the folks

[Shazzy]

I'm the oldest of...well, let's just say my family is definitely larger than the average American household of 2.57 individuals. Both my parents wanted a big family, yet my dad becomes selectively incompetent as soon as "cooking" or "laundry" is mentioned, so my mom ends up taking care of the house/kids. My dad's main familial task was orchestrating vacations: as a Florida family we did the Orlando route (Disney World, Universal, etc.) 2-3x a year, and we never failed to go on EVERY ride EVERY time.

Both are extremely smart (genius IQs, if you give that any credence) and expected no less than a perfect GPA and involvement in as many extracurricular activities as possible. Magically, they discovered how to encourage excellence without making me feel unduly pressured. Result: I have a great resentment-free work ethic.

Both think alike and I could never get one parent to say yes if the other already said no. If I got into a fight with one, the other parent would come in start echoing the first. Not fun :p

My parents are dyed-in-the-wool republican conservatives; registering democrat is the ultimate sacrilege.

My dad is hard to describe. He's a non-geeky intellectual who comes off as an outdoorsy sports person. He gave me a computer when I was three and signed me up for soccer when I was four. Ambrose Bierce summarizes his sense of humor. Battlestar Galactica is his TV show of choice. He listens to Enya and anything containing "tribal" in its title. My personality is very similar to my dad's and we get along great. His major failing is the aforementioned resistance to (gasp) cook, clean, and oversee small children.

My mom tries to do too much. She raises the kids, directs youth programs, runs a small business on top of her day job, involves herself in city politics, etc. She's always multitasking and it's simply exhausting to hold a conversation with her. She's addicted to organization and scheduling; spontaneous is not a word in her vocabulary. She's pretty controlling in general: we have a lot of fun differentiating "children" and "adult children who live independently." That said, she'll bend over backwards to help you accomplish pretty much anything. She'll cheer you up when you fail and cheer you on when you succeed.

[Bakadeshi]

haha where to start....

first off let me say I really like both my parents. Probably more of a moms boy, but both are cool.

But lets start with mom :O

My mom and dad met when she was pretty young, like 18ish or so I think. My dad wa like the player type of person back then, and my mom was more the shy type at the time. Shes really artistic, can draw and paint REALY well, and smart enough to figure out alot of stuff on her own, or with little help. Probably where I got my tallents from. Shes semi strict, but also very patient (unless shes already having a bad day) She would discipline us and actually tell us why we were being disciplined, not just a because "I said so". In most cases though, as long as the grades where good and the house choores got done, she didn't really have any other issues with us pretty much doing what we wanted, unless it was something we shouldn't be doing. She was pretty supportive of our hobbies, and even took some interest in a few anime titles in later years (when we actually got into anime) Shes pretty open minded. I think her favorites are ghibli type movies, Which I think are the best types of anime to get your rents into before anything else ;p
We always lived with mom. I'll get into the devorce on the dad part ;p

Now for Dad, I mentioned he was something of a player in his younger days, Well, My mom didn't like that idea, so they separated when I was around er 8 or ( I think. Although my mom was kinda strict, she wasn't so quick to punish us, most of the actual punishments came from dad. Such as I remember a time when we were supposed to take a bath and instead we somehow found it hilarious to run around the house naked instead of doing what we were told. Let me tell you a thick leather belt on naked skin doesn't feel very nice He was also into cars, and was very particular about any of us playing next to said cars. He was very quick to threaten with the belt, and just as quick to use it if we didn't listen. Aside from that though, he was a pretty cool dad, and was well known in the town we lived, since he was hands down the best bodyman in town, all the custom jobs went to him. My mom actually helped out some with that, Drew the artwork and he'd airbrush it on the car or bike or van or whatever they were working on. My dad was alot like my mom in that he picked up on things pretty quickly and though not as artistic as my mom, was pretty good with a large range of things. Fixed alot of stuff around the house himself, stuff like that. I guess you could call him dexterous ;p

