# I think I win for "Stupidest Parents". Can you beat me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 11, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688 "2016-07-11T21:59:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/41 "2016-07-12T18:06:09Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I have to admit that’s worse than not noticing your children need glasses until their ages are in double digits. That’s when the classrooms got large enough that every teacher we had did notice, previously it hadn’t really been a problem. > > Mom still didn’t believe it was true until we left the optician’s and I stopped dead becase the tree across the street _had leaves_. > > This is a woman who wears glasses and whose husband also did. Her mother’s injunction upon meeting my future Dad was “not the one with the glasses!” Grandma knew we’d need glasses before we were even born, and she in turn is someone who would have problems selecting Hitler in a lineup (the woman has… issues, including what’s probably some serious ADHD). i had the same story with glasses, trees, and leaves. she thought i was having her on with the leaves. i used the home movie projector to show my mum just how blurry things were. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/42 "2016-07-12T18:09:43Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Yeah, that’s all well and good, but the problem is that these people can, and unfortunately often do, vote. And because they have no context or knowledge upon which to make an informed decision, they make a decision based upon bogus rhetoric, or how attractive the candidate’s wife is, or some kind of unworkable pledge to, say, built a 3000 km wall to stop illegal immigration. > > There really should be a compentency test for participating in an election, perhaps graduated by the degree of knowledge of civics, history, and technology. Sure, it will disenfranchise some people–perhaps even otherwise intelligent people with holes in their knowledge–but that’s a feature, not a bug. > > Stranger So they can’t be counted on to vote against Hitler if he runs for election? Scary! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/43 "2016-07-12T21:12:13Z")
the OP’s parents might just be suffering from “birth time lag.” They were probably young children when WWII was going on, so they didn’t really understand what was going on. And since what had just happened wasn’t considered “history” by their teachers, they weren’t taught anything about it in school. My observation is this happens to a lot to people-they know nothing about events that happened while they were children or happened shortly before they existed, but know about things before and after that time period. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/44 "2016-07-12T21:20:22Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > I know the feeling, and I hate to break it to you like this, but there are adults around whose grandparents weren’t born until after the war. _sticks fingers in ears_ la la la LA LA LA LA LAAAAA! (practising my ‘ignoring inconvenient facts’ technique - clearly I’ll need it for when my kids grow up) ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/45 "2016-07-12T23:33:35Z")
Not to derail my own thread too much, but point in fact, my mom has been a die hard Trump fan for awhile. Stepfather is like me, though, when it comes to that: He can’t stand Trump. Me, I liked Bernie, but as he’s out, I would vote for Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![turtlescanfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@turtlescanfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turtlescanfly)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/46 "2016-07-12T23:41:41Z")
At Christmas one year at my sister’s house, I had a conversation with her in-laws, who were not sure how many U.S. states there were exactly, but they knew it was either 51 or 52. When I said I was pretty sure there were 50, he said “no, they added a couple”. x a Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![turtlescanfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@turtlescanfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turtlescanfly)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/47 "2016-07-12T23:44:02Z")
> [@turtlescanfly](#): > > At Christmas one year at my sister’s house, I had a conversation with her in-laws, who were not sure how many U.S. states there were exactly, but they knew it was either 51 or 52. When I said I was pretty sure there were 50, he said “no, they added a couple”. > > To this day I am gobsmacked that an American adult could not know such a basic fact about the country they’ve lived in their entire life. > > Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/48 "2016-07-12T23:45:59Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I have to admit that’s worse than not noticing your children need glasses until their ages are in double digits. That’s when the classrooms got large enough that every teacher we had did notice, previously it hadn’t really been a problem. > > Mom still didn’t believe it was true until we left the optician’s and I stopped dead becase the tree across the street _had leaves_. > > This is a woman who wears glasses and whose husband also did. Her mother’s injunction upon meeting my future Dad was “not the one with the glasses!” Grandma knew we’d need glasses before we were even born, and she in turn is someone who would have problems selecting Hitler in a lineup (the woman has… issues, including what’s probably some serious ADHD). I was surprise how much noisy a paper bag was and that rain made a sound when it fell on your umbrella . Wow ! That really bad not knowing you needed glasses . You would our doctors would had notice this , I had a speech defect as child not an accent b/c my dad was born in Russia ! I still have it ! Some people think I have an accent now. