I was going to post this in the recent thread on circumcision, but I think this would generate a lot more interesting comments about more topics than just the penis. What I’d like to know is what are some of the things you learned later in life that would’ve really helped if you learned them earlier.
The first thing on my list was: I wish they would’ve told me earlier about circumcision and the fact that I wasn’t cut. I had absolutely no idea why in the world mine was so different compared to other guys until I was 15 or so, and found out about the differences from a Penthouse magazine. I dunno if many of you know how different they are, but most cut guys hang out a few inches when not aroused. Not true with us uncut guys, as if it’s cold, or just isn’t happy at all, it will stick out maybe an inch. When aroused, it’s the same as anyone elses, but not knowing, mixed with the rediculous sizes in porn, meant that I had no idea what was going on with the size of mine.
Recently it was called magical cause of its size changing abilities, so it’s all good. I’d have liked to have known about that a bit earlier, though, at least to defend myself from guys who took peaks at it in the lockerroom and felt the need to say things about it.
Other things that would’ve been nice to know earlier, in a much shorter form:
[ul]
[li]How do identify crazy people to avoid dating them[/li][li]School isn’t the best time of your life, it’s the worst - it’s like a job without getting paid[/li][li]That firemen don’t actually save cats from trees (my friend learned this the hard way)[/li][/ul]
So, share the things that you wish your parents would’ve told you, instead of making you figure it out on your own. Note: “do not perform analingus on a dog” does not count, as your parents could not possibly have seen that coming. You know who you are…
This is actually something my parents did tell me, in almost those very words. Nice to be able to commiserate with Mom over all the assholes in high school.
I wish my parents had taught me how to socialize/make small talk. I was (and often still am) a misfit on this because they rarely entertained and we hunkered down alone much of the time. In college my roommate had clearly been brought up to chat with people and be at ease socially and I envied that, once I realized just how inept I was at such.
Me too. Both of my sisters have great social skills (skillz?) and I just sit in the corner and watch.
What I wish they had told me:
*My grandfather had many strokes before he died.
*About my mother’s two failed pregnancies before me as that would explain a lot about why I was/am treated the way I was/am.
*Other family medical history that I have to put together like a jigsaw puzzle.
What I wish they had taught me:
*That the people who laughed at me all through middle/high school weren’t the be-all end-all of my social life and I should have ignored them.
*How to ignore them.
*How to sew.
*How to not put something off until the last minute.
I must disagree with this. So far, I would say that school was the best time of my life. Work is the worst. Between school and retirement, a career only serves as one long, unfortunate, and painful intermission. Which leads into my contribution:
I wish my parents had taught me that life required hard work. Now, that sounds obvious, and it’s so often repeated as a nugget of wisdom that we all hear it frequently, even as children. But what I wish is that my parents had really made me understand it. They never made me do chores, get summer jobs, participate in extracurricular activities, learn manners (I could have used lessons in small talk too), nor did they make sure I did my homework. They simply allowed me to sit around watching TV and playing video games. I’m 26 now and I’m still having trouble shaking off the notion that life is like an assembly line where you’re the product, and all you have to do is sit back and ride the conveyor belt. Applying for jobs is painful–I’ve only done it a few times in my life, and can’t imagine doing it again–since in doing so one must act like one wants the job, which for me amounts to a lie. I don’t want to work! I was able to spend the first 22 years of my life lying around the house; howcome I have to stop now?
In short, I wish that my parents had made me get off my a$$.
Few things are more important than planning for houses, family, college, etc… but very few people are ever taught how to do it. An aquaintance of mine who’s father is a financial advisor learned early on how to manage money. He’s now a millionaire while I’m trying to figure out what a Roth IRA is.
I wish I had been taught how to cook. As I kid I foolishly thought that I could rely on my wife to do it. Well, here I am in my 30s and still single and having to either eat out or preparing food that comes in cans or boxes with instructions printed on it. A couple times a week I get a real meal at my parents’ house. I envy my single male friends who can put together a fantastic dinner for themselves.
I also wish my mom had taught me more about basic household chores. I suck at mopping and doubly suck at washing dishes.
My parents didn’t really give me much information about sex, so I went through my preteens without much understanding of such matters, eventually learning most things through information from my friends. I developed a lot of hangups about sex and I was never comfortable enough to ask them any questions I may have had. Maybe this explains why I am still single.
I should clarify my above post. When I was referring to myself “as a kid” and “relying on my wife”, this of course meant in the future, assuming I would be married by then.
Another vote for “wish I’d learned how to small-talk”. Expand this a bit, to “how to be at ease in social situations”. I was at a very good party a week ago, and I spent part of the middle of the party just kinda wandering around, trying to figure out how to plug myself into an interesting conversation between strangers.
I was fortunate to be exposed to good cooks, so that’s not a problem. I have no fear of the kitchen, or the washing-up.
What exactly is going on with my relatives, instead of finding out when things get really major or learning by listening to their side of phone conversations, observation and listening to the ‘adults talk’. (Actually I still want this one. I never know about my family except through the ways listed and my Dad’s gf)
Another one for small talk. I can’t handle it, well I can if it is something that I feel I can add to but when I can’t I sit and listen to the rest talk.
Ditto for managing finances (If I’d learned that maybe I’d have some stocks or something to show for my first few jobs while living at home instead of being broke and not living at home)
I’ll think of more later… or maybe in a few years. Get back to me then.
i second the ‘finance’- my father teaches at grad school about $$ the in’s out’s and roundabout’s of it. did he share? nononoo.
i went and spent my undergrad degree on a biz major (not that i mind, but wouldn’t it be cool if i had already known and could’ve done theatre or english instead?)
likewise the family news- i always feel like a schmuck when i’m the last to know important news, but father-and-the-secrecy gets me every time- good thing i have a mom who can cook like julia child, smalltalk like robin williams and can talk about sex! phew, 3 down, how many more life lessons???
