Have You Become Your Parents?

I’ve been blogging for almost seven years now (on several different sites). My current website “A Daddy Blog” was established in honor of my baby girl’s arrival in 2008. Today I was looking at some of my old blogs from other sites, and ran across the following.

Looking at the date on the blog post below, and doing a bit of math, I’ve determined my wife had literally just gotten pregnant with our daughter when I wrote this, though we could not have know yet. I wish it had  been an ode to the joys of parenting, but…

It instead it was humorous look at some of the thing my parents said when I was a kid. This was written before CBS aired a show I’ve never seen, “$#*! My Dad Says”. I think this stuff resonates because everyone’s parents said… well,  “$#*!”.


Here’s my original blog from late 2007:


I was having a nostalgic moment this morning, thinking back to the many wonderful, loving things my parents said to my brother and me over the years. Which then lead me to think about some of the perhaps less wonderful things they said. 😉

Because I said so, that's why!I often wonder if I’m going to do or say some of the same things when I become a parent. For those of you who have kids, have you become your parents? What kinds of things did your parents do or say to you? Here are a few quips I remember.

  • I distinctly recall my mom saying, “If you break your leg don’t come running to me!”
  • And of course whose dad didn’t say, “Close the refrigerator door; do you think I’m made of money?”
  • Did your mom do this to you? Mine would spit on the ever present Kleenex wadded in her purse and then wipe dirt off my face with it. I’m pretty sure the dirt was more sanitary.
  • Family road-trips were always a joy, “Don’t make me stop this car and come back there!”
  • My dad after making me cry, “Stop your blubbering or I’ll give you something to cry about!”
  • I was in real trouble when my mom used all three of my given names, “Michael William Joseph!”
  • Oh and my favorite, when getting spanked, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” Right!
  • Lastly, my mom would say to my little brother, “If Michael [me] told you to jump off the roof, would you?” The answer to that of course was… well, yes! And he did. 😉

If mom's not happy, no one is!Now don’t get me wrong. I adore my parents [I wrote about my late father here]. I’m just wondering if we’re destined to become them? Hmmm. So… what kinds of things did your parents say to you? Do you ever catch yourself saying something they used to say?

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  1. I can’t help but think that there is no possible way I’ll ever be as good a parent and mine were, but I’ll die trying! 🙂

    1. Hi Esther,

      I’ve been reading your blog for a while. I’ve no doubt you are as good a parent as yours, or darned close. Thanks for dropping by. I need to come catch up on your recent posts. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

      -Michael (aka: Daddy)

  2. OH soooo MANY things…

    The first thing that made me cringe after hearing myself say it was when my son was about 3 years old…he started in on the WHY questions…after so many questions in answer to my answers that it just became absurd to NOT answer with ‘because I said so’… “Because I said so” was always the most accepted answer that often stopped the current line of questioning…before a new line/subject of questioning would start up. You’ll understand in a year or two…

    ‘Clean this up before your daddy gets home’ is another line that is often used now.

    One that I’ve used on my husband is ‘I’m glad you’re the one that pays the electric bill’ when he leaves a door open… The version told to the kids is ‘You don’t pay the electric bill, so unless you want to start paying the bills or doing more chores I advise you shut the door’…

    ‘1…2…I better not get to three….’ is a favorite line that gets the most desirable reaction.

    1. ’1…2…I better not get to three….’ is a favorite line that gets the most desirable reaction.

      I’m happy to see my parents… and now myself are not the only ones. LOL.At least (as of yet) I’ve not said some of the things my parents did. Ah, but there is still time.

  3. I hope to be so lucky to talk and act like my parents someday.
    And I totally can validate all the statements your parents made too even if they sounded silly then I get it. and support it:)

    D

    1. Yep, you have some super great parents. I was so happy to visit and spend time with them this Thanksgiving. One could definitely stand to learn a lot from them. Yeah, I was kinda writing the original post from the kids point of view on the parent-isms. I do, of course, as I’m becoming my parents, get it now. LOL.

  4. What’s really nice is Mikeal has had quite a bit of ‘practice’ with the 1..2…..3 that all I have to do most days is snap my fingers and start counting without uttering a word. The ‘finger count’ works just as many wonders.

    1. I’m pretty sure if you snapped your fingers and started counting, I’d tow the line. Kinda scary. =0

    • Jersey Diva Mom on at
    • Reply

    LOL! This is great! Some of my mom’s lines come right out of my mouth, others I now understand. “I don’t what possesses you sometimes?!”… “If you had a brain in your head, you’d be dangerous” was a fav of hers & mine now. I also know I too frequently tell me son, “no one likes a smarta**.” I know the day will come he retorts like I did at age 12. “well, it’s better than a stupid a**!” It was kind of *fade to black* for me after that comment.

    I also put the fear of God into my sons with, “Just wait till your father finds out!” … which he said used to panic him as a boy even though the anxiety was worth than his dad’s actual reaction.

    Thx for the smile!

    1. Glad I could bring a laugh. Goodness knows what may come out of my mouth as my 2 year old grows. It will likely be different for me in some ways, as growing up it was just two boys. Now I have a little girl. We’ll see.

  5. Because I said so, amongst others.
    Yep. I’m my mom. And my dad too.
    Sigh

    1. We’ll, if like most of us, we are at least a little bit of both parents… hopefully we’ll mostly pick up the good things about them. This post was mostly meant tongue-in-cheek. We all do the best we can.

  6. I catch myself sounding like my mom a lot.

    1. Do you? You seem like a pretty darned good mom, so I’m sure much of what you picked up from her is good stuff. 🙂

    • Nathan Greenberg on at
    • Reply

    I still catch myself doing many things differently from my parents. But or those things which are so very important (the value of reading, the importance of having choices, understanding respect), I know I do things similar to what my parents did for me.

    And whether I do them differently or the same, its fun to think back on those childhood moments and do some comparing.

    1. Hey Nathan. Thanks for dropping by from proactivedads.com! If you’re covering value of reading, the importance of having choices, understanding respect, etc… then it sounds like you and your parents are doing/did just fine. Yeah, it’s fun looking back. Do you have siblings. I’ll bet it’d be fun for you to share some of those memories. Have a great week!

        • Nathan Greenberg on at
        • Reply

        I’m an only child and have a huge collection of memories dealing with my parents placing a high priority on education and responsibility. They really are great parents. And, as I said, I catch myself mimicking many of the things they did with me. I hope its all for the benefit of my son.

  7. That made me giggle. I remember my parents saying a lot of the same things. I cannot think of anything I have done to become like my parents… maybe I am blocking it out!

    1. Hey Laura. Yeah, I’m guessing many of these have been handed down parent to child for generations. It’s part of our cultural oral tradition. 😉

  8. Oh yeah, I am so much like my mom now its scary and funny! She was a good mom though and I hope and pray I am doing half as well as she did!

    There are so many that come out of my mouth, most of them you already listed. Biggest one is always, ‘because I said so!’

    1. Hey Nicole. Great to see you. How are you faring in the cold up there? I assume if it’s this bad here it’s much worse farther north. “Because I said so” is a classic. I always hated my dad saying, “I’ll give you something to really cry about.” I hope I never say anything like that.

  9. Very funny… It sounds like our folks went to the same school for parenting.

    I hope to never repeat these offenses, but I do remember the day I first did something like my mother. I was angry and I talked through my teeth, you know the ever present “NOW!” deep-growl, angry look, showing all teeth. Luckily, I was speaking to the dog. I hope my son never sees the look at him. Yikes.

    1. I certainly hope no one talks to their child as they would to a dog. LOL. I’m sure I’ve snapped at the dog when he’s chewed up something. But when my 2 year old wrote on the couch in red ink I was completely calm. We’ll see how I do when she’s 16. LOL.

  10. it’s very difficult not to do some of the same actions as our parents when we become a parent. we also can realize that our parents make mistakes and we can go down a different path as a parent to “test the waters”. rose

    1. So true. Nothing says we have to make the mistakes of our parents. Hopefully we learn from what they did well and leave the other stuff behind. Mostly I was poking fun at the things parents say. LOL. Great to see you, Rosie. Heading over to your blog now.

