. So my mom, with Dutch/Wisconsin courage, goes up and taps Nick on the shoulder, they talk, it's fine apart from the 'he should stand up straight and eat more' line I've been at the butt-end of my whole life. Nick thought my sister was the scariest mall rat he'd ever clapped eyes on (that's a big ditto for me) and totally wound me up by saying my mom had my eyes. Does not does not does not!

My mom is into her dogs to the point where I wonder if black poodles = her familiars. Marge Simpson + Marge from Fargo = my mom. She smokes like a chimney and swears like a trouper. But she's funny enough that she and Ally Madre would make a great double act. My dad was the world's first slacker and is totally irresponsible; I have the horrors about turning out like him.

suzy, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

I wouldn't actually mind turning out like my mum, she has a lifestyle and, more importantly, alife views that I truly envy.

Ed, Wednesday, 7 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago) link

six years pass...

the fatalism in this is kinda sad i think. even if you don't have any issues with yr parents.
one of life's ironies.

Zeno, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:09 (sixteen years ago) link

I'm nothing like either of my parents, other than that I'm usually nice to other people to a fault, like my dad.

Z S, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:12 (sixteen years ago) link

how old are you?

Zeno, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:13 (sixteen years ago) link

25. I doubt I will become much more like either one of them in the future. For one, I have no plans on the horizon for writing an epic trilogy that takes place 1000 years in the future, with the protagonist wandering the Israeli landscape searching for the new Zion, each interaction somehow related to Bible prophecy, with hyperlinks in the text that link to the relevant passages. With no prior writing experience whatsoever.

Though, I suppose you never know.

Z S, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:21 (sixteen years ago) link

...sounds like an intersting book!

i don't know about you, but becoming like my parents strikes me more and more as i grow older.
when i was 25, i thought the same as you, more or less. if you still think that way when youll be 30+, youll be in the minority,i think.

Zeno, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:26 (sixteen years ago) link

For one, I have no plans on the horizon for writing an epic trilogy that takes place 1000 years in the future, with the protagonist wandering the Israeli landscape searching for the new Zion, each interaction somehow related to Bible prophecy, with hyperlinks in the text that link to the relevant passages. With no prior writing experience whatsoever.

how is this THAT different from becoming one of the world's three best Marble Madness players

El Tomboto, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:30 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah I really want to become a passive aggressive manipulative authoritarian cold bitch. Oh and my mum's pretty awful too.
Overshare?

VeronaInTheClub, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:40 (sixteen years ago) link

it's not really TMI if it's boring

El Tomboto, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:42 (sixteen years ago) link

I've definitely refined my mother's tremendous guilt complex as I've gotten older. Worry, guilt, and a magnificent ability to unconciously act passive-aggresively at people when I really don't mean to. I've pulled mum up on it in recent years and she's been genuinely upset and swore she wasnt trying to do anything underhanded, and Ive realised I can be the same aaaargh.

Also my voice is very like hers now.

Trayce, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:47 (sixteen years ago) link

it's not really TMI if it's boring
No I know, I meant is it overshare as in it was unreasonably ranting?
I'd like to become like my aunt, weird promiscuity/madonna whore complex aside because she's reeeeeaaaaaally stylish and has a great 'devil may care' attitude that is encouraging, she's not defeatist about her age. I don't want to become like either of my parents because they are not old enough to be as racist or as fundamentalist as they are but they have good music traits that I have inherited and a dry urbane wit that I'd like.

VeronaInTheClub, Thursday, 19 June 2008 01:54 (sixteen years ago) link

becoming like my parents strikes me more and more as i grow older.

just wait until when you hit middle age and/or yr parents are gone. I'm even starting to look like my dad now.

m coleman, Thursday, 19 June 2008 10:45 (sixteen years ago) link


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