Things your parents did that left a lasting good impression on you

Chalky

My parents were always hard workers. Dad worked 7 days a week until he finished work. They gave me the work ethic, just like many others have posted on here.

They also gave me unconditional parental love, and when I thanked them they'd always say "Don't thank us, just pass it on to your own kids and treat them the same".

@axisus - your Dad is a true gentleman.

@Danny1969 - your Dad was a man of real vision and determination!

bodhi

@Danny1969 ;

That's a great story, for sure!

Danny1969

Thanks for all the kind comments. Having just posted in another thread and included pics, like I have done so many times before I realised I got that from my Dad ... if you build something take pictures cos it's great to look back on

TTony

If this ...



... is what he was aiming at @Danny1969, thank Winnie's Bago he missed.  

Because his version is far better looking!

1979

@Danny1969  that’s wicked fella

I lived with my grandparents from age 8 to leaving home at 23 and my grandad was intelligent and kind, something I try and aspire to. One winter night in my teens I was out drinking and lost my friends,cash and set out walking the 8 miles home through country lanes,in about minus 5 . I drunkenly called the home land line and my grandad answered, bearing in mind it was 2am he was up ,luckily. I told him where I was and which route I was taking home. So however  later it was I see a cycle front light coming out of the pitch black, cigarette smoke rising into the clear night air. He pulls up in front of me, asks if I’m ok and gives me a hat and coat he had bought along. We carried on walking for a bit and then he stopped and made a small fire to warm us both. He never mentioned being put out or gave any inclination that he was angry with me. I miss him a lot but try to be kind, which I think he would have wanted me to

EricTheWeary

I’m not saying my father didn’t have a work ethic but he had school holidays and retired at 55 ( when I was 17) so I remember him not at work really. 
My memory of it is that he enjoyed his retirement - did an OU degree, worked part time, sorted the garden, took up bridge. Years later when I met MrsTheWeary her father had retired at 65 and seemed to go straight into daytime telly and pointless bus journeys. I think the lasting impression was that there is more to life than work.
He was very interested in travel but my mother wouldn’t normally go, so he had the odd trip with my brothers and took my sister and me to California after I finished my degree. 

@Danny1969 would you be okay with me sharing those photos on one of my Facebook motorhome groups? I think some people would find them interesting. 

Danny1969

@EricTheWeary ; yes that's fine mate thanks

I'm glad your dad enjoyed his retirement as it's meant to be, so many people are rudderless once they retire and their lack of motivation and movement seems to affect their health detrimentally 

Zoolooter

Unfortunately, very little.

EricTheWeary

Danny1969 said:

@EricTheWeary ; yes that's fine mate thanks

I'm glad your dad enjoyed his retirement as it's meant to be, so many people are rudderless once they retire and their lack of motivation and movement seems to affect their health detrimentally 

Cheers  

speshul91

My mum is the reason I have mental health issues. 

EricTheWeary

https://i.imgur.com/fCk5PDe.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/WjXsCPK.jpg

@Danny1969 had a lot of people like your photos , someone identified it as a Commer walk through van (?).
A couple of people shared photos but I particularly
liked these from a chap called Frank who shared ones of his self build 1972 mash up of a caravan and an ex Gas Board van. 

57Deluxe

violent fighting and incessant arguing

Danny1969

@Danny1969 had a lot of people like your photos , someone identified it as a Commer walk through van (?).
A couple of people shared photos but I particularly
liked these from a chap called Frank who shared ones of his self build 1972 mash up of a caravan and an ex Gas Board van. 

Yeah it was a Comma Walk through, there were a lot of Comma vans round when I was a kid. Often built with sliding doors and the engine between the front seats. 

quarky

I really struggle to think of specifics, but my Dad "left" (technically I think my Mum left with my brother and I) when I was about four and I didn't see him again until I was about 14. 

My Mum has her heart in the right place, and I think gave me the principle that your wife and kids comes before everyone else (which I do try and follow, although not always successfully!). She wasn't a great disciplinarian, or parent really, in many ways. I remember when my first was born, she said "remember they are little adults", and I thought "no, they are kids", you can treat them as adults! She was *very* laid back about everything, and have a fairly Laissez-faire approach to parenting.