After my mom devorced him though, my dad was quite the ladies man. I have about 11 or 12 sisters as a result, all from different moms. And I think 1 brother that I know of. I havn't even met all of em yet. Its bitting him in the but now though, cuz now all of em are coming back winning about childsupport, even though alot of these girls are the type that would take the money and go to the mall with it. My dad has settled down in his later years now though and gotten much wiser with those kinda things. Hes married with a girl he helped to get into the country but they don't realy get along, since shes almost like the evil stepmother in the cinderella story to my older sister living in the house named Rashida. Shida is not her daughter, while the other 2 in the house are, so a similar situation materialized in the house, especially since she gets jealous easily and does not like Rashidas mom. Shes somewhat immature for her age sometimes also, tough she is still pretty young at around 29. Fortunately shes been better with this lately and usually is nice unless something gets her upset, then she takes it out on the rest of the family for days after. (its almost like she has an internal switch that you don't want to flip) He still claims my mom was the best girl he ever had though and regrets that he screwed up in the past ;p (although theres a blessing in desguise I guess, since I like all my sisters that I have come to know )

My dad is also somewhat into anime, though He prefers shorter series that he doesn't have to watch over a long period of time. He ejoyed titles like Initial D, Afro Samurai, Kenshin OVAs, Memories, Tokyo Godfathers, Steamboy, and pretty much all the Ghibli movies. He prefers the stuff that has more impressive animation, such as movies, and 3d works like the Final fantasy movies over the cheaper budgeted Syndicated TV shows. He also showed some interest in my AMVs and have commented on them in the past.

Me being a grownup now though, I have to say its thanks to my parents being strict as they were that kept me out of trouble and helped me grow to a pretty stable person today with no problems with stuff like drugs or alcohol abuse and the such. Well thats pretty much my rents in a nutshell, typed alot more than I expected I would ;p

[Bakadeshi]

er, older sister being oldest of the sisters, shes 15 now, not older than me ;p

[SilversLightning]

Uh....what parents?

[JudgeHolden]

I keep the heads of my parents in the freezer ... making for a rather fridged relationship .....







What, you expected a real answer ..... not going to happen.

[8bit_samurai]

Hmm... Let's see. Outta my step family, I take after my dad, being the youngest of the sibings. My birth mother was also the youngest of her siblings. Outta my blood siblings, I'm 4th oldest outta 11 or so. I'm 3rd oldest outta my real father's kids, 2nd outta my birth mother's side. My real father was 2nd oldest outof his siblings. Don't really know much about my parents regarding their past history BH (Before Henry, me). It's sorta complicated. Also, there were traditions my parents followed that people these days don't do. I'm a full blooded Alaskan Native, although I don't act as one when it comes to traditions and such. :/

[downwithpants]

Magically, they discovered how to encourage excellence without making me feel unduly pressured. Result: I have a great resentment-free work ethic.

i'm curious, how'd they do that? it's not easy to do.

[Shazzy]

Magically, they discovered how to encourage excellence without making me feel unduly pressured. Result: I have a great resentment-free work ethic.

i'm curious, how'd they do that? it's not easy to do.

Emphasizing results of success/involvement/work visually. My dad wanted me to join the debate team, so instead of pushing me to sign up, he took me to a finalist policy round. Seeing those guys talk 300 miles a minute was more motivating than him telling me what a great opportunity it was. Same thing with theatre, music, etc. They took to me a really good high school drama production and my mom talked about the acting she had done in HS/college, which led me to thinking, "hey, why can't I do that?" They're great at introducing opportunities in a positive light without saying "you should do this," or "we want you to do that."

And as far as actual school goes...while they did expect perfect grades, they phrased it as "you're too smart to not get As." That sunk in as, "Yeah, I'm not stupid, I'm keeping my 4.0." I was self-motivated from then on. Before middle school they didn't talk about grades at all. Scores were sent directly to the parents, so I didn't know grades existed in elementary school. If I wasn't doing well in a certain subject, my mom would play related educational games with me at home.

[Kusoyaro]

My parents are Asian.


...that's actually a pretty detailed description of them, when I think about it.

[Kionon]

My parents are Asian.


...that's actually a pretty detailed description of them, when I think about it.

Or you could read the Kusoyaro interview. It explains everything.

I don't like my parents, they don't like me. We talk very little, and only in regards to what we have to. Since I am living at home while I save up the cash to move back to Atlanta, our conversations are limited to "Do you want dinner?" "No." or "Please move your car." "Okay." and not much else. This has been true for most of my life, and I'm not much interested in seeing it change. Both of my parents are decent individuals, but they're not the personality type I would look for in a friend, and I am told they feel the same way about me (and now-a-days, that's the way they feel about it each other as well).