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Things you now know your dad was right about
Things you now know your dad was right about - In The Know - MSN Him - MSN UK
Your dad was wrong when he told you your school days are the best days of your life - although with the pressures of work, mortgage, taxes and maybe a young family too, it does not take a genius to see where he was coming from.
In fact all it takes is time; that and a bit of distance to see that dads are right about all kinds of stuff even if at the time they say what they say we are too young or arrogant to appreciate any of it.
Dads, clearly, are a resource we all too often squander. As a wise man once said "it is much easier to become a father than to be one" - and looking back you might discover that yours got it right a lot of the time.
Here's a list of classic fatherly maxims you'll now be able to admit the old man was right about.
"I don't make the rules"
When kids hear this from their parents - and all of us did at some point - it just sounds like a cop-out. Your dad is just passing the buck whilst insisting you do something you would rather not do and which he is determined you are going to.
But actually he was telling you something far more profound, something we all come to understand eventually. That is that sometimes we have to play ball and fit in. Society imposes certain expectations on us all, and often personal success requires us to play by the rules rather than bucking the system.
Rex Features
There's more than a grain of truth in your dad's old maxims, even something as seemingly unhelpful as "there's plenty more fish in the sea"
"There are plenty more fish in the sea"
Generally speaking guys are reluctant to discuss being dumped with their parents, and most parents - the dads definitely - are happy enough to let the subject slide by. The most you will get is a resigned sigh, and the sage piece of piscatorial advice quoted above.
Does it help? Hardly at all. But with age comes experience, and with experience comes the realisation that he was right all along. With three billion women on the planet there was always bound to be another one just right for you, and all he was saying was cast your net wider.
"They don't make 'em like they used to"
Teenagers never listen to their dads' records, and he probably hated yours. But later on in life our interests broaden, a few of the more ludicrous prejudices weaken, and eventually we discover that just because a track was laid down before we were born does not mean it is junk.
Some of your old man's back catalogue - The Beatles, Led Zep, Sinatra even - will have stood the test of time and now there's no shame in admitting you know all the words.
"Give up piano now and you'll regret it later"
Of all the kids who start learning to play a musical instrument 90% drop it eventually, because learning scales and arpeggios is boring and Mozart drives you mental, or because the need to practice begins to compromise a burgeoning social life (and a chronic Wii addiction).
Getty Images
Hands up who doesn't wish they'd stuck with learning an instrument. Thought so.
Parents tell us to stick with it a little bit longer, but hardly anyone does. Later you really wish you had, however. Not because you think you might have made it professionally but because there is something magical about making music - and now you never will.
"You need to polish your shoes"
Was there ever a more boring, more pointless waste of time than polishing your shoes only to have to do it all over again a day or so later? No wonder everyone loves trainers. But actually do they? Well no, actually, quite a lot of them do not.
Ask around and you will find that a lot of girls look at a guy's nails and his shoes. No one wants to be over-groomed, but clean nails are a minimum requirement. Similarly a good pair of shoes demonstrates you care about your appearance, which has got to be better than not.
"You can't dance to this"
It was always pretty annoying when your dad railed against your taste in music, but actually nowhere near as bad as those dads who do the opposite. You know, the ones who attempt to demonstrate they still have it by throwing a few shapes of their own before crashing out with a slipped disc.
Rex Features
Funny how that dance compilation you loved 10 years ago now sounds like the racket your dad always said it was
A decade on, however, you realise he might have had a point. Some of the stuff you used to listen to was pretty rubbish and more or less impossible to dance to. Not least because most of us - just like our dads - could never dance anyway.
"The best way to double your money is to fold it"
...And stick it back in your wallet. The generation before might have lost the savings habit, but we never had it thanks to a combination of cheap credit, low interest rates and an endless succession of irresistably sexy, hi-tech must-haves designed to separate us from our money before it is even earned.
But in saying this your father was also warning you against witless speculation and the sort of get-rich-quick schemes which look too good to be true and nearly always are. Hopefully we are smart enough now to think before we spend, and sometimes not to spend at all.
"This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you"
At the time it is tempting to tell your dad you have a solution which will suit you both: that is, just to lay off doing what he was planning to do. But once you become a dad you understand immediately what is meant by this hoary old cliché.
Rex Features
As an adult it's a lot easier to see the point behind the telling offs you received as a child
Telling your own child off is agony for any parent, assuming they are not a bully.
But even stopping short of all that 'spare the rod' stuff, guiding a child involves setting and maintaining boundaries. So, if you get a chance, try telling your old man you finally appreciate what he did for you.
"You'll understand when you're older"
Actually here he was wrong: you might never get some of this stuff. Inevitably there is plenty about being an adult which you will no more understand than your father did, or - as he would say - his father before him. Your dad knew that all along, and was just being kind.
Starting out no one wants or needs to find out in advance what a dauntingly complex and occasionally brain-aching thing life is. Instead it is enough that eventually you come to understand how much there is to understand, and to appreciate that you will never quite grasp it all.
