If there’s one emotion that’s colored my entire year, it’s been anger. I’m doing my best with the hand that I’ve been dealt, but I’m realizing now that the man I dreamed I would be just might not ever happen. It’s making me pissed.
Let’s start off with things that I just haven’t learned:
- controlling my emotions and impulses
- how to trust people — i pretty much don’t
- live in community and forge good relationships
- how to organize for positive, social change
This pretty much makes my life a solitary hell-hole. I’m working on learning these things, though.
Now I’ll reflect on those things that I should’ve been taught by school or my parents but wasn’t. This is stuff I’ve learned on my own and often with the help of strangers, and I’m glad that I learned these things.
- communicate well
- how to meet the women I want without using the Internet
- manage financial matters
- code for a living
- do practical things, to clean, cook, make, repair, grow food
- be good mannered and know etiquette
- accept responsibility
- deal with grief, loss, and suffering
- clicker training dogs
Now that I look at it, my college degree is pretty useless except for down economic times when some HR stooge has to choose between someone with a degree and someone without. I really think my parents short changed me because during summers they would keep my locked up in my house, and I never really learned how to socialize or keep friendships. That really makes me and my dog, Niles, really similar because his previous owners locked him up in a yard, too, and that’s one of the reasons he’s messed up.
What do you wish your parents or school taught you but didn’t? What did you learn on your own, and were glad you did?
7 replies on “What School or My Parents Never Taught Me”
Hm… what brought this post on?
I’m always conflicted with this nature/nurture thing, because I find that my parents taught me very little, and I’ve always been an autodidact and personality-wise have been an extrovert (along with my sisters).
I’m glad I definitely learned to be an open and critical thinker on my own. Though, I am not sure if being a curious person is a personality trait or learned.
I am sure many of us can fill closets with lists of items our parents or traditional education haven’t taught us. Is it just me, or is it simultaneously a cultural AND generational thing? I find a lot of immigrant parents frightened of change and very insular — I had a conversation with my girlfriends recently and we compared notes: NONE of our parents have what we would call “genuine” friends or social lives. The one exception of our friends have parents where one is a professor and the other was a pastor — where you are naturally a social creature, and that passes down to their kids.
I laughed at “How to meet women I want without the internet” — at the end of the day, our generation _generally speaking_ have not been conditioned to start up spontaneous conversation. We’ve been taught about “stranger danger” since we could walk. So, even someone smiling and well-meaning can be misinterpreted in today’s society, especially if they don’t understand social cues (e.g. off-color jokes without first knowing their humour threshold, physical nearness without first establishing comfort, etc…).
There is this library somewhere in the States where you can book a 30-min conversation time with a person — nobody “special” per se, but someone just educated and wanting to talk… and it’s like, we’ve come to that? Where we need to have a structured way to make us feel comfortable to just chit chat with a well-meaning stranger?
I’ve learned a lot from my parents: to be independent, to manage money, not to settle (though I haven’t always followed through on that), perseverance, manners, and so much more. Both my mom and my dad have each provided wonderful examples for changing myself to be more in line with what I feel I am. My dad used to be extremely shy and now he’s one of the most outgoing people I’ve ever met; remembering that helped me get over my shyness. My mother is my inspiration for all things professional and for setting high standards and not letting anyone drag me down anymore.
@Lea my family moved here from Israel when I was just a baby so we retain most of our home culture. Perhaps it is the Israeli culture, but I never felt like my parents were at all insular or had no real friends; if anything, they’re some of the most social people I’ve ever met. Also, I’ve found that it’s very easy to overcome “stranger danger”; just make eye contact and say hi! So what if someone misinterprets? I’ve met some really cool people just by acknowledging their existence, and I can always make a polite excuse and leave if it turns out they’re creepy.
Karen, you make me sick. 😉 Just kidding! It sounds like you have a lovely family, but I wonder if they are more the exception than the rule. I’m always curious when I meet people wit non-dysfunctional parents, haha.
Regarding “stranger danger” — I think I’ve outgrown most of my suspicions, especially since I work on the web. I’ve always been an open person. My point with that was that was a trait NOT taught by my parents, and I think other people’s parents also perpetuate.
@Karen, that’s a great family to have.
@Lea, my dog has been going through a lot of trainers. I’m sending him to his 3rd trainer in a year. When we talk about my dog’s childhood wherein he experienced neglect and abuse, it really brings back memories of my childhood.
If you can learn web development and all these weird languages , you can learn all that other stuff. The frustration may come from wanting to transfer that expertise in one area where you dominate into another one where you are still taking baby steps.
@Lea, @Barce my family is extremely dysfunctional with a ton of emotional and physical abuse in our history. However, that doesn’t negate the good lessons even if I had to unlearn other lessons they taught me.
@Karen fair enough, and very true. Not ALL our experiences are 100% bad. For example, good stuff: my parents definitely taught me my love for food and adventure. Also, being loud. 🙂 Which some may think is good, some may think is bad. (i think depends on the situation)