When you're a different person than your parents

The older I get, the more like my mom I become. Actually, I wish I could be more like both her and my dad.

My dad can explain parables from the Bible better and faster than anyone I know. He just makes it all make sense, and it seems like it's almost effortless. Really, he can explain anything from the Bible in words that anyone can understand. He says it's only because he's been teaching Sunday School for 20 years, but still, he's pretty awesome.

My mom is the most caring person I know. The sound of her voice alone is enough to soothe me, but she goes above and beyond that. Here she is battling cancer, and she's always concerned about me and my feelings and well-being.

Yes, they have their things where we are different. My mom is in to hearing about celebs and watches reality shows. She cooks the same basic things she's always cooked and is afraid to try new things. I know more about mechanics and home repair than my dad (although he is learning). He also can't use a computer to save his life. I tried to tell him how to send an email over the phone and he thought the shift key was the space bar.

The thing is, these things about them that make them different are just little quirks, and if they weren't around to irritate me with those quirks, I'd miss them substantially.

They are really awesome people who inspire me more and more every day.

 

Do we have the same mom? I went out to lunch one day with my mom and her work friends. They said, "Now we can't do Chinese or Mexican, as usual, because Waylon's mom doesn't like those!"

Despite all the ranting, I'll have to agree here. My parents sent two of us to a private college. Not Harvard or Notre Dame or Stanford, mind you, but at a significant cost, nonetheless. This was with my dad laid off from a factory job a large percentage of my childhood. My mom went back to school to be a teacher in her early 30s. A lot of people talk about doing something like that, and a lot don't follow through.

So I guess I'll cut her a little slack on the celebrity garbage. I guess it's just frustrating sometimes because you want to have a substantial, adult conversation with your parents, and you realize that their world isn't quite as big as yours is. It's kind of a startling revelation, when you spent all those years when you were little thinking these were the smartest, most enlightened people in the universe ...

During the same conversation the other day, I said, "Mom, you'd be more proud of me if I was on 'Dancing with the Stars' than if I became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court!"

She didn't exactly deny it.

 

Waylon, I feel ya. After a recent visit from my parents my boyfriend swears I was adopted.

It's hard when you realize your parents are human, with failings and shortcomings and ways they created bad examples for you. I'm still struggling with the fact that I love my mother but I don't particularly like the woman. And I feel a tremendous amount of guilt for that.

I'm outgoing like my dad and have the work ethic of my mom, both of which I'm thankful for. There are other similarities, some due to genetics and others just due to having 29 years of influence in my life. And there are similarities that I don't like. I try to be self-aware and recognize those things in myself and not let them perpetuate.

My brother and I are very different people (he's a materialistic frat boy and is proud to be called that), but he has the same problems with our parents. He's commented several times in the last few years how he finds them to be supportive but not particularly helpful, especially on issues of employment or finance.

When he became a lawyer with a corresponding paycheck and turned to them for financial planning advice, all they were able to offer was "save it." When I called them, bawling, after catching an ex-boyfriend cheating, my mother's advice was "it's a good thing you have a job so you can concentrate on your work." The good thing to come out of this is my brother and I are now more likely to turn to each other for advice.

It's also hard to live the roll of the black sheep in your family, even if you're not a complete outcast. It can be guilt-ridden and stressful. I wish I had answers, but I don't.

 

apparently all mothers except mine.

she does watch dancing with the stars; i just don't get the 10 minute stream of consciousness afterward. only the "that guy is a terrible dancer, why is he still here?" thing. she's competitive. i DEFINITELY know where i got that from.

 

My parents have just kind of given up on most things. Whenever I try to have a conversation about current events, I'm met with, "Who gives a shit?" or "I don't care."

As long as there's money for mortgage, bills and food, they don't care what else is going on. They just want to be left alone.

 

Sounds as if your mom encouraged you to become your own person, and not a clone of your parents. Sounds as if they did a great job.

And like most, the older I get, the smarter my parents are, and the more I appreciate some of the things they did when I was younger that I didn't understand at the time.

 

The funny part is one parent tried to claim I was like the other one for years. Maddening.

My mother is determined and will stop at nothing, but thinks "balance" is something solely related to a checkbook. My stepfather ... well ... I have to step back in the past because we've already lost him partially. Mentally, he'll never be the same.

We bicker and go back and forth on stuff all the time. I think part of it is they've never respected me as an adult - or worse, viewed me as one. Cannot begin to tell you how aggravating that is. The next time he listens to me will be the first, and that he won't listen to me in regards to anything, yet treats anything my mother says as gospel is exasperating - and completely defeating my current cause. I've said that so many times that I've shut up about it now. No point ... didn't listen before, so no point in continuing to shout at the walls.

My mother and I are twins on a few issues and completely different people on a lot of others. I think I get many of my root beliefs from her, but many others I have based on my own experiences, some of them probably drastically different from hers.

That it eats at me as much as it does is either thought-provoking or utterly disturbing - I don't know which. I just hope they know that I've done everything I can to do the right things and make good decisions.

 

I hear you. That's the tricky part. Realizing your parents aren't perfect but still loving them and, maybe even more difficult, liking them.

I try to imagine my dad as just some dude I met. Would I like him? Would we be friends? I don't think so. That's a very hard thing to deal with.

Of course, the love's always there. What I'm most thankful for is the example they've provided on how to love. They love each other and they love their kids in the most beautiful, unconditional way. In that respect, it's a great example to try to live up to.

Bringing this all back to sports. . .it's one of the few things I have in common with the ol' man. We can talk all day about it. It's probably the only thing we had in common when I was going through those torturous high school days. If it wasn't for that it would have been four years of silence. It's probably one of the reasons I really look forward to Saturday and Sundays in the fall.

 

The point that drove home similarities and differences between me and my parents came when I lived in an apartment with roommates.

My roommate had just put a wooden spoon in the dishwasher and I told him, "don't put wood in the dishwasher, it warps the wood." When I finished the sentence, I realized I used the exact same wording my mother used on me over a decade previously.

Another thing for me is when I'm driving. I sometimes do some things subconsciously that my father does. I was driving him and his partner home from the airport one time and the partner got on me about being in the lane I needed to be in when I made the turn onto a street to get home.

My dad immediately jumped in with, "I do the same thing. It's not that big a deal."

I also inherited my father's hatred of being parked next to gigantic SUVs and didn't realize it until he agreed with me.

 

That should be: "...and you're obsessed with who is dating whom from the 'Dancing with the Stars' cast!"

 

Oh my god, it's uncanny, isn't it? I see some of the EXACT same mannerisms in myself when I'm behind the wheel as my dad -- and my grandfather, in some ways -- has/had. The way I glance at my mirrors, the way I drive with one hand hanging over the wheel and tap the dashboard with my knuckles after checking the speedometer ... even the way I tailgate. Freaking uncanny.

And while I spent a good portion of my life living with the fear of Ray Kinsella -- that I would wake up one day and be all the parts of my father that I didn't like, or worse, having the same regrets he had in middle age -- I've found that the traits and habits I've inherited from him are overwhelmingly positive, and that I've made a conscious choice to discard the stuff I didn't like.

Even though we still don't talk very often or about virtually anything other than sports, that's given me more appreciation for him as, like others have said, I've realized how right he was on most things as I've gotten older.

 

Trust me on this: My mom wouldn't be able to ID the term "Brangelina" if I spotted her both Pitt and Jolie. She can, however, tell you exactly when the unmarried NASCAR drivers have rotated girlfriends.