How to approach jobs as someone with something of value to offer. My mother didn’t have a professional job or a lot of specialized skills when I was younger, and I was taught that the best you could hope for life was a state job where you can slowly get those incremental raises and hope you look good enough in front of your supervisors not to make waves. For example, if she called in sick she would not leave the house the entire day- not even to go to the store for medicine. She said it’d look to bad if she ran into a supervisor there.
It works for someone in a low-level job hoping not to make waves, but for someone who has marketable and desirable skills, you don’t need to grovel, and by doing so you sell yourself short on everything. I’m not lucky to work for them- they are damn lucky to get me on the team. That’s how you negotiate a good salary, have the confidence to speak up at meetings, get the promotions, and have a real career.
Sex. Seriously. Never a peep to me about what my dick was for besides peeing. My parents were terminally repressed, I think, at least in front of us kids. My sister said that my mother brought a book up to her room when she was starting to reach puberty, and whispered to her that she should read it. It was about periods and what to do about them. The general result of this lack was for me that I had no idea how to integrate sex into my life, nor how to manage those feelings in a way that would be good for me in the long run.
How to budget. My parents were very budget minded, working hard, paying all their bills, staying out of debt. I remember watching my mother write out the checks every month and putting them in the envelopes with a very satisfied air. But they never talked to us about how much money they made, how they budgeted it, why to stay out of debt (and that credit used = debt) and how they managed to raise a family and also save a little money. I think that they were afraid that if we knew that we weren’t actually poor, that we would nag them to buy us stuff. But the result was that as soon as I got credit I leapt full-on into consumer debt, and it took me years to get out.
Roddy
Well by closed doors I meant anywhere inside the house. Although technically speaking they did a lot of outdoors yelling, too, usually after dark and after copious alcohol consumption. Oh, the parents that should never have been.
They didn’t teach me how to be affectionate. We didn’t hug. We said* I love you *like Pass the butter. I’m 26 and hugging still freaks me out unless you are my own child. (And even then, I’m not sure I even liked parenting until he was about five or so!)
I also didn’t learn how to cook, drive a stick or manage money. They could do those things, but they were very hands-off parents.
Most of the things I “learned” about the real world was from teachers and books. I send thank you cards by hand because Miss Manners told me to.
The answer that popped up first for me reading the thread title was “anything about money.”
I didn’t understand credit, investing, retirement planning, or much of anything helpful until I was about 40, but by then I had already screwed it all up pretty badly.
It’s probably a different thread but my mom and grandmother would have happily taught me how to knit, and how to sew if I could’ve been bothered to pay attention. Now that I crave that knowledge the opportunity to learn from them is gone.
My parents would have been excellent role models, if they’d actually explained to us kids how they managed their money.
Money was something you didn’t talk about, so I was really quite clueless and ending up getting myself into a lot of debt in my twenties, which I spent a large chunk of my thirties clawing my way out.
The list is long. I’m the youngest of four kids from two lame-ass parents. By the time I got around they were done with even their version of half-assed parenting. Things I had to teach myself: how to deal with anger, how to work hard toward a goal, how not to beat up your wife, how to do the right thing even when it was hard, how not to be a racist, how to not lose your drivers license due to drunk driving (do you have any idea how much of a drunk you had to be to lose your license in the 70s?), how to plan ahead, how to do laundry, etc. Basically, they never taught me how to be an adult, I just got out of there as soon as I turned 18 and figured out the rest on my own.
Also, charitable works. Volunteering, giving back, donating to an important cause, giving of our time and efforts.
And flossing. I equated flossing with how women would sometimes paint their fingernails- personal preference, but not actually necessary or for any healthy purpose.
I’m with the “giving to charity” and “managing money” crowd. My parents do a good job of budgeting, living well within their means, and planning for the future, and I always had a vague idea that they gave money to charity, but since money was something we didn’t talk about, I have no idea how they did it. Luckily, my husband is good with money, so it’s not a huge deal.
My dad also never taught me to drive a stick shift, but that’s my own fault. He tried starting the day I got my learner’s permit, but I freaked out so much that he gave up.
As far as cooking, cleaning, family relationships, and that kind of thing, they did a really wonderful job.
As for cooking - my mother taught me how she cooks but that bears no resemblence to actually preparing food that anyone would like to consume. Took me years and some great roommates to learn that I could actually cook and that I did like a lot of different foods
My parents never taught me anything about dating and relationships. I remember occasional moments of affection between them, but no attempt to encourage me or to even raise the subject at all. After the divorce, my mom never dated again.
