family related rant, you might want to avoid this
you know, i've never quite realized that my father's such an attention whore. or i think i used to categorize it as something differently when i was in my teenage angst years. when i was younger, i used to think it was just the overbearing asian parent stereotype where they are always right and as a child you should never question anything they tell you. i used to hate this in my teenage years when it was never he was wrong and i had to change my views to match his. it still gets me angry this one time where i finally thought i had made my point clear that he responded with 'well i'm old and set in my ways, you're the one that should change to accommodate." seriously, it was like 'you're right, but we're still going to do it this way because i said so".
as i got older, my father started changing a bit. perhaps it was the fact that i was studying in college and therefore learning concepts that he had never heard of before that he was more interested in having a discussion than giving a lecture. it was nice having conversations rather than getting into arguments. that said, i'm not sure if i haven't outgrown the 'i'm right and you're wrong' teenage stage or i just have more exposure to the internet; but most of the time, i think he's wrong. based on what i've learned, i call bullshit on a lot of the things that he reads on the internet. my dad's a bit of a hypochondriac, so he reads a lot about health which he shares with us. it's nice if he just left it at that, but it always ends up turning into an argument when we disagree with some of the things he reads. it's always, 'well this was published by some phD, i'm sure they have more knowledge than you do." well certainly, i would hope their phDs are good for something, but just because a paper is published doesn't make it right. it's open for discussion and people have to be able to replicate their findings, holding skepticism is part of the process of gaining knowledge.
then it gets into this spiel of 'young people are always so cocky and think they know everything, but i can't blame you because i was the same. it must be my dna.' in fact, he attributes almost everything to dna; from the inclination to keeping pets to achievement in school/work/etc. it irritates me to no end, because in the end the whole discussion is about himself. none of our thoughts or personalities are our own, it's a product of his dna. everything that we do, he finds a method to insert himself into the conversation and gets angry if he's not the center point of the conversation.
like today, he was trying to assert from some book he read that women of a certain age start to get more irritated easily for no reason. besides the fact that it's offensive to say that immediately after my mom's talk about being tired of cooking all the time, he acted all victimized when i called bullshit on that. women don't get irritated for no reason, there's a reason, it just may not make sense to other people when it happens. so he then starts with 'i'm going to stop talking then, since no one wants to listen' and continues restating that for the next 5 minutes with a 'don't be so arrogant like i was when i was young, you should be open to more ideas.' seriously, the phD he's working from is supposedly a 'food expert' and is in no way qualified to make statements about female psychology. i'm not saying i'm a better source of information, but this is definitely not his field of expertise. but come on, continuing to repeat that he's not going to talk now that no one wants to hear what he has to say; now that's just irritating.
but this isn't the first time it's happened and certainly won't be the last. i remember this one time i was talking to my mom in the kitchen about a supervisor at work and how no one likes him because of the things he does. my father then walks into the kitchen and starts going off about how that supervisor must have special connections in the company to not be fired. which was ok, and we acknowledged that might be the case, but i tried to continue the story of all the dastardly things that he does and why no one likes him. the whole while he's still inserting his asides about the special connections. finally my mom was tired of the interruptions and told him to stop nagging while i was trying to tell her the story. he gets offended and says he wasn't nagging, and if anyone was nagging it was me since i couldn't stop telling the story. i was ready to pull my hair out. seriously, he interrupts an ongoing story and gets offended when we don't make his point of view the center of the conversation. i was rather exasperated at that point and just stopped trying to finish the story.
i think i'm starting to understand why people avoid their parents sometimes. i love him dearly, but sometimes i just get irritated with this behavior. perhaps i'm just turning into one of those women who get irritated for no reason.
as i got older, my father started changing a bit. perhaps it was the fact that i was studying in college and therefore learning concepts that he had never heard of before that he was more interested in having a discussion than giving a lecture. it was nice having conversations rather than getting into arguments. that said, i'm not sure if i haven't outgrown the 'i'm right and you're wrong' teenage stage or i just have more exposure to the internet; but most of the time, i think he's wrong. based on what i've learned, i call bullshit on a lot of the things that he reads on the internet. my dad's a bit of a hypochondriac, so he reads a lot about health which he shares with us. it's nice if he just left it at that, but it always ends up turning into an argument when we disagree with some of the things he reads. it's always, 'well this was published by some phD, i'm sure they have more knowledge than you do." well certainly, i would hope their phDs are good for something, but just because a paper is published doesn't make it right. it's open for discussion and people have to be able to replicate their findings, holding skepticism is part of the process of gaining knowledge.
then it gets into this spiel of 'young people are always so cocky and think they know everything, but i can't blame you because i was the same. it must be my dna.' in fact, he attributes almost everything to dna; from the inclination to keeping pets to achievement in school/work/etc. it irritates me to no end, because in the end the whole discussion is about himself. none of our thoughts or personalities are our own, it's a product of his dna. everything that we do, he finds a method to insert himself into the conversation and gets angry if he's not the center point of the conversation.
like today, he was trying to assert from some book he read that women of a certain age start to get more irritated easily for no reason. besides the fact that it's offensive to say that immediately after my mom's talk about being tired of cooking all the time, he acted all victimized when i called bullshit on that. women don't get irritated for no reason, there's a reason, it just may not make sense to other people when it happens. so he then starts with 'i'm going to stop talking then, since no one wants to listen' and continues restating that for the next 5 minutes with a 'don't be so arrogant like i was when i was young, you should be open to more ideas.' seriously, the phD he's working from is supposedly a 'food expert' and is in no way qualified to make statements about female psychology. i'm not saying i'm a better source of information, but this is definitely not his field of expertise. but come on, continuing to repeat that he's not going to talk now that no one wants to hear what he has to say; now that's just irritating.
but this isn't the first time it's happened and certainly won't be the last. i remember this one time i was talking to my mom in the kitchen about a supervisor at work and how no one likes him because of the things he does. my father then walks into the kitchen and starts going off about how that supervisor must have special connections in the company to not be fired. which was ok, and we acknowledged that might be the case, but i tried to continue the story of all the dastardly things that he does and why no one likes him. the whole while he's still inserting his asides about the special connections. finally my mom was tired of the interruptions and told him to stop nagging while i was trying to tell her the story. he gets offended and says he wasn't nagging, and if anyone was nagging it was me since i couldn't stop telling the story. i was ready to pull my hair out. seriously, he interrupts an ongoing story and gets offended when we don't make his point of view the center of the conversation. i was rather exasperated at that point and just stopped trying to finish the story.
i think i'm starting to understand why people avoid their parents sometimes. i love him dearly, but sometimes i just get irritated with this behavior. perhaps i'm just turning into one of those women who get irritated for no reason.