The ways in which you've become your father

I never knew my father so...

Not yet. He died when I was seven.

I make the old man groans when getting in and out of a chair.

My dad died when I was 5. I have zero memories of him. My mom says I’m nothing like him.

I’m a drunk.

A lot of personality traits can be traced back to your heredity rather than your upbringing. There are certain hereditary characteristics you can overcome or change to a certain extent, but we are all products of our parents. I know I am much more like my mother, looks and personality wise, but I did inherit my father's analytical mind.

Bald

I did the 2-finger whistle to scare some bratty kids off my lawn the other day!

Do you have kids or annoying spouse waiting in the house for you, OP? What are you avoiding inside?

I blush like my dad. I suspect I have a low sperm count like my dad. But I definitely have a lot more sex!

[quote]I make the old man groans when getting in and out of a chair.

My sister says that when I do that, I sound exactly like my mother.

She's 85.

Conflict-avoidant, weed-intolerant, sugar-addicted, sexually-deviant.

I know when the local highways were built and the old routes people used to have to take and I will talk about them whether people want to hear about it or not

R9, a semi-complicated relationship in which I'm not getting dinner hot and ready for me when I get home.

I find myself using the same expressions and reactions that he did, when somebody or something posses me off.

And sometimes I’ll have on a particular sweatshirt and in a color like he’d wear, and that together with the hair and face similarity if I catch myself in a mirror, I’ll get startled as if to say, “What’re you doing there, what’d I do!???” 😜

That's what you think, R10.

I am cold and distant toward everyone and everything. Inheritance complete.

[quote] I find myself using the same expressions and reactions that he did,

Me too! And not until my father passed away semi-recently. He was a grizzled old Italian SOB (meant with love), the likes of which doesn't even exist anymore. And now I find myself mimicking some of his phrases without realizing it! It's a little freaky.

I'm a stickler for turning off lights when not in use.

I’m insufferable, grumpy, and fat.

I’m swayve and d-boner like how.

Like him

my mom and dad had a lifetime agreement: she cooked dinner, he did the dishes. And it was never a problem; he always did them willingly. But there's one small difference… my kitchen doesn't have a dishwasher. His always did. and I cannot tell you how many friends of mine that I have cooked for repeatedly or that surg on my in my living room sofa walk right past a sink full of dirty dishes on their way out.

And neither one of us excell at money management. My mom did, and my brother got those genes.

I defraud people too!

—Genetics?

Just this very evening, I heard myself make some kind of nonverbal response to a coworker and I was immediately aware that it sounded exactly like Dad.

I haven't started doing the nonno walk yet with my hands clasped behind my back as I go muttering around the neighborhood, so there is that to look forward to!

No. But I can tell you how I'm slowly becoming MOTHER

I'm helpless in the kitchen.

'Spitting image' or '2 peas- in-a-pod', said both sides of the family. Father is long gone but he lives on thru' me.

My father was an entrepreneur wannabe, trying several times without success. I found out recently that he was set up in his first business by his first wife's father, who trained him, financed him, and sent customers to him for years... until she divorced him (for another man who I came to know as my half-sisters' stepfather, and was a good guy). Even after the divorce her father sent customers my father's way, but it wasn't enough to save him and he lost that business. He tried again and again but didn't have what it takes to run his own business.

I'm a serial entrepreneur currently working on business #4 having built and sold the first 3, so not quite becoming my father, but still...

Muttering to myself incessantly while doing physical tasks (cooking, home repairs, weeding etc)… and now I struggle to stop myself from doing it in the supermarket. “I don’t know, these avocados seem like they’re never gonna ripen, got picked too soon, well, this one looks all right…”

R23, your parents were more gender-ly egalitarian than mine. She cooked. She did the dishes. But my cultural background can be chauvinistic and, as the kids say nowadays, 'toxic.'

I make small talk like my dad. Same jocular style. Same polite responses with the same inner eye roll from the other party.

I’ve also begun using his sayings like “we’re off like a dirty shirt” or it’s time to “beat feet”. You start by making fun of them and suddenly it’s no longer an act!

I remember the good ol days

I'm referred to as Mr. [First letter of my last name], and that's what the local kids refer to me as when their parents make them ask permission from me to host some noisy, lousy party of theirs.

Hairy

I used to roll my eyes when my dad would get up from the couch every evening at 9:45pm to check that the stove was off, lights were off, and doors were locked before bed.

I now do the exact same thing.

My father was a bit quiet and aloof - he was a decent guy but had an abusive childhood, and was always wary of people.

I've become more like him as I age.

Also, I saw a decorative kitchen towel the other day that said “My Mother was right about everything” and it’s so true.

