When you’re a kid, your parents annoy you with reminders like, “don’t forget to grab your coat – you might get cold later,” or “don’t drink caffiene before bedtime.” As a child, you don’t think there’s much truth to what your parents say. Most of the time, just being told what to do makes you want to ignore their advice and warnings. However, as you get older, you start to realize your parents’ guidance was rooted in hard-earned experience and wisdom.
When you become an adult, especially if you have kids, here are some things you may realize your parents were right about all along.
1. You need to eat your vegetables.
Every parent tells their kids they need to eat their vegetables, but they’re not exactly that flavorful, and to some kids, certain vegetables – like carrots – can taste like dirt. It seems like torture to be told you need to eat your vegetables, but some parents won’t even let their kids leave the dinner table until they eat everything off their plate. It only becomes clear later that vegetables contain essential nutrients, and your parents were just trying to make sure you ate a good, healthy meal.
Nobody likes being told to eat their vegetables when they taste like they came out of a can and were just plopped onto a plate. However, being an adult means you get to try out new recipes and taste vegetables you’ve never had before. In the process, you might even discover that you love a particular vegetable you once hated as a kid.
2. Helpful gadgets are useful.
Most kids love to do everything on their own because they want to be independent, and if that sounds familiar, you may have rejected all of the helpful advice and tools your parents tried to get you to use when you were younger. For example, things like handles to bring in multiple grocery bags, book lights that go around your neck, compression socks, and even gloves. All of these tools can make life easier, but when you’re a kid, they might seem like something only old people use. It’s only when you get older and don’t have the energy to take multiple trips to the car that you realize those grocery bag handles are handy!
3. Don’t play in the middle of the street.
It’s fun to play roller hockey, football, and baseball in the middle of the street when you’re a kid, but your parents probably told you to play somewhere else. After all, cars drive down the road and you’re at risk of being hit. When you’re a kid, it seems like cars would and should slow down when they see you, because how could they miss a bunch of kids in the middle of the road? However, when you become an adult, you realize that drivers are highly inattentive at times, and fail to see people in the road. Plus, some drivers are intoxicated and that makes it dangerous for anyone to be in the road.
4. Nobody truly cares how you dress.
Schools are like isolated segments of society that don’t actually give you an accurate picture of real life. Bullies tend to insult others for what they wear, but it’s not actually about the clothes. They’re just looking for ways to make fun of people. If your parents told you that nobody cares about the way you dress, that was coming from real-world wisdom.
When you’re in school, it’s hard to believe that people don’t actually care about the clothes you wear, but as an adult, that becomes obvious. Real friends will accept you just the way you are, and strangers are not actually thinking about what you’re wearing in the grocery store.
5. Take a coat with you.
As a kid, your parents probably had to nag you to bring your coat when you left the house. But as you get older, you realize nobody is going to sacrifice their sweater or coat for you, and you really do need to bring your coat.
Your parents were right all along!
Although your parents’ advice can seem annoying when you’re a kid, as you gain experience in the world, their words start to make sense. At first, it seems like they are trying to control your life and stop you from having fun, but as an adult, you start to realize they weren’t setting arbitrary rules to control you – they were trying to help and make your life easier.
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This post is made possible by Larry Alton.
Photo by Keith Kasaija on Unsplash
