What my father taught me

A couple of days ago I posted 'What my mother taught me', so now I'm doing what my father taught me. I don't think I have ever mentioned it, but I grew up in two homes. I have never known my parents together so it was normal for me to go back and forth between houses. They always lived in the same city (not anymore since I moved out), but my week was split up between two homes: my Mom's and my Dad's So, here's some things that my father taught me:

- You can do better: My father believes in doing your best no matter what. If your going to work, why not it be your best? He taught me to do my best and be proud of the work that I produce.

- Work for it: If I wanted something, my dad would usually ask what I am going to do in order to get there. He is a go-getter type person and has taught me that if you want something you need to go get it. No one is just going to hand it to you, that's lazy.

-Exercise is important: though I didn't understand as a child why my dad always recommended that I join a sports team so strongly, I understand now that not only does it form healthy habits, but develops important skills of working and winning as a group. It's also great for stress relief and keeping your head on right.

- Share with the ones you love, or even just like: My dad loves throwing dinners or parties that bring basically everyone he knows in the area together. He's all for "the more the merrier". My favorite has got to be his holiday party (which I now travel to Arizona to attend) where there's plenty of food and wine for almost his whole neighborhood. He taught me that a good thing is always better when shared with others (often referring to a bottle of wine, or when I cook up a batch of these nachos in the summer).

- responsibility: I HATED this as a child but it has indeed paid off now that I'm an adult (or that's what the government says I am). Me and my brother had weekly chores of cleaning our rooms, taking out the trash, and other things that we did anything to get out of. But now, I can easily keep my house in order with out the question of "someone else will do it". As my dad always told me "Just do it". I know, nike says that too...

- cooking (to survive): I'll be honest, as a kid my dad was not a very talented cook (sorry dad!). But my brother and I have a running joke about the only four things we had for dinner; chicken, fish, spaghetti, or hamburgers. I will say that sense then, my dad has broadened his cooking horizons. But If we wanted something else, we had to cook it. So that's what I did. I learned how to cook scrambled eggs in preschool and sense then I've been getting better and better. But, I still have a hard time eating spaghetti.


I have to say that I enjoyed these two posts. Parents play such a role in a child's life and I didn't quite realize it until I did this. I knew that they taught me things but you usually only recognize the small ones rather than the ongoing skills they secretly teach you (sneaky parents...)

What have your parents taught you that helped to shape the way you are today??????