Who's the better man--you or your father? Who's the better woman--you or your mother

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I’m a pretty cool guy, overall. There are some important things that are very good about me. There are also some things I lack.

My dad has basically all the same good qualities that I have. Thing is, he basically has all the OTHER good qualities too, with the exception of any sense of personal style and the ability to dance without looking like a lame white guy.
In particular, I’m lazy and not socially graceful, and he’s very hardworking (he actually has a life’s work. There’s a space telescope up there right now taking measurements and pictures which he was the driving force behind for 25+ years) without being a jerk about it, and genuinely sociable and friendly to all. I value good deeds, and give money to charity. He values good deeds, gives money (probably more than me, with respect to income) to charity, and goes out there and actually spends time helping people, both “in the trenches” and by being on the board of various organizations.
Also, I seem to have no romantic success at all, and he’s been happily married to my mother for 38 years.
The real tough question is who is a better person, my late paternal grandfather or my father. I know that dad would say that grandpa was better, but really, they’re both such amazing people, I think any meaningful comparison is impossible.

42

I think she was happy. I never got the sense that she was ever dissatisfied with herself, and I think that’s what makes people unhappy. They feel something’s lacking in themselves.

She got slightly better toward the end. I think age mellowed her a bit.

I’ve felt bad all afternoon about dumping on her, and trying to think of something positive. Found this – she wouldn’t take any crap. If somebody messed with you, she’d find a way to retaliate. Mom was good to have on your side. (All my friends were scared of her.)

43

You can buy really good pastry these days. :smiley:

Auntie Pam, you knew your mother much better than I do (no, really?), but I don’t think that people who are truly happy can cause other people so much pain. This is definitely a subject for debate, though.

44

I am a better wife, and mother than my own.

I care about my kids and LIKE them as people. My mother is a very self-absorbed person who literally cannot empathize with anyone. She is chronically pessimistic and critical. I have taken to calling her Ms Doom and Gloom in my head.

Seriously.

I hate to say it, but there it is. And on some level, I think she knows that I am a better parent than she was–I don’t rub it in, but I do protect my kids from too much of her selfish bitterness.

If I died tomorrow, all my kids would know that I loved them. My mother has never so much as said those words to me, and I am 43.

On a more positive note: she read to us when we were kids and transmitted a love of literature to us. So, that it a good thing.

45

I might agree that people who are truly happy can’t knowingly cause other people so much pain, but I think that people like AuntiePam’s mother often go through life in blissful (if not willful) ignorance.

46

I’ll have to think about that. She was an alcoholic, and it’s hard to sort out.
She did what she wanted, and I think that qualifies as happiness for some people. She never showed that she was discontented with herself or her life. But then, I never asked her.

Maybe I’m choosing to think she was happy.

47

My mother had a better education, a better childhood, and better career than me. She ruined her career after serving hard time in prison for money laundering and drug-trafficking. She was a cocaine addict before my birth, during her pregancy, and only quit when I was small child. She can’t date a nice man, she has to have the scum of the earth. She takes credit for things she never did.

I think I win, by a slight margin. Though my mother is a better cook than me.

48

I would not want to be like my father. He has lied and cheated for as long as I can remember. Me and my siblings from his marriage to my mother are nothing but leaches as far as he is concerned. The only reason he has anything today is because he married into money. His wife is quick to point this out too. He screwed over my mother in their divorce, he rarely if ever paid child support, and to this day does not acknowledge any of my children as his grandchildren.

Lord knows I haven’t been a saint but I have tried to do the right things with my kids. I accepted responsibility for the child I helped produce when I was a teenager, he proudly calls me Dad and I am the first person he calls when he has a question. I simply adore his wife and their 3 children are a light in my life. Just wish I could see them more often. My other son doesn’t want to talk to me, I don’t know why, the decision is his.

I accepted my wife’s two daughters as my own and tried to give them the same things my own children received. The older one calls me Dad and I just love the dickens out of her children. Despite causing untold problems she caused for me in the past, I will be there for my younger stepdaughter.

To me a perfect day would be taking my 7 grandchildren to a county fair for the day. Samantha, Alicia, Jason, Joey, Chrissy, Victoria, and Blake would probably enjoy it as much as I would. I could never imagine my father taking any of his 10 grandchildren anywhere, he probably couldn’t name 3 of them today. I am glad I did not become my father.

49

I live under the notion (some say delusion) that my parents were at one time decent people, but that they never should have had children and certainly not with each other. Hell, I don’t think they should have ever gone to a movie together, but if not, I won’t be here, so oh well.

They have an absolutely terrible relationship and yet stay together. My parents fought all the time when I was younger (they fight less now, I think they’ve lost the energy). My mother almost always put me in the middle of the fights. Or I’d try to defend one of them and then get pulled in. My mother is manipulative, but in an open, obvious way, so at least we (I have an older brother) could make the choice to be manipulated or not. My father is manipulative in a much more subtle way. My mother, instead of stepping in and telling my father to back off, was jealous of the attention that he gave me and did nothing about it. I have recently come to believe that she really does love me, but honestly, that knowledge at 20 doesn’t do a damn bit of good to the little girl inside of me that’s 8 years old and wants to be told she is loved and feel safe in her own home. I have a sister I’ve never met because the state took her away from my parents for neglect.

Most parents hope that their children will turn into good people, I used to hope that my parents would turn into good people. I’ve had to give that up for my own sanity. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with my past and it’s only through the love and support of my friends and a boyfriend that won’t let me hide from my past or take out the pain on myself that I have.

I don’t think I’m a great person, marginally decent, maybe good. That being said, I think I am a better person. No, I know I’m a better person.

50

That’s it. She’d be hurt or mad when friends stopped coming by or calling, or when she wasn’t included in an invitation. I never heard her wonder if maybe she had hurt someone’s feelings or pissed them off.

I’ve asked my kids to let me know when I’m channeling grandma, and believe me, they do.

51

Tough call – but I think maybe my mother was better.

She was an angry, “difficult” person, who became an alcoholic as I was hitting puberty. She was later diagnosed as manic-depressive, although she was not an extreme case. However, my brother and I never doubted for a nanosecond that she loved both of us and our father.

Having said that, she was a very intelligent, talented, capable woman who was born at a time when most women did not go to college and did not work outside the home after getting married, and I think she felt both frustrated that she never got to do some of the things she had always wanted to do (like, go to Paris) and also terribly, terribly guilty that she had such a loving, stable home and yet wanted more.

I always admired her beauty, her kindness, her brains, her sophistication (or what I perceived as such as a kid), her sense of humor and, as I got older, I came to appreciate what a good mother she was (earlier on, anyway), in that she taught us not just a love of reading and a love of education in general, but she taught us to be good people and to stand up to peer pressure without a lot of lectures and punishments.

I don’t drink, smoke, or use drugs, and I don’t have kids, so it’s hard to really compare myself to her in that way. But I think maybe she was better than I because she got more out of life, traveled more, did more, loved more, than I think I ever will.

Love you, Mom.

52

:dubious: Oh, right. A likely story.

You guys want to know what happens when Qadgop gets really angry with one of us? He does this thing where he sort of tucks his head down and glares. In extreme situations, he sometimes speaks forcefully. Not yells, mind you.
As for the OP’s question, ask me in another 20 years or so.