We grow up watching our parents. We strive to be like them in the awesome things they do, and roll our eyes and swear we’ll never do the things that we think are silly. But there are a lot of things we get from our parents that fall between those two extremes, and many are things we don’t even notice that we’re doing.
When my father gets to work on something, it’s hard to get him to stop and take a break until it is finished. It doesn’t matter if it’s inside work (something accountanty) or outside work (repairs or yard work), and it doesn’t matter if it’s time for lunch now or was time for lunch two hours ago. It takes quite a bit of nagging sometimes to get him to pause long enough to eat or drink something so that he can continue to work.
It surprised me a couple of weeks ago while I was working on unpacking things in to our new place when I looked at the time and found that it was 3 PM and that I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. I laughed at myself and scrounged around for some food, but not before I finished what I was doing.
My mother talks to other drivers on the road. They can’t hear her, and she doesn’t mean them to. I wouldn’t call it “road rage,” since it’s just little comments like, “get out of my way, Individual,” or “come on, Boppy.” She never gets angry or shakes her fist at anyone else, so her "road rage" is more amusing to the passengers than anything else.
It surprised my mother when she was riding in the car with me recently and she witnessed my own version of her “road rage:” I said, “where are you going, Sally?” to a driver who couldn’t decide whether to turn or go straight. My mother said my name in a tone that means that she disapproves of my behavior, but I just grinned at her, since I knew exactly where I learned to do that.
We and our parents don’t realize how much their behavior influences the way we act. It happens without anyone really paying attention.
Good thing my parents are awesome.
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