  11. Oh my gosh, you made me laugh. Every single one of the things your parents said to you, my parents said to me! Took me back in time …

    Thanks for the walk down my own memory lane:)

    1. Yeah, my parents, especially my dad, we’re classic 60’s stereotypes. They were great parents, but I think it’s hard to not repeat what your parents say.

    • shelley (@momma_oz) on at
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    I have most definately turned into my parents – at least in the phrases I use – NEVER dreamed some of the things that come out of my mouth. thanks for sharing these gems 🙂

    OH! BTW – While I’m here – I have given you a Stylish Blogger award! Check it out and Keep up the great posts 🙂

    1. Shelly, thank you so much for the Stylish Blogger award. I’ve gotten it a few times recently and keep meaning to return the “favor”. LOL. I do like to share new blogs I love with friends. Thank you again, so much!

  12. Haha… this is hilarious! I’ve heard so many of these at different points in my upbringing. And sometimes I find myself almost about to say some of these, but I don’t. I CAN NOT become my guardians. At all. However…. I DO use my son’s full name when I want to really get his attention. Hilarious!

    1. LOL. Yeah, that use of the full given name when a child is in trouble must be a historic parenting staple. Yeah, I try to resist saying most of it, and have been pretty successful. Certainly there are parenting differences between my parents and my wife and I, but I’m sure under stress things may slip out. 😉

  13. Great topic, and yes, there are things I recognise! Sometimes I try to stop what I feel I am about to say because I know it’ll go in one ear and out the other–I know this because of my childhood experience, of course!

    1. True, Michelle. If it didn’t work when our parents said it, then what’s the point of saying it ourselves. It’s just hard to win out over that programming. Sometimes things slip out before we can catch it. So far I’ve done quite well, but I’m thinking it will become more of a challenge when she hits 14 or so?

  14. This is hilarious! Besides all the things you’ve already named, my mom would look at me with this evil eye. And I’d stop everything I was doing in my tracks. See she didn’t have to say anything sometimes, because that evil eye freaked me out. Guess what? Now I’m forming my own evil eye.

    1. You’re forming your own “evil eye”? I’m pretty sure that would freak me out. LOL. I’ll have to come check out your post about The Tiger Mom once I make some coffee. Have a great morning.

    • Lalas Pequenos on at
    • Reply

    My dad was Costa Rican and while we were living in the states he tried to adopt some of the English sayings. None of it ever made any sense. Particularly in high school he would say…”You have medicine to make your head dumb?” which was supposed to be ” Have you been taking those dumb pills again?”
    It just made me giggle.

    1. LOL… that’s funny. It’s especially hard to translate certain idioms from one language to another. I grew up in Europe and it was quite the insult in German to point at one’s head and say “du hast einen Vogel!” But if I said that in English it wouldn’t carry the same clout, “you have a bird!” 😉

  15. Stopping by from Mom Loop!
    I see my parents in me not so much in the words, but in my tone of voice, and especially in my face. Just the way the lines of my face sit, the shape of it. I also see my grandparents there – all 4 of them.

    1. Well, we are a product of our parents, and they of theirs, so that makes sense. Hadn’t really thought about my grandparents influence, but now that you mention it I can see some of that, too. They were great, btw, so I’m sure most of their influence was good. 🙂

    • Tabitha Blue / Fresh Mommy Blog on at
    • Reply

    Haha, it’s so true. It’s all the things I didn’t want to do or say… and then it seems like sometimes I catch myself mid-stride doing it! But my parents taught me so many good lessons, that maybe it’s not so bad and it will give my kids something to talk about when they’re older I guess. 🙂

    1. Who knows what form blogs will take in the future. Perhaps our kids will plug something into the back of their heads and just share their thoughts and memories. I’m pretty sure if something like that is ever invented it will be named the iPlug.

  16. This is so funny! I actually heard myself say something that my mom would say to me all the time and it made me freeze with shock and horror for a second. I love my parents, and I think they did a great job raising me (heh-heh) but I thought I would be a much cooler and more savvy mom.

    So glad to have found your blog, it’s refreshing to hear a father’s point of view!

    1. Hi Dina. Thanks for finding my blog… glad you like it. So you have caught yourself saying something your mother said, eh? I’m sure you are a “cool and savvy mom” and picked up the best traits of your parents. At least that’s what I hope I’ve done. LOL.