I suspect this is one of those things you have to learn while you’re young or not at all.
I remember telling my father that I wanted to join the boy scouts because I’d heard they would teach you how to swim. He heard “expensive uniforms and manuals and dues” and said no, completely missing that all I really wanted to do was learn how to swim.
Yikes, some of your family lives sound horrendous!
I think my family are awesome (I tend to group my grandparents in with my mum as my “parents”, as she raised me alone with a lot of help from them) but nonetheless there were a lot of things they didn’t teach me, such as:
How to cook. Despite being excellent cooks themselves, this was not a skill either my mum or grandma thought to pass on. I must have picked up a bit through osmosis though, as when I left home and started figuring it out I did a lot of “that’s about right, that’s how it looks when they make it”.
A sense of diplomacy: Common to all of us is an explosive temper, an inability to hide your emotions, and the urge to say whatever’s on your mind without thinking it through. My uncle’s wife reports that their 18 month old son is already showing signs of the “McRosity temper” - sudden and frequent explosions of anger and frustration, which are over just as suddenly with the return of the previously sunny attitude. It took me quite a long time to work put that the rest of the world was not set up to deal with this temperament and modify it accordingly.
How to drive: Mum spent most of my life trying to learn herself, so wasn’t in a position to teach me. Grandad would have taught me, but he was getting on a bit by the time I was old enough to learn, plus as his attempts to teach mum were at least partly to blame for her repeated failures (see above re: explosive temper!), I wasn’t that keen. I still don’t know how.
But on the whole I think the things they did teach me - compassion, humility, the importance of family, a good work ethic, the ability to laugh at myself (a much under-rated skill IMO!), a sense of social responsibility - are a lot more valuable than the things they didn’t.
My parents didn’t teach me tons of things. We never had the sex talk, for instance; I learned through a mixture of encyclopedia and field research. But the most glaring thing they didn’t teach me, and were probably incapable of teaching me, was how to teach for myself.
In the summer between 3rd and 4th grade, I first read about the theory of evolution. My father and I were close then, and I was eager to tell him this new and fascinating concept I’d learned about, so one day while we were working on the car I told him all about common descent, about mammals and birds coming from ancient reptiles, about reptiles coming from amphbians, and so on. I’d done things like this with my mother many a time, telling her what I’d learned about physics and World War II and so forth, and I mistakenly thought he’d approve. Instead he got furious and yelled at me that I was going against the Bible, and he uttered a phrase he has never stopped uttering: “It’s not for you to understand. It’s for you to BELIEVE.”
That’s my dad. He parrots the teachings of his church and thinks that makes him wise. He thinks deliberate ignorance is a positive virtue, and thinking for yourself is a definite sin.
Lots of things but I’ll pick a mild one for this thread:
How to tip. My mom is a stingy tipper to this day, and usually finds some nitpicky fault with the waiter or waitress in order to justify tipping 10% or less. Until I was in college, I didn’t even know that you were supposed to tip people in other professions, such as hairdressers or bartenders.
Oh wow… honestly, my parents didn’t teach me much of anything. No sex talk, no money management talk, no relationship advice. My mother was a personal hygene slob, so I didn’t get advice/lessons on any of the other stuff girls get from their mother. I learned to shave my legs/underarms on my own, learned about tampons on my own, learned about make up on my own.
I did, however, learn how to insult and demean people from her, if that counts for anything.
Sex. Ha! I got slapped once for saying the word “pregnant”.
Money matters. And they were very frugal. They just never taught me any of it, not even how to balance a checkbook. I had to learn it all out in the world.
Affection between couples.
Pop culture - this is not their fault and more because they weren’t raised here, so i was always way, way behind on the pop culture other kids inherited from their parents. It was weird not knowing about the Beatles, or the sixties, or a myriad of other things.
Anything having to do with sports. And for that matter, anything outdoors related, like fishing, hunting, camping, etc. Which I really regret now, because I love to travel and love taking in the natural beauty whenever I go to the beach or a national park. But other than hiking or taking pictures, I don’t really have much to keep me busy when I go to any type of outdoor scenic locales.
My parents never went over sex with me, which would have been mortifying at the time, but should have happened. Also the biggest problem was their relationship was so messed up that I thought they were normal. They rarely fought, but they would go months at a time without speaking. It was horrible and affected me in a very negative way. I was always afraid they would get divorced. But things would have been better if they did divorce. I made many of the same types of mistakes they made by following their example. It’s taken a lot of time to fix that.