Although it may seem like the general consensus growing up (in the wise words of Mr. Fresh Prince himself) is that “parents just don’t understand.”
Even though it seems like they are a broken record or out to make one’s life a living hell, it’s also true what they say…”parents know best.”
Interested in more stories? Take a look at the original threads at the end of the article.
My parents would always say, “If you work hard now, the rest of your life will be easier” when I was in high school.
2 semesters at a university. Dropout.
1 semester at a different university. Dropout.
Six months of hard labor.
Year of military training.
I’m finally back in school 3 years after I initially started and it’s so hard to get back in the groove of things. Wish I’d formed better study habits in high school.
deleted
Dad: “Heat never goes past 68! If you’re cold, put on a sweatshirt.”
In my own house with roommates, I set the heat at 75, enjoy a tropical month and then I get first heating bill. Promptly lock thermostat to 68.
My roommate whined and I told her to put on a sweatshirt.
kryrinn
My dad always told me not to be in a rush to grow up. I wanted to be 16 so I could drive, 18 so I could go on see ‘adult films’, 21 so I could go to the bars—now I’m 30 and I wish I was 12.
way_fairer
My mom always said there are 3 kinds of friends: friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.
Some of your friends are only friends because of a common activity, and others are friends for only a small portion of your life.
Acknowledging that at the beginning of college was one of the most important things for me to do to be able to gather the gumption to make new friends.
degco44
Dad: “You’ll hate everybody you work with if your try to get into film. I know you like movies and like making them, but most of the people you’ll have to deal with will be insufferable.”
Me: “YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND ME!”
One day into my introduction to film studies course and I couldn’t take it anymore. I never looked back.
MrPaleontologist
As a young teenager, this was said to me often: “I know it’s hard to imagine now but the age of 40 really isn’t that far away. Before you know it you’ll hit 40 and wonder how that happened so fast.”
It’s really quite simple. How many memories do you have from age 17? Now how many memories do you have from 35? Not as many? There you go!
When you’re older you stop doing fun stuff. Every single day is usually the same as the last. There is less to remember. So your life becomes forgettable. And time passes quicker.
Bifurcated_Kerbals & Anonymonynonymous
We never hooked up and I haven’t seen him since, not because I’m a prude but I felt pretty hurt by the message seeing as how I thought things were going well.
That’s not an isolated incident and in my experience, it’s like if you don’t get have sex with a guy within a week or two they lose interest, no matter how well you think things are going. I’m starting to feel pretty cynical towards men, especially those who complain there are no good girls out there.
erino89
I am so excited for my socks that should be arriving today.
My mother always told me I’d be grateful for gifts of clothes and I never believed her.
When I was about 10 or 11 my mom let us open one gift on Christmas Eve. It was socks and bath beads.
I wailed, I screamed, I made a jerk out of myself. In hindsight, I freaking loved those socks and bath beads make me tear up now as a 45-year-old grown woman.
I would give anything for my mom to be here to give me socks for Christmas again!
Overnight_Guy & GyahhhSpidersNOPE
“You shouldn’t eat an entire cake, it isn’t good for you”
The first thing I did when I moved out from my parents house was buy a cake and eat it, all of it. Because I was an adult and I could do what I wanted.
It hurt.
dudface
Dad: Go to college and get a degree, you don’t want to work like this your whole life.
I went to college, screwed around and didn’t get a degree. I’m currently working the way he said I didn’t want to work my whole life.
He was right, this sucks.
GoBrownies63
“When you turn 25 you’ll start getting a gut.”
“You won’t always be able to eat like that.”
30_rack_of_pabst
You’ll need a plunger in your new house.
At first I wondered why I would even need one since we never used it at all in my old house. I immediately regretted not getting one when crap got real.
petrichorE6
My Mom laughed at me when I told her I would marry my high school sweetheart.
When she cheated on me the first week of college, it was tough to admit my mom was right.
PickaxePete
“Never leave your drinks with anyone you don’t trust. Don’t trust them? Finish your drink. A smoke can wait.” ‘
I went out with a longtime friend and said friend’s boyfriend. They’d been going out roughly a month or two and we knew each other, sort of. We asked him to watch our drinks while we went outside to smoke and disregarded one of the golden rules of drinking. We came back and my friend ended up finishing my drink for me – one hour later, we’re in the hospital and she’s off her face. Everyone else claimed she drank too much but we’d had two drinks – that was it.
Later I come to find her “boyfriend” was abusive and also had quite a thing for me. We can’t prove it but we suspect he slipped something into my drink. Sheer bad luck on her part that he got her instead of me. We’re still friends, but she no longer speaks to the abusive jerk that potentially poisoned her.