So ADHD he flickered.

My dad had a helluva offensive humor. It used to make me 'cringe....."

'.....until it didn't and then it made me laugh."

Italian-American and offensive.

Father would never use pretentious constructions like 'the ways in which' when 'how' and 'the ways that' work just fine.

I like a lot of leisure time. A lot. Like I stopped working at 40 years old.

I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.

Looking out off my porch and appreciating the fall colors. Appreciating life. Being thankful for a father who loves me for who I am. He knew I was gay before I knew. He's a rock to me. Wonderful man to this day. Love you, dad.

[quote]I'm referred to as Mr. [First letter of my last name], and that's what the local kids refer to me as when their parents make them ask permission from me to host some noisy, lousy party of theirs.

No fats, no femmes

I can sense a disturbance in the air anytime the thermostat temp is raised.

I call things a "whatchamacallit". I mumble aloud to myself while tinkering with something. I scold strangers' children. I ask for a doggy bag if I have more than three bites of food left on my plate. I waste 1/2 a tank of gas driving around the block looking for the perfect parking spot. I'm convinced I can fix anything myself (I'm usually wrong).

R44, maybe not yours, you cunt.

But my father could probably kick your father's ass. And I'm sure I can kick yours. :)

Gay.

r6 as someone who was adopted in infancy and who found my biological parents as an adult, this is 1000% true

I walk around the house in my boxers, and I scratch my balls often—while reading The New Yorker, with a beer nearby. Thanks, Pop!

Jesus H. Christ and fuck constituent the majority of my spoken words on an avg. day.

constitute^

Introverted, thin-skinned, bookish, melancholic.

I share much of my father's contempt for the telephone. My brother and I joked that he would drive two hours to a store to see if they had what a simple call could have answered in seconds.

He would answer the phone only when necessary, and with a loud gruffness that callers would remember for the rest of their lives.

If I answer unknown calls it's with a similar gruffness and no nonsense you're-not-selling-me-anything volume. My father would like that in Spain you can answer the phone "Digame!", a command to state who you are and what you want, quickly.

My husband and I have known each other all of lives. We were both adopted. I am spent my life doing everything I can to avoid being anything my father was. He was a drunk, a failure on many levels, and lacked the understanding that makes a man truly good and decent. My husband though turns into his loudmouth, mean, know it all, and cold father sometimes. He will work all the time like his father, and he wants to rule the whole world around him like his father. And like his father he is more dependent on me than he realizes because he has no patience. And my husband's sainted mother is my personal saint because I see what she really had to put up with as a wife. Remembering her helps me to be a better spouse. So nurture has a great hand in things sometimes.

I talk to strangers easily

This^ I can sit at a bar and bullshit anyone for an hour or two and have new “best” friends. I was taught by a master.

My dad was a little too much like Johnny Nolan in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” He lives on, through me. ;)

I get up in the morning with stiff joints and shuffle across the floor to the bathroom like Tim Conway did when he played the old man, just like my father did.

I used to be rail thin—one of those boys who wore slim-fit jeans and band tees like armor against adulthood. My father, full-bodied and well-fed in a way that seemed architectural (broad through the chest, thick in the haunches, like he’d been built to carry something heavy), once handed me a garment bag of hand-me-downs—Barbour jackets, oxford shirts, pleated trousers with sturdy waistbands. “You’ll grow into them,” he said. I was twenty-one, 125 pounds, and thought it a joke. But of course, I did.

I have the same God complex

Turning off lights all the time to save $$$

I now find myself only reading non-fiction history books, and have developed an interest in WW2.

Silent, avoidant, possibly slightly neurodivergent.

So 63 and older 63 were less than interesting.

[quote]I can sense a disturbance in the air anytime the thermostat temp is raised.

That's my mom. She, too, could estimate the temperature. My mom could smell rain before the weatherman reported it. If a hurricane was barreling toward us, she knew it would veer off at the last second, just by looking at track. I can hear "Don't put the shutters or buy all those extra supplies until I tell you."

After we knew we were going to get hit, she stayed up until it passed. Can't sleep during a hurricane, that's how tragedies happen.

Most of what I have in common with Dad (huge nose, uncanny sense of direction, sharp at calculations in my head, gift of gab with strangers) has been apparent since my youth. The only way I’ve become more like him more recently is all of my (possibly unnecessary) grunting and groaning when I stand up, sit down, bend over, etc.

Though I am not Ronan F (R28), I do notice how I’m becoming more and more like Mom as I age - and in ways I’m not too pleased about. I’ll elaborate when someone starts THAT thread.

R70 Your wish is my command

I'm not above a little low-level insurance fraud and filling out IRS forms is like writing fiction.