Who do/did you like the best?

[TonyAnkle]

Mum or Dad?

My dad was ace, I loved him to bits... He always worked hard to keep our family going and he put up with a lot from his eight kids, nothing seemed to knock him off his stride... From what I saw he got minimal support from my mother.

So Dad in my eyes was the best.

[Phaedrus]

Neither.

Mum was not in the picture and dad was a verbally abusive alcoholic.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Neither.

Mum was not in the picture and dad was a verbally abusive alcoholic.

Bingo. Mom had already raised a family, her younger siblings, while her parents worked every daylight hour as sharecroppers. "Dad" I refer to as The Y-donor because that was the extent of his involvement in my life. Other than trying to kill me a few times, that is.

[TonyAnkle]

Neither.

Mum was not in the picture and dad was a verbally abusive alcoholic.

I'm sorry to hear that mate. It must be hard for you to think back.
My mother wasn't a nice person. I only realised after she died.

[Thumpalumpacus]

No favorite here.

[julep]

My parents should never have had children, at least not with each other.  

Never liked my father.  He was away during my infancy and I never bonded with him...but he was around when my sister and brother were infants and they don't like him, either.  He's a rigid, abusive, extremely religious person.   In my later childhood I liked my mom better but she hurt us all when she left, managing to do it in such a way that my father lost his job and half the people in town stopped speaking to us, and she never did much to repair her relationships with us in later years.   For example, she literally met my son and husband once, for a total of approximately three hours, and then told me that the only person she wanted to visit with at all was me.  She wouldn't even talk to them on the phone.  The third time she made a plan to come visit and canceled at the last minute was the last time we communicated.   

So: mother slightly better than father for some years, but at this point I dislike them equally.

[Dancefortwo]

Both parents were great. Each had their own advantages and disadvantages in their personalities but it seemed to work. They let us figure out religion for ourselves and never really mentioned god or Jesus when we were kids.  


My dad was a Jimmy Stewert type.  Kinda an aw-shucks kinda of a guy except he played classical piano and spoke French fluently.  It was a weird combination but everyone liked my dad.  He smiled easily and was a hard person to dislike.  He was very well educated. He went to Berkeley and Standford. 

To contrast that mother was a Maude/Bea Arthur type except more interested in the arts.  She was a Sunday painter and a published poet but she could cut through bullshit faster than anyone I've known.  She was a very witty  no nonsense lady, had 8 children because she loved kids and raised us in a free range manner.  One did not want to be on the other end of her anger though.

I still remember her reaction to a crazy evangelical nut down the street who was rambling away and talking in tougues for hours with the windows open.    Mom finally had enough of it and walked down the street, stopped right in front of her window and yelled,

WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!!!! 


And she immeniately stopped.   Folks in the neighborhood thanked her for weeks afterwards.  lololol

[Dom]

Mine both loved me and supported me through thick and thin. I could always count on both of them. Back then the gender roles were distinctly different, so each played a different role in my life.

I never had a chance to thank them for the way they dealt with religion. I was free to believe or not believe as I chose, they never discussed it with me or each other. They never went to church. When I wanted to go to catholic school because my friends were going there, they were ok with it. When I went to boarding school later on, they picked a secular one because by then I had stopped going to church or showing any interest in religion.

I much appreciate not having been coerced into one thing or another. I wish they hadn't waited until they were on their death beds to tell me they were atheists, I didn't have time to think it through and thank them. But I happily filled their requests to keep the priests away from administering the last rites.

They were cool, I have much to be thankful to them for.

[c172]

I'm my own favorite relative. Favorite person, really. I'm the only one that really gets me. I'll say that my extended family is quite solid.

My mother is my only biological parent alive. My father stroked in 1982, when i was 6, and died in 1990 when I was 14. He had been in Vietnam and was exposed to agent orange. That caused both his and my disabilities, so my mother took care of us both from 1982-90. She remarried in 1991, when I was 15.

