Ready for another trainwreck thread?

Here we go.

This week was easy. Some of us have had some reasons to think our parents might not be as stupid as we thought they were. Sure, looking at your parents now you do realize that them there were some smart peeps, but back in the days of yore, you thought they were dummy head old people. so we thought what the hell. Let's think back and see if we remember anything they told us. Some words of wisdom. Things like "your face will freeze like that" or "if you can't say something nice, blah blah".

Some were funny, and some were serious but most of the writers got their pearls of wisdom in before the deadline so without any further ado.....

What are some words of wisdom your parents gave you?

Josh

This trainwreck was my idea because my dad's coming today to visit, so I'll share a couple of tidbits of advice he gave me when I was about 9 that really stuck with me. The one I still respect to this day is "It's not what you say, it's who you say it around." I've personally tweaked that mantra to say "It's not what you say, it's how you say it and who you say it around." My sense of humor can be very caustic at times, because offensive things can be funny. However, I'm not out to hurt anyone. I'd never say anything maliciously. Unless you're Dutch. In which case, Eff you.

The other thing he said stuck with me since both he and my mother are entrepeneurs, as was his dad and his grandfather. He said "When you own your own business, you're allowed to work half days. More than that, you're allowed to pick which 12 hours that half day is." He instilled a work ethic in me that I try to use every day. Except when I'm answering emails like this on company time. And with cleaning. Cause screw cleaning.

Branden

"Don't beat yourself up. Life is too short to run around feeling bad about yourself."

Still working on that one. But it is great advice. I feel a large amount of guilt on a daily basis, and that's not the way it should be.

Dave in Texas

Mom's was pretty consistently "be pleasant. Show good manners. If you can't say anything nice about someone..."

Which didn't mean much to me at the time, but now that she's been gone for 4 years, it's the legacy she left in the world. Every person I know who knew her thought she was the sweetest woman in the world. I have heard people say more than once "she never had a bad thing to say about anyone".

Not a bad way to be remembered. Kinda reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in Harvey. "My mother used to say, she'd say 'Elwood', because that's my name, she'd say 'Elwood, in this world, you can be oh so clever or oh so pleasant'. Well, I recommend pleasant".

Michele

my father gave me a LOT of great advice when I was younger, none of which i ever took. Perhaps his best advice then was "learn from your own mistakes." Which I have.

He also told me "don't sweat the small stuff." that was his mantra. I was never able to do that until recently, like in the last year or so.

I really wish I listened harder to him back then. At least he's still dispensing invaluable advice to me. Like "don't sh*t where you eat."

Ian

Most of what I learned from my dad, I learned from watching and learning; he wasn't really big on the quotable anecdotes. Education can turn your world around. Don't f*ck it up, but know that family will always be there if you do.

Actually, my dad just had surgery this week, so perhaps I should ask him. I bet he's philosophical when the painkillers are doing the talking.

Richard

My Father's been dead for 15 years, and he only said it once, but it was something along the lines of: "It's all well and good to know things, son, but don't brag about your knowledge of the price of tea in China with your Chinese tea dealer." It was a bit more succinct than that, he was a rather brilliantly quotable guy, but I just don't remember his phrasing. Basically, don't be so quick to show off all you think you know; an expert trumps a bullshitter almost every time. A prize winning bullshitter told me that, misty-eyed, miss-my-Dad time.

Jo

My mom always gave me the strangest advice on stuff when I was a kid, stuff I never understood until I grew up and had to use it. Stuff like "When you can see the bottoms of the leaves in a tree, a storm is coming." or "If you are in a field where all the bottoms of the leaves on a tree are flat, you are in a cow field." But I'd have to say the best advice I ever got from Mom was how to handle my anger without hurting anyone. She told me that if I got mad to the point where I wanted to hurt someone, I should "take a carton of eggs, find a wall/tree/something solid, imagine the person's face that has upset me and throw the eggs and said target." The whole point in this exercise is for the thrower (me) to get the satisfaction of throwing and breaking something that is utterly destroyed afterwards AND no one gets hurt. Best advice EVER! I've given it to friends of mine and its worked as well.

Pirate

All I was told was "Wear a condom son, otherwise you're the one who's
gonna get fucked". I think this was sometime after my first marriage.

Dad was a little slow.

Turtle

I think the best words of advice I had ever heard from my dad was that I wasn't unique.

Believe it or not, that stuck with me. The thought that no matter what I had done, who I fucked and fucked over, how much of a bad ass I thought I was, all I had to do was raise my chin and I would see a hundred motherfuckers who were ten times as bad as me and the easiest way to die was to think that i knew more than anyone else.

He also taught me to ignore the loud people when it's calm and listen the calm people it's loud.

Cause loud people get people killed.

That got me out of a lot of shit.

Pops was a realist.

Tim Shaw

My Dad’s advice:

“In the balls. Hard.”

Shawna

I don't really remember anything my parents told me other than my mother saying that if you wait long enough, your opportunity to speak your mind will present itself in the most opportune time rather than flying off the handle in the heat of the moment. And she's right.

The other piece advice that I remember came from my older brother (twelves years older than me). When I was five, he told me not to eat raw brown sugar right out of the box cuz it would give me worms. I was 5. I believed him. We still laugh about it now, although I no longer believe I will get worms from brown sugar.

Pat

Okay. From my mother after she figured out I wasn't a virgin anymore: "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" (Sorry, Mom.) From my father, by his example my entire young life: "It doesn't matter what you do for a living, get your satisfaction from doing it to the best of your ability." That was a hell of a work ethic - makes any job worthwhile. As a mother to my own child: "I don't ever want to hear that you started it, but by damn, I'm gonna teach you how to finish it - knee or foot, real hard, right between the legs. When they hit the ground, run like hell." This when I taught my first-grader how to defend herself from the bullies beating up on her on the way to school. She dropped one the following day, and they never bothered her again.

Jim

I haven't learned any specific pearls of wisdom from my father, but he has taught me to fine art of being thrifty without being cheap. Coupon cutting, BOGO, getting the generic brand over the name brand, buying hundreds of cans of soup that you might now need immediately, but could use in the future... it may not be "advice", but at least my freezer is stocked with steak and chicken.

Philbrick

My dad warned me that if I found a job I didn't like that paid the bills I would be there for the next thirty years. Hence, I have never had a job that paid the bills. Make of that what you will.

Johnny

"hide evidence," my old man always used to say.

Timmer

After my sister got arrested for shoplifting my Dad said, "I'm not punishing you for doing it, I'm punishing you for getting caught."

Cullen

When I joined the Army my dad (an Air Force master sergeant) told me I should have joined the Air Force. He said, "Why'd you join the military when you could have joined something like the military?"

Joel

I love that. Sounds very true, especially having just barely escaped retail.

I can't think of any great lines of advice my dad gave me, but he had one line he used sometimes when he was really pissed. "That really frosts my ass." Great line. Once he had me and a friend lined up, chewing us out for misbehaving, and he broke that one out. We couldn't help ourselves--we started to laugh. It was just too damn funny at the time.

Man, did that piss him off. He looked about ready to kill us at that moment.

Dan

Dad said

"You get caught in a lie and it takes forever to get that trust back. Don't ever cheat on your taxes because if they find a lie once they'll never leave you alone. You can find loopholes everywhere but don't be dishonest, it's not worth it."

I don't have the energy to be a bullshitter anyway. Remembering lies takes too much work.

----------------------------

So those are them. Parents maybe ain't so stupid after all cause some of these are pretty good. But enough about us. We know your parents had some interesting things to say.

Enlighten us.

Tell us how your parents were smarter than ours.

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