Things you now know your dad was right about - In The Know - MSN Him - MSN UK
Your dad was wrong when he told you your school days are the best days of your life - although with the pressures of work, mortgage, taxes and maybe a young family too, it does not take a genius to see where he was coming from.
In fact all it takes is time; that and a bit of distance to see that dads are right about all kinds of stuff even if at the time they say what they say we are too young or arrogant to appreciate any of it.
Dads, clearly, are a resource we all too often squander. As a wise man once said "it is much easier to become a father than to be one" - and looking back you might discover that yours got it right a lot of the time.
Here's a list of classic fatherly maxims you'll now be able to admit the old man was right about.
"I don't make the rules"
When kids hear this from their parents - and all of us did at some point - it just sounds like a cop-out. Your dad is just passing the buck whilst insisting you do something you would rather not do and which he is determined you are going to.
But actually he was telling you something far more profound, something we all come to understand eventually. That is that sometimes we have to play ball and fit in. Society imposes certain expectations on us all, and often personal success requires us to play by the rules rather than bucking the system.
Rex Features
There's more than a grain of truth in your dad's old maxims, even something as seemingly unhelpful as "there's plenty more fish in the sea"
"There are plenty more fish in the sea"
Generally speaking guys are reluctant to discuss being dumped with their parents, and most parents - the dads definitely - are happy enough to let the subject slide by. The most you will get is a resigned sigh, and the sage piece of piscatorial advice quoted above.
Does it help? Hardly at all. But with age comes experience, and with experience comes the realisation that he was right all along. With three billion women on the planet there was always bound to be another one just right for you, and all he was saying was cast your net wider.
"They don't make 'em like they used to"
Teenagers never listen to their dads' records, and he probably hated yours. But later on in life our interests broaden, a few of the more ludicrous prejudices weaken, and eventually we discover that just because a track was laid down before we were born does not mean it is junk.
Some of your old man's back catalogue - The Beatles, Led Zep, Sinatra even - will have stood the test of time and now there's no shame in admitting you know all the words.
"Give up piano now and you'll regret it later"
Of all the kids who start learning to play a musical instrument 90% drop it eventually, because learning scales and arpeggios is boring and Mozart drives you mental, or because the need to practice begins to compromise a burgeoning social life (and a chronic Wii addiction).
Getty Images
Hands up who doesn't wish they'd stuck with learning an instrument. Thought so.
Parents tell us to stick with it a little bit longer, but hardly anyone does. Later you really wish you had, however. Not because you think you might have made it professionally but because there is something magical about making music - and now you never will.
"You need to polish your shoes"
Was there ever a more boring, more pointless waste of time than polishing your shoes only to have to do it all over again a day or so later? No wonder everyone loves trainers. But actually do they? Well no, actually, quite a lot of them do not.
Ask around and you will find that a lot of girls look at a guy's nails and his shoes. No one wants to be over-groomed, but clean nails are a minimum requirement. Similarly a good pair of shoes demonstrates you care about your appearance, which has got to be better than not.
"You can't dance to this"
It was always pretty annoying when your dad railed against your taste in music, but actually nowhere near as bad as those dads who do the opposite. You know, the ones who attempt to demonstrate they still have it by throwing a few shapes of their own before crashing out with a slipped disc.
Rex Features
Funny how that dance compilation you loved 10 years ago now sounds like the racket your dad always said it was
A decade on, however, you realise he might have had a point. Some of the stuff you used to listen to was pretty rubbish and more or less impossible to dance to. Not least because most of us - just like our dads - could never dance anyway.
"The best way to double your money is to fold it"
...And stick it back in your wallet. The generation before might have lost the savings habit, but we never had it thanks to a combination of cheap credit, low interest rates and an endless succession of irresistably sexy, hi-tech must-haves designed to separate us from our money before it is even earned.
But in saying this your father was also warning you against witless speculation and the sort of get-rich-quick schemes which look too good to be true and nearly always are. Hopefully we are smart enough now to think before we spend, and sometimes not to spend at all.
"This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you"
At the time it is tempting to tell your dad you have a solution which will suit you both: that is, just to lay off doing what he was planning to do. But once you become a dad you understand immediately what is meant by this hoary old cliché.
Rex Features
As an adult it's a lot easier to see the point behind the telling offs you received as a child
Telling your own child off is agony for any parent, assuming they are not a bully.
But even stopping short of all that 'spare the rod' stuff, guiding a child involves setting and maintaining boundaries. So, if you get a chance, try telling your old man you finally appreciate what he did for you.
"You'll understand when you're older"
Actually here he was wrong: you might never get some of this stuff. Inevitably there is plenty about being an adult which you will no more understand than your father did, or - as he would say - his father before him. Your dad knew that all along, and was just being kind.
Starting out no one wants or needs to find out in advance what a dauntingly complex and occasionally brain-aching thing life is. Instead it is enough that eventually you come to understand how much there is to understand, and to appreciate that you will never quite grasp it all.