This remarriage was overall a very good thing for me; it caused my mother to have to share parenting responsibilities. But at the same time, I think I learned things from my now adopted father that caused me to get more real with my mother. I think I was hiding a lot of things with her that just started to come out starting with my adoption and continuing to the present day.

My mother has the best intentions, but really wants to the the shoulder everybody in her circle leans on. Everybody's "aunt" figure. Everybody's godmother. Etc. Etc. If I had had kids, I'm not sure how that would have gone. I feel like she would have spoiled them, and also given me all sorts of well-intended advice on parenting that might go against whatever I intend for my kids.

She can hide a lot of her emotions to me, to the point where if we have a blowout, it tends to be not just about tge issue of the day, but all the other issues that were not properly resolved in the interim since the last blowout (or even before).

Also---and maybe this is my quirk---but she really, really likes to talk. Me? Sure, I'll talk, to be polite, or to actually exchange important information. But never for its own sake like my mother likes to do. It causes me to forget important family memos I need to communicate. I suppose I need to write stuff down better.

My adopted father and I have what I deem to be a fairly normal relationship, especially considering we are not blood relatives. I'd say that he has tended to be very blunt at times, and I get sensitive about that. I consider that part of the dynamic quirky on both sides. But I'd say our heart to hearts tend to be very good. And I feel bad sometimes when my adopted father needs to bring up a concern, knowing that he has a history of bluntness, and tries super hard not to offend, even if the impending lesson is actually going to be welcomed by me.

But at the end of the day, I burn out on both of them. I don't easily burn out on myself.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!!!! 

I just clean up around them. That would done by pour a bottle of ammonia on the ground behind them.

[TonyAnkle]

Me and my dad used to meet up occasionally after the big family bust up. He told me that everything was okay even though I knew it wasn't. I don't know why he stayed with my mother.. He was a better man than I am.

[Gwaithmir]

Definitely my mother. My father was a bible-thumping Lutheran who beat the shit out of me and my brother for the slightest infractions. He once beat me with a 2x3 and it's a wonder that I didn't end up dead or in the hospital. He died in 2003 and I didn't shed so much as a single tear for him at his funeral.

[Little Lunch]

Mum was an angel.
Dad was the devil.
I moved out at 15 after he smashed a bowl over my head while I was asleep.
I sometimes wonder if he thought I wasn't his son because he treated my brother and sister like gold.
Even though he hated me for some reason, I still used to think, 'what would dad do now', when I was in a bad situation and that really annoys me. :-)

[c172]

Yeah, I could see that, especially when I'm thinking about Life 101 hacks.

[SYZ]

Got on well with both my now departed parents.

Mum was a sweet, loving person who wouldn't hurt a fly, but constantly anxious
about the outside world and all the bad people out there.  Overprotective, and
disinclined to let me or my younger brother explore the big wide world as kids.
As a mature-aged adult, I now find myself suffering from GAD, an anxiety disorder,
and hyper-vigilance.  A couple of pdocs have said this is (was) due to "anxious
mother syndrome" whereby a pregnant woman who's consistently anxious and
stressed about her pregnancy effects the foetus with her increased levels of basal
cortisol, which can impair mental and physical development of the foetus.

Dad on the other hand was a picture of calmness, straight as a die, pragmatic,
and consistently self-confident with both his family and his workmates.  He was
a certified engineer, had a highly technical, logical approach to any/all problems,
and I never once heard him raise his voice in anger.  If you needed someone to
pour oil on any troubled waters, he was your man.  Mum, on the other hand, was
an instant panic-merchant.

Overall, I got on much better with my father as an older child and teenager.  He
helped me build stuff, and pull down a car engine and investigate science.  He was
always a reliable source of information when I had STEM homework during high
school that involved some sticky issues with maths or physics.