There were so many things my parents didn’t teach us. Small talk for sure. But some really basic things, too. I don’t think my brother knew how to blow his nose or that you don’t throw up where you stand, but instead you go to the toilet, until he was well into his teens. I was in school before I learned that you wash your hands after going to the bathroom. My parents never taught me that. They, and especially my mom, still seem pretty oblivious to the way people live.
Well, I was talking more specifically about MY penis, which while a great topic of interest to me, seems to bore most other people.
However, I guess a lot of what was talked about in here used to be taught in schools; washing hands after using the rest room, some social interactions, how to dance. A lot of that has gone away out of the schools, and I’d guess many parents havn’t realized that. And, a lot of parents are just oblivious.
One thing I’m glad my parents taught me was that I should always be able to rely on myself. Unfortunatly, they didn’t teach me how to rely on other people when I need to, something that isn’t easy to learn and still pretty hard to do. They never had friends and only relied on eachother, so when I got friends, I didn’t realize you could have them help you.
We should keep this thread going, then look back on it every so often to make sure we teach our children these things.
The “small talk” thing I can totally relate to. In fact, it’s comforting to hear other people experienced the same phenomenon. My parents are practically hermits, and I am painfully shy in large-group situations. It’s hard to overcome.
I wish my parents had told me I wasn’t two months premature…they got married in Feb and I was born in Sept.
I wish they had taught me how to balance my checkbook. I didn’t figure it out until well into my 20s.
I wish my father hadn’t yelled at me while I was trying to learn how to drive a stick shift.
I wish they had told me that teenage girls can be right bitches, and that didn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.
I am glad my mother taught me how to read before I started kindergarten. Reading is now as much a part of me as breathing, and my children have picked up on that passion. If you can read, enjoy reading, and read well, there’s nothing you can’t do.
I rarely pipe up on the boards, but after reading this thread, I have to pipe up real quick…
Thanks, Mom.
Thanks, Dad.
My parents did teach me most of these things. I could balance a checkbook, I could do a bit of small talk, and I did know what teenage girls could be, and that there was nothing wrong with me.
I didn’t always listen, I didn’t always believe, but they did tell me.
The stuff I wish I knew earlier would clearly fall into the “Fortune Teller” category, and would have saved me a lot of trouble and money.
But you know what? I probably wouldn’t have listened to that either.
My parents taught me some incredible things, and I am very grateful. But a few things I wish I’d been taught:
(1) The real reason that you don’t do bad things is because you respect yourself, NOT because getting caught would be so embarrassing.
(2) Intelligence is not the only measure of a person’s worth. Many aspects of good character are not correlated with brainpower.
(3) The superficial things that people care about in adolescence are SO fleeting and stupid. Hang in there, and you will be appreciated and loved for the right reasons when everyone gets a little more mature. Honestly, I went through much of my adolescence having NO IDEA that some day my brains and sense of humor would make me desirable.
I would say my parents get high marks in the teaching department, but there are two things that I would have added:
Cooking
Making small repairs, particularly as they relate to cars and plumbing.
Oddly enough, both of these shortcomings have the same root – my mom is an excellent cook, and my dad is a champ when it comes to home repairs. I don’t think it ever crossed their minds that perhaps it would be worth it to suffer through some not-so-great meals in order to teach me to cook, or spend an hour supervising me changing a tire when Dad could do it in five minutes.
I learned enough about cooking later in life so that we don’t starve to death, and I’m actually quite good at baking (which is different). But I’ll never be a natural cook – the kind that can whip something up effortlessly with whatever is at hand. Cooking is like a labor, an endeavor that requires grim determination and a battle of wills. Entering the kichen to cook is akin to entering the Thunderdome.
I am still hopelessly muddled when it comes to cars.
Mr. Del never fixes anything, he just calls the super or other repairperson, and for years I assumed that he couldn’t repair anything either, until I was very shocked to discover that he can in fact fix things, but he doesn’t enjoy it and figures that we pay good money to have a super and paying for repair people is a quality-of-life issue. Man, if I could fix things, I would fix them all the time! I would break stuff on purpose just so I could fix it!
Being successful. Really, my father spent his life as a parent consumed with worry that one of his kids might overshadow him, and consequently tried to raise us as fuck-ups. He constantly cut us down, shut us out from any opportunitites and belittled any and all of our accomplishments. The development of social skills mentioned above is just one part of the skill set of success. But it is something a parent can give a child, and to purposefully withhold it is stinker behavior of the first magnitude.
Nevertheless, my brother and my sisters, and myself, seem to have overcome that parental-induced deficit, to varying degrees. While we’ve all figured it out, it would’ve been so much easier if we had not had to spend the first decade (on average) of our adult lives shedding the garbage of being our father’s spawn and learning great lessons on our own (I think my brother and I helped each other, and he and older sis had a similar give-and-take).
Later on, when my father remarried, I got to know my steprothers. Not surprisingly, it seems their father was somewhat of a hammerass also. We’ve all bobbed to the surface, but there are decades of anguish and folly that could have been avoided had a couple of fathers (and mothers) been a bit more cognizant of the impact their frailties would have on developing lives.
Last weekend I spent in Santa Fe, visiting two of my sibs and their rug rats. A visit from Uncle Ringo does little for discipline, but that doesn’t seem to bother my brother. He’s raising a couple of wild things. Confident wild things. More power to 'em.
