Would You Rather Know Everything About Your Parents Or Have Them Remain Mysterious?

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 5/23/07 at 8:38pm

Here's kind of an interesting thought I've been ruminating on lately:

Would you rather know everything about your parents or would you rather know little-to-nothing, thinking of them only as parents? The love is still there, but you think of them first as a mother or first as a father.

[StageManager2]

Posted: 5/23/07 at 8:42pm

I last saw both my parents when I was six, so I'd like to know anything and everything about them. They're a mystery to me.

[One Song Glory]

Posted: 5/23/07 at 9:17pm

That's a tough question. I guess I don't want to know everything about my parents, partly because I really don't want to distort my image of who they are. As close as I want to be to my mom and dad, there are probably things about my parents that I don't want to find out.

Posted: 5/23/07 at 9:42pm

I think I know a little too much about my parents as it is. It's nice being close to my mother, but she tells me too much, and I just don't want to know. Then, she asks me for opinions about my father and other matters that I just don't feel comfortable discussing at all. In a way, I wish I didn't know as much as I do. It's very confusing and it has changed my relationship with both parents in a way that I'm not happy with.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 5/23/07 at 9:47pm

My parents reveal little of themselves to anyone.

I love them, but in all honesty I doubt if I met them at a party that I would want to get to know them. (let's assume I didn't know them).

I would like to know more, if only to figure out why they are who they are.

[AnnaK<3LMIP]

Posted: 5/23/07 at 10:21pm

I know my father has so many things he probably hasn't even told me mother. But the position he was put in trying to take care of his family and get them out of Iraq at a young age made him the man that he is today - and I respect him probably more than I respect anyone else. I don't know everything he's gone through, and it some respects, it is none of my business, father or not.

My mother on the other hand, is funny about how she shares things, because the stories she shares are random, but if I have a question about her childhood or her life I know I can ask her.

Either way, my parents and I have a good enough bond as it is.

[Holly Therese]

Posted: 5/24/07 at 8:45am

I am absolutely cool with knowing everything about my parents as long as it has nothing to do with sex.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/24/07 at 8:50am

I don't think we know "everything" about anyone, no matter how close we are to them. It's an impossible notion.

But... I'm very close to both my parents, and I know a lot about them and their lives. And they know a lot about mine. We've learned from each other, as well as about each other.

And I'm grateful for that, and wouldn't have it any other way.

[D2]

Posted: 5/24/07 at 10:27am

I'd second B12B's comment about learning from them - and discovering what I like and dislike about my parents, how I am recognizing those same good and bad qualities in myself and adjusting my own behaviour accordingly.

[avab802]

Posted: 5/24/07 at 10:48am

I think there are some things better left unknown. I once heard my father say to my mother in the midst of an argument that she favored my sister over me. My mother didn't deny it. I wish I hadn't heard that. I have a great relationship with both of my parents, but that comment is still a little cloud over my head sometimes.