  17. Yep, my parents said lots of these. Two of my personal favorites:

    “Oh, you think you grown now?”

    and

    “Have you lost your ever-lovin’ mind?”

    I still don’t know exactly what the latter means.

    My least favorite: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” I always felt like, dude… thanks but no thanks. I already have something to cry about. That’s kind of why I am… crying. haha

    1. My least favorite: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” I always felt like, dude… thanks but no thanks. I already have something to cry about. That’s kind of why I am… crying.

      Too funny, Natalyn. Yeah, I hated when my dad was pulling his belt off to spank me and said, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” Yeah, right, dad. 😉

  18. Wow! Great blog… but my computer doesn’t like it for some reason. Our internet is being wonky today!

    Great post. The thing I do that my mother always did was having my own ‘mommy language’ when I get distracted or upset and can’t speak coherently, I just make something up using mommy language. It relieves the tension.

    Plus, my mom had this… call… for us. Almost like a Carol Burnett tarzan yell, but not quite. I still use that call for my kids. In the store, at the park… they come running.

    1. Thank you. Please let me know if you think the problem your computer had with my blog was due to something specific to my blog. I’d like to improve the design for both performance and also just to make it more fun and useful. You use the “Carol Burnett tarzan yell” in public and your kids don’t run the other way? LOL. Actually I’d like to learn how to do the fingers in the mouth NYC taxi whistle. Never learned how. Thanks for dropping by and have a wonderful day!

    • JDaniel4's Mom on at
    • Reply

    It really does hurt when I have to spank JDaniel.

    1. LOL… yes, but from a child’s perspective it really doesn’t help JDaniel to be told that. 😉

  19. A daddy blog…this is awesome, yea!! You also have some great post, I’m looking forward to reading them!

    Madison

    1. Thank you so much, Madison. I appreciate your enthusiasm. As a new reader of your blog, I understand that’s your style. I encourage my readers to go check your blog out by clicking on your name. Have a wonderful day.

  20. I have been a parent for 20 years, and while I have a good relationship with my parents I swore to do things differently, and yet, I have still become my mother! 🙂 I definitely have repeated the things I have learned from my parents, some good, some bad, but my kids turned out ok. And yes they blame me for things they are unhappy about just like I blame my parents, I think that’s part of the territory.
    I wanted to add one of my favorites…finish your dinner, there are starving children in China. 🙂
    I like your blog, just came across it today! Nice to hear a dad’s perspective!

    1. Finish your dinner, there are starving children in China.

      Yep, that was a classic. I’m pretty sure my grandparents said that one. My daughter is only two, so I’ve not become my parents just yet, but hope if I do it’s the good stuff I replicate. Thank you so much for dropping by. I’m heading over to visit you on your site in just a minute. Glad you like getting a dad’s perspective. It should come with a disclaimer that it’s just “this” daddy’s perspective. 😉

  21. thanks for your comment on my post re photos/ grandchildren. i think we have the BEST grandchild, i’m biased. rosie

    1. LOL. I’m forced to agree. Thanks for all you do, Rosie!

  22. Found you through Twitter & so glad I did! What a compelling topic – and I love your list of things your parents told you as a kid. I must confess to using the “Kids are starving in Africa/India/Insert 3rd world country here” thing, but my parents never said that. Hoping I’m not my parent’s worst selves and just take bits of the best of them. Thanks for the post.

    1. Hoping I’m not my parent’s worst selves and just take bits of the best of them.

      That’s all we can hope for. Take the best and do our best to discard the rest. A pleasure to meet you. I’m heading over to visit you on http://themomalog.com.

    • Shirley Castro on at
    • Reply

    My daughter is only two, so I’ve not become my parents just yet, but hope if I do it’s the good stuff I replicate. BTW – While I’m here – I have given you a Stylish Blogger award! Thx for the smile!

    1. Thank you so much for the award. I’m honored. As for becoming your parents, it’s never too early or too late, Shirley. 😉

    • Tweets that mention Have You Become Your Parents | What $#*! Did YOUR Dad Say? | A Daddy Blog™ -- Topsy.com on at

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