What is the most important lesson you learned as a child, and who taught it to you?
I learned so many things from my parents, I think the most important was how to treat other people. More specifically how to tell the truth or just simply if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. That leads to a lot of close-mouthedness on my part, or just a smile and a nod instead of launching into how I really feel (here’s a hint, if you don’t want to know, do not, ask!) and I rarely open up to people. That makes it difficult to have long lasting friendships or even broach friendly behavior with other people, but I do the best I can. I’m never rude if I can help it, and would rather be thought stuck up or stupid than run my mouth and prove it.
For this reason, I rarely offer an opinion unless someone asks, and with the rise of people complaining/whining on the internet, asking ‘do you want my opinion’ or ‘this is how we deal with that’.. oftentimes coupled with ‘I know we sound mean’… funny thing is, our kids have been continuously praised for good manners (outside of the home), so there you are. They might be little snots inside the house, but outside of it, they’re polite. I’m fine with that legacy.
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We’re still working on the ‘telling the truth’ part– their light globe got shattered on Monday and so far it’s a whole lot of nuh-uh and I didn’t do it. Thankfully we have switched to LED lights, which are a lot more safe, and the bulb didn’t break, just the outside part.