My father was a fine upstanding old school gentleman… and a contientious and dutiful parent. But he was also painfully shy and retiring, and he put off all his adventure and fun for his retirement. Unfortunately he passed away less than a year before he was to retire.
He was twice the man I’ll ever be… but I supect I’ve had more fun.
My dad was a great man, and a fun guy. Before he died, he was president of the local school board for over 20 years, founded the local library district, ran the park program in it’s infancy, was a national officer in the Jaycees, and retired as a VP in the electric company. They named a school for him when he stepped down from the school board.
When he died I stood in front of the standing room crowd of about 800 in the church and recited all the things he was to everyone in the room, and could honestly say that to me and my sister, he was just Dad. He’d come home from meetings where he was forming our community or whatever he did, and we’d sit on the couch with popcorn and watch football, or Benny Hill or whetever. All my friends counted him as a friend too.
Everyone that knew him, even the ones that hated him, liked him. That’s not a contradiction, you had to see it to understand.
People in town, and the next town just knew him by his first name.
Yeah, he’s better, but it gives me something to shoot for, even if it just means I can be that good of a father, because I just don’t have the ambition to do all the things he did. I’ve been an elected official, an appointed village official, ran youth sports programs and headed booster clubs at school, and I don’t know how he did what he did.
In some ways though, I think I’m better. I know I’m more tolerant of other’s differences, and I’m way better looking. 
I’m far from perfect, but I’m a better person than either of my parents.
(And I feel bad about saying so. :()
At my father’s funeral my sister stood up and talked for at least five minutes about why she was proud to be his kid.
When I die, I don’t expect her to do five minutes about why she was proud to be my sister. And if she did, I wouldn’t deserve it as much as my father did.
I respect my daddy more than any other man I’ve ever met and could ever hope to meet. The qualities that I like to think I have and that I value the most – intelligence, humor, and kindness – I value because of him. He’s the kindest, most patient, and most responsible person I’ve ever met. I can’t even begin to think about how much he sacrificed and had to go through for my benefit, to make sure I’ve had a pretty much care-free life.
He’s prideful to a fault (I wish they’d just take my offers to help them out financially instead of always turning it around to offer me money). And he does have some petty racist and conservative views that just seems endemic to everybody from that age group who grew up in GA, but he doesn’t say it around me because he knows it bugs me, and he raised me with the “do as I say, not as I do” attitude so that I thankfully managed to escape it.
But I couldn’t make it into a competition, because I’m nowhere near as responsible and selfless as he is. Thinking about it too much makes me feel like the most selfish man-child there is.
My father dropped out of my life before I could remember him. I’ve seen him twice since and those times he didn’t speak to me. When my first son was born, I reached out to him only to have him never return my calls. He died two years ago and I couldn’t honestly care any less. Hard not to be the better man, he set the bar pretty damned low.
My mother. I’d say that even if she wasn’t, and she is. She works hard, nonstop–in a job where openings and spaces are really tough to get–and she still manages to take care of all three of us and have a brilliant social life. I love my mum. 
My father is a recovering alcoholic. He was a practicing alcoholic from the earliest I can remember until I was an adult living on my own. He was physically abusive to others in my family at least once that I can think of, but mostly he was the kind of guy who got drunk and then argumentative and then quiet and then asleep in bed.
I got a lot of good qualities from my father – he’s a frustrated creative type, and I’m less frustrated and perhaps more creative. I can see reflections of him in me – which means that sometimes I find some of his defense mechanisms tempting. (Not the alcohol; I’ve managed to achieve a realistic relationship with it.)
I haven’t yet faced the test he did – my first child is due later this month. I think I’m a better man than my father is, much as it pains me to say it, and I hope to be a better father.
My mother is hardworking, loyal to her friends and family, has a sense of humor both silly and sarcastic, and has an answer for everything. She is also impatient, quick to find a weak spot and aim straight for it, will never apologize for hurting anyone, nags you constantly if you’re not doing something her way, and will go behind your back and redo the task unless it’s been exactly to her specifications the entire time–and then complain about how incompetent you are. She alternates between lamenting my lack of abilities in many areas, and begging me to help her with things. She grew up the fourth of seven children to abusive, alcoholic parents. As a result, she is very puritanical about drinking, drugs, and smoking. I have many of her good qualities, and nearly as many of her bad ones (replaced by a few of my father’s). I hope that I will be a better woman than she is; for all her faults, I love her dearly.
I do not want to be any more like her, however, than I already am.
My mother was a child who could do nothing for herself, let her parents and husband run her life, and could give you ten negative reasons to not do anything. She let her husband abuse her children in every way, with the rationalization that “he isn’t really hurting you.” In her later years she suffered agraphobia so badly she could not leave the house, and spent the last five years of her life in a nursing home, refusing to go outside.