I was I guess a lucky kid who "got on well" with both my parents, nurtured by
each in their own way.  Closer to mum as a little kid, but increasingly connected to
my dad as an adolescent.

Oddly enough, it was my mum who disciplined me, with a leather strap (recall
this was 1940's parenting) but dad did it with a mere look, or with words.

[skyking]

Dad and I had a lot in common. Our brains were wired similarly, right down to the alcoholism.
I'd have to give the nod to mom as she was there for me even when I wasn't there for myself.

[TonyAnkle]

Dad and I had a lot in common. Our brains were wired similarly, right down to the alcoholism.
I'd have to give the nod to mom as she was there for me even when I wasn't there for myself.

Me and my dad got on really well. He used to take me everywhere with him, he was a keen fisherman and tought me all that he knew. You could say he got me "hooked" on it. He was really chilled out, which was surprising given who he was married to.

My mother was different... A highly strung drama queen, everything was a big stress and an inconvenience to her. I can't remember her having a good word to say about anybody, I think that she thought that she deserved a medal for sticking around. When I was really young I used to wish my dad would take us away from her.

She died first, about 20 years ago.... Cancer.
Around 10 years later my dad died peacefully at home aged 90.

[OakTree500]

Difficult for me to decide as they haven't been together for a LONG time, and have had very different inputs on my life.

Mother: My mother had me when she was 16, promptly failed her high school exams [most likely due to the the pressure of her life flipping upside down] and by the time I was around 8 or 9, divorced as well. She has been my rock throughout life - I lived with her, so she had to put up with me and keep me on the straight/narrow, all while working 2 jobs AND going to night school once a week, to try and get a better life for the both of us. We never went without, but were very poor so sometimes facing the reality of not getting something/going a certain place was the only option. That taught me a lot in terms of being realistic about things, especially money really, and how to live with what you NEED and not what you want. By the time I hit 15, she had qualified as a full time accountant and also remarried to an awesome guy AND had my sister as well. She started all over again, pretty much from the bottom as well, and worked up to where she wanted to be. She's 49 now and living her best life, while Im off doing my own thing.

Father: my father is a different story - He was 17 when I was born, and did ok at school, however he took on a full time job working nights, to put food on the table. All the while, he was well known for basically being a big of a thug, who knew how to handle himself, and fell in with the wrong people. That got him mixed up with drug dealings and all sorts of shady stuff, in a combination of loving the lifestyle but also trying to make some money on the side - this is one of many things that led to my parents breaking up. However, since I was born and through all of that/after that as well, he's been my best friend - never saying I should/shouldn't do anything, but giving me his thoughts and advice on certain subjects. While that may or may not be the right thing to do, that kind of parenting allowed me to process things for myself at certain times, [which included stuff like religion - he made it clear it was my choice, and he'd respect my thoughts no matter what that was, although made it clear I should be old enough to make my own decisions etc - he's an atheist as well, and that way of thinking led me to decide upon the same thing as well]. He's long gone from the old days of dealing now, and hasn't done anything like that in a long time, but growing up around this stuff it taught me a lot about respect/who to shake hands with/street smarts [if that makes much difference] and while I've luckily never had to do anything like that, how to "take care of myself" if that ever came to it. Any time my mother would call him, when I was being an asshole as a teenager, he'd call me up not to shout but to say "some on dude, calm yourself down, think about the bigger picture and be nice to your mother" - that was the style of parenting he had/has.

Both, in my mind, have had big inputs on my life, and while I'm probably more like my mother than my father, there is a large part of him in me as well. These days, him being 50, he spends most of his time still working in the same place he started at when I was born [now worked his way up as you'd imagine] and just getting into crackpot conspiracy theories, mainly as he has not a lot to do with his own time - we [used to, due to covid] hand out every few weeks in the pub and talk/catch up, knowing we're both just living our own lives and not wanting to kind of "bother" each other. He recently remarried to an awesome women he's been seeing a little while as well.