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/49 "2016-07-13T02:22:44Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > the OP’s parents might just be suffering from “birth time lag.” They were probably young children when WWII was going on, so they didn’t really understand what was going on. And since what had just happened wasn’t considered “history” by their teachers, they weren’t taught anything about it in school. > > My observation is this happens to a lot to people-they know nothing about events that happened while they were children or happened shortly before they existed, but know about things before and after that time period. Unless Idle’s parents are very old compared to him, I would guess that they were born postwar, as Baby Boomers. It could be that his grandparents missed serving - we’re about the same age and my grandpa didn’t go until it was clean-up time. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/50 "2016-07-13T02:25:48Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > the OP’s parents might just be suffering from “birth time lag.” They were probably young children when WWII was going on, so they didn’t really understand what was going on. And since what had just happened wasn’t considered “history” by their teachers, they weren’t taught anything about it in school. > My observation is this happens to a lot to people-they know nothing about events that happened while they were children or happened shortly before they existed, but know about things before and after that time period. The cultural effect of WWII is so significant in every aspect of our society, politics, and entertainment it is pretty much impossible for any remotely observant person to have virtually no knowledge. I mean, have the parents of the o.p. never seen or heard of _Saving Private Ryan_, _The Guns of Navarone_, or _Raiders of the Lost Ark_? Have they never been curious as to why people use the term “Hitler” in a pejorative sense. Have they never heard the phrase, “Mussolini made the trains run on time”, or “Never get into a land war in Asia”, or wondered what was behind these phrases? They don’t know the names Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Churchill, or Stalin? I was born during the Viet Nam war, and went to grade school and high school during a time when the topic was largely verboten to history classes. My early exposure was of course films like _First Blood_ and _Platoon_ which largely presented the consequences rather than the high level details, but it was enough to make me aware that a war had occurred, that the US had fared poorly in it, that it produced veterans that were marginalized and suffering from various emotional and mental problems, and led me to understand that there were larger consequences to the reputation of the United States on the world stage. That anyone born in the 20th century cannot name at least a couple of world leaders involved in WWII is almost beyond belief, and demonstrates a dangerous degree of ignorance for someone responsible for making adult decisions and participating in the electoral franchise. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/51 "2016-07-13T02:26:09Z")
> [@Whiskey\_Dickens](#): > > My Dad accidentally misspelled my first name in a note to me when I was about 15. My dad misspelled my name on my birth certificate. I spelled it the way it should have been spelled my whole life right up until the time my driver’s license application was denied because the name I put down didn’t match the name on my birth certificate. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/52 "2016-07-13T05:11:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Saving Private Ryan, The Guns of Navarone, or Raiders of the Lost Ark? Have they never been curious as to why people use the term “Hitler” in a pejorative sense. Have they never heard the phrase, “Mussolini made the trains run on time”, or “Never get into a land war in Asia”, or wondered what was behind these phrases? well, I’ve never seen any of those movies other than Raiders of the Lost Ark, and despite seeing it wasn’t aware it was about WWII, nor have I ever heard anyone say either of those phrases. I do have to admit not knowing Hitler’s name is a bit odd. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/53 "2016-07-13T05:43:10Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_Rat](#): > > My dad misspelled my name on my birth certificate. I spelled it the way it should have been spelled my whole life right up until the time my driver’s license application was denied because the name I put down didn’t match the name on my birth certificate. I have a longstanding friend whose mother put her name down in so many different ways on so many different official documents that I have to maintain a running affidavit about the subject that I update and re-execute every time she need to do official things. It says _“I am a lawyer admitted to practice and I have known Ms X for a gazillion years and this passport which names “Ms Y” and the High School Certificate which names “Ms Z” and the birth certificate which names “Ms Q” [etc, etc] are all actually the same person.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/54 "2016-07-13T05:45:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The cultural effect of WWII is so significant in every aspect of our society, politics, and entertainment it is pretty much impossible for any remotely observant person to have virtually no knowledge. I mean, have the parents of the o.p. never seen or heard of _Saving Private Ryan_, _The Guns of Navarone_, or _Raiders of the Lost Ark_? Have they never been curious as to why people use the term “Hitler” in a pejorative sense. Have they never heard the phrase, “Mussolini made the trains run on time”, or “Never get into a land war in Asia”, or wondered what was behind these phrases? Have they never wondered why the Charlie Chaplin mustache went out of style? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/55 "2016-07-13T05:52:36Z")
> [@purplehearingaid](#): > > I was surprise how much noisy a paper bag was and that rain made a sound when it fell on your umbrella . Wow ! That really bad not knowing you needed glasses . You would our doctors would had notice this I hear you on the first; my mother’s hearing aid technician says that “if you put these on and suddenly the world is full of noises, you should have had them years ago!” I’ve seen people with brand-new aids jump when someone opened the newspaper or a door scrapped against the floor. By the time doctor visits included checking if a child might need glasses without falling into the “blind as a bat” category, we already had them. My same-age cousin got glasses earlier than I did, but because in her case they were for looking at things up close: for my brothers and I, the bad eyesight hadn’t been bad enough to be a problem until the blackboard moved to a few meters away. Mom had set herself up very forcefully as our primary caretaker (she threatened Dad with suing for a marriage annullment if he did not defer to her authority as a trained pedagogue), but she never truly acknowledged any of her children’s medical issues unless the issue was pretty much yelling in her face. High fever, she saw; a limp, allergies, or that if we needed to read a sign a few yards away we’d walk up to it, no. Christ. I was about to say that she also noticed vomit, but not quite. When my brother was 3yo he swallowed a lego part (well, different brand, but same thing); I quickly ran to my parents and was informed that this was impossible. After 7 years of throwing up every time we got in the car, the part finally got returned to sender and his stomach troubles got miraculously cured. He still has the decolored, somewhat-digested memento. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/56 "2016-07-13T07:12:30Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > well, I’ve never seen any of those movies other than Raiders of the Lost Ark, and despite seeing it wasn’t aware it was about WWII, nor have I ever heard anyone say either of those phrases. I do have to admit not knowing Hitler’s name is a bit odd. Um, even if you missed the entire scene where Army intelligence is recruiting Dr. Henry ‘Indiana’ Jones to find Dr. Ravenwood and figure out why he is mentioned in a German cable (see below for a partial excerpt), the vast majority of the post cold open film is variations on Jones getting into car chases, gunfights, fisticuffs, explosions, et cetera with Nazis, along with the occasional thug in Nepal or Egypt, and ending up in a secret Nazi-decorated submarine base where they opened the Ark and all of the Nazis got their faces melted and heads blown up. Did you think the guys in brown shirts with swastikas were overgrown Boy Scouts on a desert picnic? Colonel Musgrove: Yesterday afternoon, our European section intercepted a German communique that was sent from Cairo to Berlin. Major Eaton: You see, for the last two years, **the Nazis** have had teams of archaeologists running around the world looking for all sorts of religious artifacts. **Hitler’s a nut on the subject.** He’s crazy. He’s obsessed with the occult. And right now, apparently, **there is some kind of German archaeological dig** going on in the desert outside Cairo. Colonel Musgrove: Now, we have some information here, but we can’t make anything out of it and maybe you can. “Tanis development proceeding. Acquire headpiece, Staff of Ra, Abner Ravenwood, US.” Indiana: **The Nazis have discovered Tanis!** Major Eaton: Now just what does that mean to you… ‘Tanis’? Indiana: Tanis is one of the possible resting places of the Lost Ark. Colonel Musgrove: The Lost Ark? Indiana: Yeah, the Ark of the Covenant. The chest the Hebrews used to carry the Ten Commandments around in. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2016, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/57 "2016-07-13T07:27:45Z")
Let me translate: > [@](#): > > There was this scene where the good guys army was recruiting the main guy to find this archaeologist guy and figure out why the archaeologist guy is involved in something with some bad guys, and the rest of the film has the main guy getting into car chases, gunfights, fisticuffs, explosions, et cetera with the bad guys, along with the occasional thug in Nepal or Egypt, and ending up in a secret submarine base with all these flags and uniforms and shit, where they opened the Ark and all of the bad guys got their faces melted and heads blown up. ---
**Author:** ![Lee\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/aeb1de/32.png) [@Lee\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lee_Q)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/58 "2016-07-14T02:12:57Z")
> [@turtlescanfly](#): > > At Christmas one year at my sister’s house, I had a conversation with her in-laws, who were not sure how many U.S. states there were exactly, but they knew it was either 51 or 52. When I said I was pretty sure there were 50, he said “no, they added a couple”. > > x a > > Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk Maybe they were thinking of US territories, like Puerto Rico and Guam? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/59 "2016-07-14T02:52:58Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > the OP’s parents might just be suffering from “birth time lag.” They were probably young children when WWII was going on, so they didn’t really understand what was going on. And since what had just happened wasn’t considered “history” by their teachers, they weren’t taught anything about it in school. > My observation is this happens to a lot to people-they know nothing about events that happened while they were children or happened shortly before they existed, but know about things before and after that time period. Yeah, maybe. I was born in 1977 and did not learn a single thing about the Vietnam war in K-12, a war that had only ended two years before I was born. We spent an entire school year on WWII, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688/60 "2016-07-14T15:31:47Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Um, even if you missed the entire scene where Army intelligence is recruiting Dr. Henry ‘Indiana’ Jones to find Dr. Ravenwood and figure out why he is mentioned in a German cable (see below for a partial excerpt), the vast majority of the post cold open film is variations on Jones getting into car chases, gunfights, fisticuffs, explosions, et cetera with Nazis, along with the occasional thug in Nepal or Egypt, and ending up in a secret Nazi-decorated submarine base where they opened the Ark and all of the Nazis got their faces melted and heads blown up. Did you think the guys in brown shirts with swastikas were overgrown Boy Scouts on a desert picnic? > > [SNIP] > Stranger I always wondered why I was the only person to think Indiana was the bad guy . . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-think-i-win-for-stupidest-parents-can-you-beat-me/759688.md?page=4)