McStaken
That I was too young to get married. I reaaaallly wish I listened to them.
I met my ex-husband when my dad was stationed in Germany. He found my AOL profile. I just turned 18 and he was 23. We dated for 6 months, then my dad was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island and I moved with them. I was going to go to college in Dallas while my ex-husband was deployed in Iraq. We were going to get married when he came back. I told my parents and they weren’t too happy about it. My dad was in Iraq at the same time my ex was (this was in 2006). My dad got injured and was sent to Germany a week before my wedding. My parents met him. They were cordial. But they kept telling me I was too young and I married him anyway. My parents couldn’t come. The only people who showed up for me were my sister and best friend.
6 years later, a child, and a ton of emotional and physical abuse later we got divorced. And I look back at how easily manipulated I was and how much he controlled me. He was 5 and a half years older than me. I thought I was so mature for my age. But I was still developing and I’m a totally different person now than that 19-year-old twerp.
It’s ok now. He got remarried to a woman I can tolerate, moved to Seattle and is transitioning to become a woman. So…that’s that.
mandiexile
My dad always stressed not giving a crap about what people think about him and I would always feel embarrassed me as a kid.
But more and more recently I’ve been realizing how right he is and how much happier it makes you when you just don’t give a crap.
hellshot8
I remember getting up when my mom made us take naps as kids (mostly so she could have a nap) to go playing in my room quietly.
Now I realize naps are awesome and my mom was right. It just took me a looong time to figure that out for myself!
RjCharlie
My father would say, “whether is’ a job you quit or a woman you left, never go back. Because even if things seem better at first, the reason you went away the first time will always come back at ya…”
I found out the hard way he was right on both counts.
InferiousX
My dad would always say “slap a bull on the arse, expect to meet some horns.”
We were out on the farm, mustering cattle (yeah, I’m a country girl) and my uncle had two Angus bulls – Sunga and Angus. One was hand reared, like a big dog. The other was a paddock bull, half feral.
I thought I was near Sung and started rubbing the bull’s belly. Turns out it was the other one, Angus swung his head around and hit me hard enough for me to get a mild concussion.
I was fine and my uncle was going to shoot the violent bull anyway because he had a bad tendency to kill yearlings by ramming them. So he was losing about $10k a year because of it.
Revenge was sweet and that beef was even tastier.
blackplague06
For as far back as I can remember my dad would always tell me I should pay attention because when he was gone I would kick myself for not spending more time with him.
What I thought was plenty of time spent turned out to be the tiniest percent of what I really wanted. The first week after he died I kept telling myself “He was so so right.”
dwblind22
Now I understand why my mom would complain about being a taxi.
Like when my daughter calls me up to let me know the game ran long (she is a cheerleader) and she does not want to walk home because it is getting dark. But I just walked in the door from the grocery store, which I had to go to after picking up my son from school, and my husband’s car is in the shop so I have to pick him up from work later. Sometimes, I just want 2 minutes of not driving.
turbie
The realization that the “boys only want one thing from you” statement was becoming pretty damn accurate (in my life). I know you shouldn’t expect amazing meaningful relationships meeting people in bars which, funnily enough, wasn’t the kind of interaction I was looking for anyway.
I went out on a few great dates with a guy once whom I met through a mutual friend. We had very similar tastes in everything, similar sense of humor, did ‘nice’ things on our dates like go bowling and play pool. Nothing sexual had happened yet, at least. Then I hear nothing from him for over a week before I get a text saying, “Hey, you’re really fun and I like hanging out with you, but I have enough friends already and I was looking for more of a hookup than a friend or girlfriend. Is that ok with you?”
At age 18, you’ll know everything.
By age 25, you’ll realize the world isn’t as simple as you think.
By 30 you’ll be frightened that people trust your opinion when you know you don’t know very much about a subject.
fortknox
I liked a girl that was way out of my league in college. I told my mom about the bad crush I had and how I just wanted to move on. She said, “You can fail at something you dont want so you might as well fail at something that matters.”
We’ve been married for 3 years this November. The crush…not my mother and I.
FunkatronicLightning
“Actually, we are really cool parents.” Turned out to be true…they were really awesome parents to have.
I didn’t realize just how lucky I was to have the parents I did until I found out about how some other people’s parents were. I grew up in a middle-class home with both parents around and neither one of them was abusive, mean, or overly strict. I was (and still am) very fortunate and it took growing up a bit to realize that.
I think one of the biggest wake-up calls to me was during my freshman year of college when I was complaining to someone else about how annoying my father was for nagging me about going out too late on week nights when I was 19. The other person replied, “At least your dad didn’t throw you down a flight of stairs when you were four and leave you when you were six”.
Pit9 & Coffeecor25