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    Inherited Traits

    EDIT: Removed
    Last edited by Johnny Velvet; 05-11-2021, 12:46.

    #2
    The thing is that if your Dad identifies this as one of your mam's characteristic traits, then it has been happening quietly around an entirely oblivious little Reginald Christ probably your entire life.

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      #3
      I inherited my father's trait of 'if you can't pay cash for it, you can't afford it'. It worked for him, and me as well.

      My wife laughs at my parents staying in their 'starter' home for 56 years, but we've already been here for 20 and have absolutely no thoughts on moving.

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        #4
        I inherited my dad's trait of buying all the things. He inherited that from his dad as well. Thankfully, I've learned to manage my impulses. Now I take time to consider whether or not I really need the thing and what impact it would have on the accumulation of stuff in my apartment. I think dad would be in awe.

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          #5
          Originally posted by WOM View Post
          I inherited my father's trait of 'if you can't pay cash for it, you can't afford it'. It worked for him, and me as well.
          My Dad inherited that trait from his Dad, defined regularly as "Never a borrower nor lender be." He followed it to the extent of never having a mortgage on our house. He did his best to pass it on to me but, luckily, I learned pretty quickly that being self employed without a line of credit was basically inviting disaster. My Dad would never have understood that. Fortunately he didn't handle the finances for his architectural practice.

          From my Mother I inherited a proclivity to argue and gossip.
          Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 27-09-2018, 00:47.

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            #6
            I was in the local hardware store yesterday having some new keys cut. I also bought some Araldite, as you never know when you may need something sticking back together. It comes from my carpenter dad who passed on last year. He had no truck with the likes of superglue.

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              #7
              Reg, I'm not if that was a deliberate gag, but the German word 'die Schuld' is guilt, fault, blame, and 'die Schulden', the plural form, is debt.

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                #8
                Being at least three hours early for flights, and quite a bit premature for most other events. Inherited from my mother.

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                  #9
                  From my father a hatred of being late. It was a standing joke in our family that he’d be outside in the car with the engine running and ready to go whilst my mother was still applying her make up or whatever. I get really irritated if we have to be somewhere at a particular time and others are dilly-dallying and making us late. On one occasion my daughter (then smack in the middle of being a particularly horrible teenager) was being so awkward about getting ready to go to my brother’s house for Boxing Day dinner that we called her bluff after several warnings and left her behind.

                  From my mother, and remarkably similar to the OP, a real dislike of owing anyone anything. My wife is exactly the same and in 35 years of marriage, other than our mortgage (now a distant memory), we have never had a loan of any description, never been overdrawn at the Bank, paid off the credit card immediately if circumstances have required us to use it and saved for every large purchase. We even have separate savings accounts for holidays, bills and the car. It’s positively anal but so like my mother in every respect. The other day I popped in to the local greengrocer for a plantain. I only had a tenner on me but the guy serving had no change. “Don’t worry – just take it, it’s only 20p” he said. I was back there within 30 minutes with his 20p.

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                    #10
                    Mum passed on a love of a bargain, so I’m always on the lookout for deep-discounted yellow stickers in supermarkets. Plus a hatred of throwing away food.

                    Dad taught me a love of gardening, birdwatching, rambling, being perfectly content in my own company and leading a quiet, aimless life.

                    Neither was interested in football beyond watching a cup final on the tv, but a couple of uncles took me under their wing to germinate that obsession.

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                      #11
                      I'm the first generation in my family that doesn't want to send back anyone of a darker skin tone than my own to theirs or their ancestors' country of origin.

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                        #12
                        Big noses run in my family.

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                          #13
                          Get a tissue.

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                            #14
                            Gezundheit!

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by gjw100 View Post
                              We even have separate savings accounts for holidays, bills and the car.
                              Yes, this. Since '97, we've had an ING account where $400 goes each month, automatically. That's the car money. Also, I buy our Florida flights in October, so by the time we take them, they've been paid off for six months. Oh, and the other day, a girl in my office picked us both up some Muji pens. A whole $3 worth. I only had a toonie, and I obsessed over the buck I still owed her all night.

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                                #16
                                Both my sister and I have inherited my father's inability to admit to being ill. It's not good. She recently had a mastectomy, as she has/had breast cancer. She was back at work the following day. "What? I'm not going to die. They've lopped off my boob. Bro, stop being such an old woman."

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by gjw100 View Post
                                  From my father a hatred of being late. It was a standing joke in our family that he’d be outside in the car with the engine running and ready to go whilst my mother was still applying her make up or whatever. I get really irritated if we have to be somewhere at a particular time and others are dilly-dallying and making us late. On one occasion my daughter (then smack in the middle of being a particularly horrible teenager) was being so awkward about getting ready to go to my brother’s house for Boxing Day dinner that we called her bluff after several warnings and left her behind.
                                  This. I'm sure my sons have cottoned on and dilly-dally just to wind me up.

                                  Then again, I also remember that having finally forced all 5 of us into the car for a day out, my father would then get out his chamois leather and calmly polish the windscreen for 5 minutes while we sat in the car like lemons as my friends peered into the car and made funny faces at us. It was probably a deliberate punishment but we didn't learn from it.

                                  I also inherited from my parents an inability to leave food on the plate. They had 4 children - we weren't poor, but every scrap of food was eaten, no question. I suppose this came from my parents having lived through post-war austerity and rationing. I'm just greedy.

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                                    #18
                                    Yeah. The depression and wartime left two generations with that attitude.* It was never a problem for me — I ate like a goat — but my sister was a seriously picky eater and mealtimes were a constant battle between her and my Mum.

                                    *The owner of a building I worked in owned several apartment blocks in Vancouver and bought a new Cadillac every year. But, if you had coffee with him he'd always take all the sugar off the table, empty the salt shakers into a napkin and put them in his pocket. He was still just a Saskatchewan boy running away from the depression.

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                                      #19
                                      My parents were also punctuality fanatics. And rightly so. The only time I've ever been late in my adult life was because of a traffic jam on the M4. I missed my plane and had to sleep on the floor at Heathrow. Served me right, even though it wasn't my fault.

                                      You arrive late, you steal other people's time. The height of bad manners, I think.

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                                        #20
                                        Things I inherited from my father

                                        The sound of my voice. If I answer the phone at my parents' house, people assume that it's my father answering. I have his inflection and a lot of his turns of phrase. I swear, though, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he has.
                                        The way I put my body in certain positions. There's a picture of us from about a decade ago, looking up at the roof, our poses are a mirror.
                                        His ability to move on. Both of us have pretty short tempers, but once we've blown up the storm passes instantly and that's that.

                                        Things I get from my mother

                                        Height, hair, looks, one ear (the other is from my father, so they're different sizes)
                                        A love of literature and the arts.

                                        I don't know where I get my excellent singing voice from, the only person who has a worse singing voice than my mother is my father.

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                                          #21
                                          Lets say that the sort of behaviour we're talking about is a result of you taking part of your demeanour from one parent, and then taking that behaviour from that same parent. That's pretty easy spot, because usually a sibling is going to have pointed it out to you. But what about all the things that you do that are a mixture of a bit of demeanour from parent A and a behaviour you have taken from parent B? If you spend too long thinking about these things, you start to question free will. And what about things that you do that are the direct opposite of something that one of your parents does.....

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                                            #22
                                            What was it Larkin said?

                                            Something about a toad?

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                                              #23
                                              That poem was the first place where I saw the word Fuck written down.

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