The only thing I did to make myself better than my mother was the decide to live alone, support myself, and not have children because I was afraid of continuing the cycle.
Physically, I look just like my father. I’m a chip off the old block you could say. I’m not going to compare a lot of our lives because I’m not yet 30 and he was 30 when I was born. My father was a field medic in Vietnam and has been in Emergency Medicine (ER) for 25+ years. He has saved more lives than I could ever hope to. We are both very laid back and soft spoken and we both enjoy hunting, fishing, camping and being outdoors in general. Those are things we have done together since I was little. My father was a better athlete than I was and he is a very artistic person where I am more mechanically inclined and computer literate. My parents did the best they could for me and my sisters, before and after their divorce and my goal has always been to do better for my kids than my parents did for me. So far, so good. At the end of the day though, I love my dad and I respect him for what he has done.
I could only hope to measure up to either my mother or my father (they’ve been married for 51 years, are junior-high school sweethearts, and are so intuned with one another that they are RobertandShirley - one being). I can’t possibly imagine either one of them not being in my life.
My dad. Hands down; no contest.
Yep. That’s it exactly. Dad loved people – all kinds of people. He and Mom had 6 kids of their own and still found time to take in other people’s kids so they could finish out the school year rather than having to move mid year, foreign students studying in the U.S., etc. He was the sole breadwinner for our family, but even with the time that took and the extra kids in the house, all six of us knew with a certainty that we were loved unconditionally (by both parents).
Dad loved people. After he retired, he pretty much adopted the Chinese immigrant community in Omaha, helping them with whatever they needed – figuring out how buying a house works in the States, learning to drive, etc. When he died, over a hundred members of that community showed up at his funeral to pay their respects and say goodbye.
He was hard-working, generous, and had tons of fun. I’ll never be half the man my dad was, mostly because I don’t much care for people in general. But the good qualities I do have, I owe to him and Mom.
This is a great question. When I first read it, I had to think about it. My mom is a great person (that doesn’t do her justice at all), but then again, so am I. Which of us is better? Neither. We’re both very high quality individuals, and I got a lot of my quality from her.
My father was a failure at all the things that make a man. He was an abusive man, with an explosive temper, who started drinking in his late 30s and never stopped. He would beat us into submission. He ruled by fear and violence. He drove away his family and friends, and then actually managed to find and shack up with a woman for 25 years, who let him beat her up. He was a sick sonofabitch, and there isn’t anything easier than being better than he was. Not that I’m still bitter, you understand.
My mother was just the opposite. Anything she did for someone, she made sure people knew about it, and if the favor wasn’t returned (even though she always said she didn’t want it returned), she never forgot it – that person was “ungrateful”. She’d take people to dinner, insist on paying and leaving the tip, and then bitch later because that person never treated. Or if they did manage to treat, she’d complain – “No wonder Irene is always broke.”
No one could ever do her a favor. She just wouldn’t be beholden. She’d insist on paying for everything and resent it when payment was refused. Then she’d bitch if that person couldn’t or wouldn’t help her out later.
The other thing she did that bugged the hell out of me is telling everyone what to do and how to do it. She’d hire a carpenter and then act like he was a 4-year-old with his first power saw. “Do you have the safety on?” She never drove but was the best backseat driver ever. “What’s the speed limit here?” If she had to stand in line, the store was badly managed. If a car was parked in front of her house for more than a day, she called the cops.
She could be really negative and critical about everyone. A nice comment about someone would be followed with a snarky one. Nobody ever got the benefit of the doubt, there was only one way to look at things. She never did anything she felt sorry for.
The result is that when I’m able to do something for someone, I keep it quiet, I try to treat people (including my children) like adults who have good sense, I can rationalize anything, I let people do things for me, and if I screw up, I apologize.
Your mom must be a very unhappy person, Auntie Pam. What a way to go through life - with shit-coloured glasses on.
And seeing that you’re talking about her in the past tense, she must have been a very unhappy person. That’s so sad, when there is so much good in life if you let it be good.
My mother is incapable of showing empathy to anyone. When a tragedy occurs, her only concern is how it affects her, even if it doesn’t. She’s petty and mean. She’s racist. She’s homophobic. She’s selfish. She hoards. She’s overly critical. She was a bad mother. She plays the maryter card every chance she gets. She covets what her friends have. She resents my father if she discovers that someone else’s husband makes more money. She’s a miserable, unhappy person. She is an emotional trainwreck.
I’m a better woman that she is. She makes much better pastry than I do.