Parents.

[Mr. Blonde]

I was just semi-conscious while waking up, and for some reason started thinking about how crazy it is when you don't talk to someone (usually a girl) for like 6 months and then you see their facebook or myspace, and its like oh holy shit, hi i'm married now and even have a kid in some instances. Then I got to thinking about how fucking dumb it is to get married for a kid, or get married after only knowing someone for less than a year. THEN I thought; Oh shit, didn't my parents get engaged after only 9 months?

I'll touch back on that in a moment, but the purpose of this thread is to talk about our parents. Do you guys remember when you were first able to start judging your parents as other people, rather than your godlike parents that they were to you growing up? I was right around 20 when I actually started to question my parents' actions on logic and reason rather than just rebelling for the fuck of it. When we are growing up and we go against our parents, mostly it is just because its kinda in our DNA, peer pressure, but in the back of our minds none of us really have any good reason to think they're really doing things wrong or for the wrong reasons. This might not seem that profound to some of you, but I think its a pretty important part in ones life when someone can look at their own Mom or Dad and pick out all the little issues, quirks, or neuroticisms that most likely are different than your own, hence your ability to pick them out better.

Some examples of my own parents:

My mom grew up from a priveliged background (i didn't know this until a couple years ago) and ended up marrying a farmer. Obviously i'm sure there was a bunch of other shit going on with that when it actually happened, mainly her mother disagreeing (her father died when she was young), but that aside, she's kinda dumb. I mean she's learning a lot now that she's getting older, but she's just now starting to accept that things change and you either have to evolve with them or get left behind. Anyways, she argues like a child. When things escalate to a certain level she starts freaking out and losing her cool and yelling, which in turn is how I learned to argue growing up. Throwing little fits. Honestly it took until about Senior year of college for me to stop doing bullshit like that and realize "hey, this isn't how normal people handle arguments". My dad isn't naturally like this, but after so many years of being around my mom he eventually does the same thing. When I was home before coming out here I was hanging out one morning and they were arguing about something in the next room, I went in to see what was up, and they started yelling at me for being lazy. Just screaming about how I should have done this and that and blah blah blah. I tried to talk it out, but they kept yelling, so I started yelling back, louder, to get their attention. I was still in control, basically I was saying "IS THIS THE ONLY WAY I CAN GET YOUR ATTENTION? BECAUSE I CAN YELL TOO, BUT ITS NOT GOING TO MAKE THE ARGUMENT ANY EASIER TO DISCUSS, IN FACT IT MAKES IT HARDER. BUT I CAN DO IT IF THATS HOW YOU WANT TO TALK IT OUT" and then they kinda shutup. Then I said something like, I didn't plan to be here, i got delayed, but I can't read fucking minds. If you want me to do something, ask me, and I'll help out. Then I told them that they aren't even mad at me, they're mad at my youngest brother (because he's a fuckup and just wrecked his like 3rd car living at home) and that they've done this their entire life....when they're mad at somebody they take it out on everybody. I straight up looked at my mom and said "you're arguing like a child. grow up" and that shut them both up.

My dad: Overall my dad is a great person, but he's kind of a pussy when it comes to women. He puts them on a pedestal like i've never seen before and for some reason doesn't learn. He still insists that men should pay for everything at all times, even if you're just out with a girl who is a friend of yours, which I think is complete bullshit. He basically thinks women are perfect and never wrong, which explains how my mom gets/got away with so much bullshit growing up. Don't have too many complaints about him though, its just humorous to me how much he's done growing up to please my mom, some of it leading to the financial situation they're in right now (not great, but the piece of land they're sitting on right now is worth a shit ton, they're basically waiting for the right offer to retire) and she's still never happy.

Which leads me back to the marriage after a short amount of time thing. Granted, they were only engaged after 9 months, but still, way too soon IMO. Makes you wonder what was going on at that time. My dad claims he was taking girls on dates almost every night of the week, which I don't really doubt...girls love getting all their shit payed for and my dad was a pretty good looking dude. In regard to how much ass he was getting...who knows. He has never alluded to anything physical about women besides denoting how gorgeous they are, he's pretty respectful, (which is a lot more than I can say for most middle aged married men...holy shit some of the dirtiest fucks ever), and he was making pretty good money farming at the time. If I had to guess, I would say that all my mom's friends were getting married or something, and she wanted to get wifeyed up. If I recall correctly though, they were both almost engaged to other people when they met each other. I actually think my dad WAS. So who fucking knows.

Anyways. Discuss.

EDIT: In my parents defense, they didn't get married until they were about 25, which I'd say is about average today so probably even considered late back in the 70's. They also didn't have their first kid till they were about 27 or 28...also not bad.