So yeah - complicated i suppose is the word, but I don't think I could pick one over the other haha.

[abaris]

Got on well with both my now departed parents.

Mum was a sweet, loving person who wouldn't hurt a fly, but constantly anxious
about the outside world and all the bad people out there.  Overprotective, and
disinclined to let me or my younger brother explore the big wide world as kids.
As a mature-aged adult, I now find myself suffering from GAD, an anxiety disorder,
and hyper-vigilance.  A couple of pdocs have said this is (was) due to "anxious
mother syndrome" whereby a pregnant woman who's consistently anxious and
stressed about her pregnancy effects the foetus with her increased levels of basal
cortisol, which can impair mental and physical development of the foetus.

Dad on the other hand was a picture of calmness, straight as a die, pragmatic,
and consistently self-confident with both his family and his workmates.  He was
a certified engineer, had a highly technical, logical approach to any/all problems,
and I never once heard him raise his voice in anger.  If you needed someone to
pour oil on any troubled waters, he was your man.  Mum, on the other hand, was
an instant panic-merchant.

Overall, I got on much better with my father as an older child and teenager.  He
helped me build stuff, and pull down a car engine and investigate science.  He was
always a reliable source of information when I had STEM homework during high
school that involved some sticky issues with maths or physics.

It's quite eerie. You seem to describe my parents, even down to the technical profession of my father. Mum was exactly what you describe above. My father was always the pillar in my life.

[Dom]

Got on well with both my now departed parents.

Mum was a sweet, loving person who wouldn't hurt a fly, but constantly anxious
about the outside world and all the bad people out there.  Overprotective, and
disinclined to let me or my younger brother explore the big wide world as kids.
As a mature-aged adult, I now find myself suffering from GAD, an anxiety disorder,
and hyper-vigilance.  A couple of pdocs have said this is (was) due to "anxious
mother syndrome" whereby a pregnant woman who's consistently anxious and
stressed about her pregnancy effects the foetus with her increased levels of basal
cortisol, which can impair mental and physical development of the foetus.

Dad on the other hand was a picture of calmness, straight as a die, pragmatic,
and consistently self-confident with both his family and his workmates.  He was
a certified engineer, had a highly technical, logical approach to any/all problems,
and I never once heard him raise his voice in anger.  If you needed someone to
pour oil on any troubled waters, he was your man.  Mum, on the other hand, was
an instant panic-merchant.

Overall, I got on much better with my father as an older child and teenager.  He
helped me build stuff, and pull down a car engine and investigate science.  He was
always a reliable source of information when I had STEM homework during high
school that involved some sticky issues with maths or physics.

It's quite eerie. You seem to describe my parents, even down to the technical profession of my father. Mum was exactly what you describe above. My father was always the pillar in my life.

Funny, my mom was the worrier too, albeit not as pronounced, and my dad was also an engineer, albeit he didn't build things hands-on, he just designed them.

[adey67]

I can't choose between them as I love them both a lot, I still cry sometimes because I miss my dad and he died 4 years ago, we could talk about anything and often did. I can't imagine what it must be like not to be loved unconditionally by both parents and my heart breaks for anyone not fortunate enough to experience that because its a wonderful feeling.

[mordant]

As a child, I was definitely far more attached to my mother. My father was the grumpy guy who came home and fell asleep in the easy chair and who you did not want to cross or even really interact with. He was all bluster -- he never raised a hand against me -- but he was not in any way responsible for nurturing me, he was the classic "provider".

As an adult, I came to see a completely different side of my father. His apparent gruffness was a cover for awkwardness and exhaustion, basically. Age and retirement transformed him.

That epiphany didn't change that my mother had forged more of an emotional attachment between herself and I, relative to my father. So I definitely miss her more than my father, but I loved and respected them both in the end.

[no one]

I was a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.
There weren't any birth givers.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I was a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.
There weren't any birth givers.

no one would say such a thing!