My Step-Dad taught me that you can't just let kids grow up themselves, and you need to provide structure and discipline, which I now recognise as important. It doesn't mean that you can't have fun and be a friend with your kids (you need to do that too), but you firstly, need to be a parent. If my Mum hadn't married my Step-Dad, I honestly think things wouldn't have turned out great. We were living in an 80's council estate and I don't think I would have had the opportunities, or being given the chance to find the direction for my career. Honestly, I think I would have ended up as a football hooligan, or bit of a waster.

My Dad, who still lives on the other side of the world obviously went through a lot of crap in his life, but taught me (we have been in regular contact since I was 14) that however shit things can seem, you can always get through them. 

chillidoggy

Divorce.

Can't think of anything else.

underdog

I spent my childhood hating my father and his absence from my life, really we were strangers until my first born came along, it was his first grandchild. I suddenly stopped hating and give my son a chance to have his grandfather in his life.

Over the years since then he has proven to be a good father to me and grandfather to my children, I also realised him not being in my life wasn't his choosing but my mother's and mine (pushed on me by my mother at a young age). Now I've been alienated from my first born by my ex

I guess it taught me history does have a habit of repeating itself. Hopefully, in the end, giving me a chance to love my son again in person.

My mother taught me a lot, but even she admits now, what she thought she was doing in my interest was just her revenge on my father for leaving. So I guess for her, as well as teaching me about hard work, living and enjoying life with little money, the big one was that  even things done completely out of love can be the wrong thing to do.

munckee

My dad's general attitude to life has stayed with me the good things and the bad things, he has always been too quick to believe "experts" dr's salesmen, plumbers etc I think. 

I have great admiration for the way he always puts his family first, has never shafted anyone, always treats people with respect and makes sure he "stands his round" as per one of his favourite yorkshire expressions and this is probably the main lesson I have ever learned from anyone.

Dominic

I was a difficult breach birth which was more problematic nearly 60 years ago.
I was stuck the wrong way round and they eventually turned me using very long and quite brutal forceps.
Babies skulls are very soft ...............the lasting impression is that I have 2 big dents in my scalp.
I am "made of handsome ", a real silver Fox but I will be very ugly if I go bald as the dents will show and I'll simply need a pair of neck bolts to really complete the look .

Snap

@danny1969 that is such a cool story. Like a film. In a Field of Dreams sort of way! Ace.

I learnt a lot about how to live life from my folks. Good and bad.

My Dad is utterly fearless, and frankly mental. We are seriously considering writing a book about what he has done, and still does. There is a book/site/blog, whatever, called "Shit My Dad Says" -well this would be along the lines of "Shit My Dad Did"

He lives in a different world to the rest of us, I am sure. Very funny, but as a kid it was a nightmare. My mates loved him, but I spent a lot of years dying of embarrassment at some of his antics. Funny in retrospect, well mostly.

He once donned a kilt, full regalia, picked up some highland pipes and set off to Glencoe. From Lancashire. On arrival, he's poncing around, complete with all the gear and a chuffing great crook in his hand. A coach full of Americans turns up who he then convinced he was the King of Scotland. Many photos and a mini tour ensued.

One of his other favourite tricks was to ponce about dressed as a vicar. He once pitched up at our local pub, in the vicar outfit, on a busy weekend night, where I had worked for years, and picked up the mic behind the bar. He then did an adlib rap over whatever was on the jukebox. Not happy with one song, he carried on, egged on by everyone. Stuff of local legend, forver since know as the Rapping Reverend.

Years of this sort of stuff leaves its mark on your kids, lol

DarnWeight

My Dad?

Bullying, thin-skinned, gullible, quick to blame others, self-centred, over-inflated...I could go on.  I have a tough time picking through the windfalls to find much of anything palatable, so most of the good impressions I have come from my own determination to be as different a person to him as I can. 

He got falling-down, teary-eyed drunk (not uncommon) at his 60th birthday do (arranged at his own request), a bit over ten years ago now, and upset a lot of people...mostly his young grandkids, who weren't used to seeing their Grampy in such a state.  I tried to console him a bit through his snivelling, and suggested that maybe cutting back on the booze would make him, and the people around him, much happier.  He flat-out disagreed, and the next morning pretended like nothing had happened.  It literally never got mentioned again.  He's carried on in the same vein ever since, and I've reached a level of acceptance that there's nothing in him that I can change, or affect in a way that will make much of a difference to anyone.

My wife regularly tells me I'm everything that he isn't, so I suppose there's that.