Discussion » Questions » Family » Did you turn out like your father and was that necessarily a good thing?

Did you turn out like your father and was that necessarily a good thing?

Posted - April 10, 2021

Responses


  • 11012
    I did not. That is a very good thing.
      April 10, 2021 6:03 PM MDT
    4

  • 8214
    NO!
      April 10, 2021 6:16 PM MDT
    6

  • 11112
    Well I don't know who my daddy is so I can say no I didn't turn out like him (both of my boys know me very well). So it is a good thing. Cheers and happy weekend! This post was edited by Nanoose at April 11, 2021 10:32 AM MDT
      April 10, 2021 6:26 PM MDT
    5

  • 53509
     
    Wow, by a strange coincidence, my response mirrors yours so much that it’s eerie:

    Well, I‘ve never known my biological father, so on many levels, I cannot say whether or not I turned out like him, but both of my children know me very well.
     
      April 10, 2021 11:47 PM MDT
    3

  • 11112
    It would be a extra strange coincidence if your children grew up with 331/3 relatives. I felt bad that my kids didn't have relatives like their friends (my mom turned her back on me because of the woman I married) so I cut out photos of rock stars - framed them and hung them on the wall. There was a photo of Tom Petty wearing a pair of Groucho Marx glasses and I wrote Uncle Tom Being Silly at the bottom and their Aunt was Patti Smith. Their grandma and grandpa was a  photo of Burton Cummings skipping through a garden with a woman wearing a paper bag over her  head - at the bottom I wrote grandma and grandpa's first date - kind of mean but I was a bit bitter back then. Cheers! This post was edited by Nanoose at April 11, 2021 1:00 PM MDT
      April 11, 2021 9:21 AM MDT
    4

  • 53509

     

      Being in a mixed-nationalities marriage, and being a military family, my children grew up without being surrounded by any grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Their entire lives, they’ve only met or interacted in person with fewer than a dozen members of the extended family, and even then it was sporadic and temporary. Their maternal grandfather died before they were born, they were about 8 and 9 before we traveled “back to the old country” where they met their maternal grandmother for the first time, she does not speak English and they do not speak the mother tongue. Their paternal grandfather is unknown, they met their paternal grandmother when they were about 12 and 13.

      I also have some thoughts and feelings about how my children grew up in such a small family unit: ma, pa, and two kids. It’s certainly had ramifications in how they are now as adults, and in their interactions with others. Not only that, it’s hit my wife and I.  We both grew up with large families, large extended families, each other us with varying levels of closeness with some of those family members, ranging from seemingly inseparable to no will or desire to have any contact. From that, we embarked on a glove-trotting adventure that changed addresses every few years and new culture shocks at each stop. We also brought two children into this world under those circumstances.
    ~

      April 11, 2021 12:55 PM MDT
    0

  • 34293
    Yes and yes.
      April 10, 2021 8:33 PM MDT
    5

  • 16794
    I didn't. I consider it a good thing, I've been much closer to my children emotionally than I ever was to my Dad.
      April 10, 2021 10:34 PM MDT
    6

  • 53509
    Wow, by a strange coincidence, my response mirrors Nanoose’s so much that it’s eerie:

    Well, I‘ve never known my biological father, so on many levels, I cannot say whether or not I turned out like him, but both of my children know me very well.
    ~
      April 10, 2021 11:46 PM MDT
    5

  • 10052
    Overall, not too much and it is good. I didn't inherit his temper, violence or intolerance. 

    My dad had some admirable traits that he instilled in me and I've passed to my own children; kindness to strangers and animals and appreciation of nature being the ones I hold most dearly. 
      April 11, 2021 9:36 AM MDT
    5

  • My dad and I are both introverted, we both have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, we both love the outdoors...there are downsides to my dad's personality just like there are to mine. But I'm happy to turn out like him.
      April 11, 2021 9:49 AM MDT
    6

  • 13277
    We all turn out like our parents whether or not we are aware of it. It's rather inevitable and difficult to avoid.
      April 11, 2021 10:08 AM MDT
    3

  • 53509

     

      That’s an extremely inaccurate claim. While it’s true that many personality traits and others aspects of self are hereditary, it’s by no means an absolute. There are plenty of ways a person can be a carbon copy of both or either parent, just as there are plenty of ways a person can be the exact opposite of both or either parent. Environment, culture, life’s circumstances, situational issues, etc. are relevant factors in the way any person is, in addition to influences of genes or other parts of self derived directly from parents. 

    ~

      April 11, 2021 12:39 PM MDT
    0

  • 13277
    I disagree to the extent that we are unknowingly and unconsciously influenced by our parents' personalities and patterns of behavior virtually from birth.
      April 11, 2021 1:13 PM MDT
    0

  • 53509

     

      Disagree all you like, you’re wrong. It generalizes far too much to assume that what you state is wholly accurate.

      For instance, a newborn is taken halfway across the world and raised by people who have largely nothing in common with either of his or her biological parents. The environment is so vastly different than that child’s siblings’ environment, all of whom are raised by both of those biological parents. While it’s true that certain hereditary influences and innate characteristics remain, it’s illogical to say that ALL remain. In fact, I’ll go a step further and state that so few of them remain that within an extremely short period of time, few nuances from the bio parents would be recognizable in that child. By adolescence and adulthood, there might not be enough left to make a connection. 

    ~

      April 11, 2021 1:20 PM MDT
    0

  • 44620
    Like Randy and Nanoose, my father disappeared when I was very young. He ran off with another woman, went to Vegas as a professional gambler, and I never saw him again. I am not a total opposite; I inherited a few of his traits, but I always provided for my family.
      April 11, 2021 10:37 AM MDT
    1

  • 53509

     

      A correction: I think that in my case, my biological father departed within minutes after fertilization, so I do not have the experience of “never having seen him again”.
    ~

      April 11, 2021 12:41 PM MDT
    0