# Things you grudgingly agree your parents were right about **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886 "2010-04-04T04:12:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/21 "2010-04-05T07:45:57Z")
Don’t cross the streams. Dont fuck with smurfs. There is no spoon. But seriously, hmmm… I grudgingly admit that I did have a problem with alcohol my junior year in college. It’s under control now thankfully, but I was definitely overdoing it. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/22 "2010-04-05T12:56:37Z")
I wish I’d broken the nail-biting habit when I was a kid and my mom was nagging me about it. Now I’m 32, still bite my nails, and my whole hands look like hell. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/23 "2010-04-05T13:15:44Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > If I fell out of a boat, I’d be in trouble. But so would anybody else, swimmer or not. Huh? I’m certainly not a strong swimmer by any means, but if I fell out of a boat (assuming I didn’t hurt myself in the process) I could certainly keep myself afloat long enough for the boat to come back around to pick me up. ---
**Author:** ![Pliny\_the\_younger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aca169/32.png) [@Pliny\_the\_younger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pliny_the_younger)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/24 "2010-04-05T16:33:09Z")
(sigh) grudgingly admitting the following: \*“If a guy likes you, you’ll know it. He won’t have excuses to not hang out with you. If he wants to be with you, he will. Period.” \* This said after a guy my friend liked SOOO much told her he was too busy with school to get in a relationship. A month later, he’s dating someone he just met and six months later, he marries her. I fought mom tooth and nail on that one and I can make excuses for ANYone for just about ANYthing. Here I am, admitting she was right. ---
**Author:** ![Pliny\_the\_younger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/aca169/32.png) [@Pliny\_the\_younger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pliny_the_younger)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/25 "2010-04-05T16:36:11Z")
> [@rinni](#): > > This is different but related, because it’s something my parents didn’t make me do that I now wish they had. I needed braces and my parents urged me to get them, but I kicked up a fight saying I didn’t want them for various reasons and my parents gave in. Now I’m 29 and self-conscious about my super crooked teeth. I also have a sore jaw from the way my teeth push my jaw back. > > How I wish I had just sucked it up as a kid! Rinni, I am so with you. Same here. My dad was very sick when I was a child and his illness worsened right about the time I was to get braces. I think my mom was just worn down from all that and when she asked and I said no, she didn’t put up a fight. And yep, I am hella self-conscious about it now. I, too, wish she had made me but I own this one totally. She allowed me to make the decision and I have to live with it. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/26 "2010-04-05T16:56:45Z")
> [@Add99](#): > > If you keep throwing rocks at your sister, you will hit her in the head. Were they trying to get you to stop, or encourage you to keep at it? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/27 "2010-04-05T17:01:34Z")
That my face would freeze like that. That if I went outside with wet hair I would “catch (your) death of cold”. To this day, I look like a fish with puckered lips and crossed eyes, and am sure I’m dying a slow death of cold. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/28 "2010-04-05T18:25:55Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > In all seriousness, my mother was absolutely right when she said if I didn’t go to grad school right after college I wouldn’t want to go at all. I don’t think this is true (at least for all people, maybe it’s true for you), and I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Not everyone in undergrad who thinks they want to go to grad school really should, to be honest. I think a lot of people who go to grad school right after college do so because they can’t think of anything else to do and the one thing they already know what to do is be a student. And, FTR, I would estimate that ~5% of my classmates in my grad program came to grad school right after undergrad. Almost everyone spent at least a couple years working before going to grad school. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/29 "2010-04-05T20:39:45Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I don’t think this is true (at least for all people, maybe it’s true for you) Presumably, his mom knew him and was speaking using that knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/30 "2010-04-05T21:09:23Z")
> [@LegsAkimbo](#): > > Yeah…they were right…it \*would \*have been a bad idea for a naive 14-year-old redhead (me) to get a job at the local horse race track… I’m trying not to make unwarranted assumptions about the username/post combo… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/31 "2010-04-05T21:13:02Z")
“John, you won’t amount to shit.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/32 "2010-04-05T21:26:14Z")
Thrift. It was instilled in me from an early age; and though I can grumble about the $90 sneakers I didn’t get in high school and etc I can see now how every nickle adds up and it all paid off now that my parents have retired with plenty of cash in their 50s. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/33 "2010-04-05T21:54:21Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I’m another who has to give my parents credit for making me continue with piano. Thanks to the lessons I learned in how to make my way around a keyboard and in reading music, I’ve been able to teach myself a few instruments, and to enjoy all of them. > > What would he like to play? I hated piano because I had a cranky old teacher who wouldn’t let me play rock and pop; I had to constantly play material prepared by the local Conservatory of Music. Technically challenging, but absolutely no fun; and when all of your friends with guitars are trying to be rock stars (and wowing the girls in the process), you want to at least show that you’re at least capable of playing with them. (“Why yes, miss, I do play in a rock band. Keyboards, you know.”) I’d suggest asking him what he wants to play, and finding a teacher who will teach him just that. IME, much of the material composed by people like Elton John and Billy Joel was just as challenging as any of that old Conservatory stuff. Too bad my teacher refused to even look at it. > > Or, maybe another instrument is right for him. (I can still play the piano, but I much prefer to play the flute.) Ask him what instrument he would rather to play, and then see if his enthusiam for music improves once he can play what he likes. As a one-time piano player who switched to guitar, I can say that it worked very well for me. Maybe it’s just the way I’m wired, but on guitar I was so much better able to overcome my stylistic limitations and play classical as well as rock and blues. I hadn’t been able to do either of those on piano, on which I mostly played ragtime. On the other hand, I do wish I’d been able to master the way a piano player or keyboardists works in a rock or blues band. If you go back to the really early stuff, like Fats Domino and Ray Charles, they get this awesome rhythmic groove out of the keys, but I can’t work out exactly what it is. It isn’t boogie-woogie, and it certainly isn’t ragtime. Most of the time, it seems substantially less “busy” than those genres, yet provides an amazing oomph. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886/34 "2010-04-06T01:24:59Z")
Not much. My parents always said that I would see things differently when I got to their age. I am now well past the age they were when they said it and there is not much I see any differently. I do wish my mother hadn’t allowed me to stop taking piano lessons after 8 months. On the other hand, I had perfect, if somewhat misaligned teeth. After two years with braces in which we couldn’t afford the fees for adjustments I had badly decayed and still misaligned teeth. The decay has been disastrous my whole life, but the misalignment has never bothered me. My father taught me to swim when I was about 8 and I have enjoyed it ever since. My mother believed that only sleep before midnight “counted”. Fatuous belief. She tried to break up my romance with the woman I have been blissfully (well, mostly) married to for 46 years. She tried to break up both my brother’s and sister’s choices of mate as well. My brother died during his 30th married year and my sister is still married to her mate 40 years later. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-grudgingly-agree-your-parents-were-right-about/534886.md?page=1)