Or…I have been influenced more than I thought by my grandmother.
I was trying to explain to a friend why irishbaby is currently wearing a particularly hideous pair of maroon shoes, and explaining that the choice was either those or some black ones. Of course, as a normal, sane, person, she says
“Why didn’t you just get her the black ones?”
To which I give an involuntary shudder and say
“Oh, you know, small children wearing black, its just creepy, isn’t it”.
And she goes :dubious:
Then I realise I have no rational reason why I dislike children wearing black, but it really makes me oogy.
At that point I come to the realisation that this dislike is something I have inherited wholesale from my grandmother- an exceedingly proper lady
I think her influence also explains why:
I don’t like shoes with square toes
I dislike milk and condiments on the table in their containers- they get decanted into ramekins or jugs
I hate paper napkins
My mother hates confined spaces and masks- I’m also not a big fan.
My father-in-law hates birds- irishfella too.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder- how many of our odd little foibles and preferences are just things we do because our parents did?
I have issues with the texture of certain foods. It never occurred to me that this could be genetic in any way until one day I was sitting at the table with my grandfather and he mentioned that he won’t eat salad because the texture of lettuce bothers him. I’m the same way! He lived across the country from us my entire life so I don’t think I saw him eat more than a dozen meals in my life so I don’t think this texture aversion was something I picked up environmentally, instead it appears to have some type of genetic component to it.
When I was little my mom would never let me wear red & pink or red & orange together because they don’t “go.” To this day red & pink or red & orange together make my skin crawl.
Wow…this is my children and their paternal grandfather, except with peanut butter. All three kids refused to eat peanut butter. Mind you, these are solidly American kids, with me, their solidly American mother, attempting to feed them that solidly American food, PB&J…and nothin’ doin’. None of them would have a thing to do with it. Then one day, when I was complaining volubly about WTF, what kind of kids won’t eat PBJs…the spouse offhandedly comments “Oh yeah, my dad wouldn’t eat that, either.” Um, what? “Yeah, Dad hated peanut butter. Said the texture made him gag.” Whoa…spouse’s dad died when kids were 5, 3, and newborn, and saw #1 maybe 5 times, #2 twice, #3 never at all.
As a child, my mother got into the bottle of orange-flavored childrens’ Aspirin, and ate it until she got sick and threw up. To this day, almost 60 years later, she can’t stand artificial orange flavoring.
I did that with St Josephs raspberry childrens aspirin … I detest raspberry flavored anything.
Hm, I am not into desserts normally - we didn’t really do dessert for non holiday meals growing up. A good German style kaffeeklatsch in the afternoon on the other hand would get apfelkuchen, or some other coffee pastry and Sunday mornings would get a Sara Lee coffee cake type coffee cake added to our regular breakfast lineup. [It took me a while to find a coffee cake like Mom’s ended up looking like. No idea if that one tastes like Moms or not.] I know that Mom learned to make stewed tomatoes with either salt or sugar and my Dad had them the other way [so when she was in hospital once and it was Marie’s day off, he made dinner and gave them to us the other way and my brother and I thought they were absolutely disgusting and refused to eat them :smack:] I don’t put either in stewed tomatoes, I use garlic and basil and prefer them that way
I can’t seem to go out in public ‘undressed’ like in flannel pants or shorts or no bra. It just seems so damned tacky, and my Mom would not go out of the house not suitably dressed, or with curlers in her hair, stuff that get on that poorly dressed site. Especially as a fat broad, impeccable cleanliness and grooming is very important. Nothing as bad as a fat slob.
I dislike arguing in public, again so did my parents while growing up. Misbehaving of kids is also horrible, in restaurants and stores. My parents did not tolerate it, and I do not tolerate it in kids that are with me. They have been taken out to the car to sit until they could behave, and I have had several meals packed in takeout containers as a result. [my 6 goddaughters have impeccable out in public manners. My nephews do too, my brother won’t tolerate bad manners in public either ;)]
Literacy is important to me, my mom got a degree and expected my brother and I to do well in school [and we did] though she was a bit disappointed that my brother never finished his degree, he decided college really wasn’t for him and he is happy. My nephews both did college though.
I admit I seem to be the only one in the family that hates peanut butter though :smack: it is a taste thing, not a texture thing.
I have this big pore in my back. Littlebro has one in the same location. It seems to have been inherited from the Grandfather from Hell, who has one in that same location, as does Mom. No other relatives have it.
I often sit on my right ankle. Think sitting in a chair, half “injun-style”: left leg draped over the right ankle. One day I was reading a book in Abuelita’s house, when I was already an adult (so I wasn’t as preoccupied about behaving properly in her presence as when I was a kid) and absentmindedly raised my right leg under the left. I realized I’d done it when she started hyperventilating and saying “ohmyGod ohmyGod, just like Ignacio!” - Ignacio was Abuelito, who died when I was 3. Another one of my cousins on that side does it too (so, 2 out of 12).
:dubious:
