Overrated

[japhy]

Yea, I wish I had studied something as interesting as thermodynamics or structural analysis.

But instead, I went to business school…which is to say, I made the grave mistake of listening to my parents, who applied immense pressure to 18-22yo ousdahl to go to business school even tho he had no interest in doing so, under the guise that things like thermodynamics and structural analysis don’t matter, cuz the only thing that does matter is money, money money money, and the best way to make money is business school.

For real Japhy, you think I became this cynical just for the lulz?

Those classes suck, and very few want to take them, or can pass them. That is why the people who do push through get compensated accordingly.

My wife gave my daughter some very good advice as she was deciding where to go to college and on degree choice. My daughter had a scholarship for 4 years to the UMKC Conservatory of Music, and she had an offer from the KU School of Architecture and the School of Civil and Architectural Engineering. Annie told her, "It is easier to be an engineer full time and an artist on the side than it is to be an artist full time and an engineer on the side."

Two years out of college she was making good money and living in Five Points in Denver and playing first chair double bass with the Lakewood Symphony on the side and getting ready to audition for the Colorado Symphony. She didn't really care that the Symphony didn't pay well, she didn't need the money. Then her dream job came calling and poached her with a 33% pay raise and paid to move her to Chicago. Now she is working on the acoustics of Boettcher Hall for the Colorado Symphony and meeting the players and conductors. Her current employer has told her she can move back to Colorado and work remote if she wants. She hates the 60 plus hours per week she is working, but she knows it is a means to an end and she loves the projects. At 27 years of age, she has a lot of time in the years to come to catch up on her sleep.

She thinks that her step mom gave her some sage career advice.

[ousdahl]

Contrast that with my parents, who encouraged me to just completely give up playing music so I could have more time to focus on money. (Fwiw I played in KU jazz combo and ensemble thru sophomore year)

I didn’t realize until like my late 20s that my parents are two of the shallowest, most materialistic, most entitled, pettiest, stubbornest, most difficult, and just plain self-centered people I’d ever encountered.

At some point I realized that if I was gonna have any relationship with them going forward, it was up to me to be the bigger person.…which, if it needs to be said, is just a weird position for a son to be in.

Speaking of: is therapy overrated?

[japhy]

Speaking of: is therapy overrated?

No, but parents are.

[ousdahl]

^^^

[ousdahl]

I been to therapy on and off over the years fwiw.

But still have just never had one of those breakthrough moments like whoa yea therapy is so helpful!

[japhy]

Go back to my comment on college and career and read them again.

[ousdahl]

wait, so you’re suggesting my problem is that I didn’t put more into the college and career I never wanted in the first place?

I don’t disagree.

18yo ous shoulda known better than to listen to his parents.

[japhy]

I thought my dad was the cheapest most stubborn son of a bitch to walk the earth. And yeah, she was, his mom was pretty mean to him.

For the first first 6 years of my life we ate nothing but eggs and Spam. Even after my dad graduated from Dental School and we could afford not to, we still ate that stuff a lot cuz it was cheap. My mom made the mistake of letting him do the grocery shopping one time. He came back with a 10 pound roll of chicken bologna. As soon was he unwrapped it, the house stunk of it. All five teenaged kids refused to eat it after one meal. It must have lasted two weeks, and the longer it stayed around the worse it smelled. But he ate every god damned bit of it just to "show us". Family vacations consisted of getting five kids in the back of a station wagon at 6:00 PM on Friday after we had eaten dinner and stacking us like cord wood next to the luggage with all of the seats folded down and driving to Colorado or Iowa over night. When we woke up in the morning we were parked in front of the grandparents house and everyone was asleep inside and in the car. We left on Sunday around noon and drove all night back so he could be at work on Monday morning at 8:00 AM. 20 hours of driving for 8 hours and a couple of meals with family. By the time I had a drivers license I refused to go on the family weekend death marches. It was exhausting and I had a job and could take care of myself for the weekend so I opted out and stayed home.

My dad grew up in Eastern CO in shithole towns like Wray, Haxtun and Holyoke where his dad got work in flour mills and doing field work. When he was in grade school he and his sibs walked home along the railroad tracks and picked coal to put in the stove so they didn't have to buy it. My dad had a theory about food. If you put enough catsup on it, all you will taste is the catsup. So it doesn't matter how bad the food might be, add catsup. His mom had a similar theory about gravy. My mom baked a cake once for grandma's birthday. Drove it all the way out to Sterling CO. We watched in horror as she poured gravy on her slice. Never was sure if this was just to diss my mom one more time or she really liked it that way. She was stubborn and dad was as well.

I remember one trip going to El Centro CA to visit family. My dad had a plan to drive the entire way without stopping. He and mom would switch drivers when they got sleepy. They had even perfected a way to switch drivers while going 70 mph on the interstate without stopping. Mom would slide over onto dad's lap and grab the wheel and he would slide out from under her. She is a small woman and no one wore a seat belt in the 70's. You had better go the bathroom when he stopped for gas and we had a cooler of food in the back of the station wagon cuz stopping to eat was not an option. When we got to Phoenix my dad thought he had made it, the end goal was in sight. One last night time stretch across the Arizona desert and he had done it! Highways didn't skirt the edge of cities back then on ring roads. He had to drive through downtown Phoenix and there were stop lights. Next to those stops lights were motels, with pools and air conditioning and beds. It was 105 and we hadn't turned on the AC for two days in the car because gas was 19 cents a gallon and the AC meant stopping more often for gas. My youngest sister was 2 and had been scream crying for about 12 hours due to the heat rash from her diaper. The rest of us felt like we were melting. My mom asked dad if we could stop and spend the night at a motel and get some rest. She might as well suggested that we cut his dick off and feed it to him. We were so fucking close to completing his ultimate death march! Finally at a stop light she jumped out of the car with my little sister and started walking towards a motel. I looked briefly at dad to see what his next movie would be and then jumped out of the car and started chasing her. My other two sisters just started crying hysterically. We stopped, we went swimming that night after eating two day old food out of the cooler to make a point. We cranked the AC in the room down to 65 and had to pull up the blankets to stay warm. We still got to El Centro just after my cousins crawled out of bed the next day.

My parents were fucking nuts. They had 4 babies while dad was in Dental School and working nights at a brickyard while mom worked days at the VA hospital when she wasn't too pregnant to work.

I swore to God when I had kids we would travel and enjoy it. We would stop at motels and sleep after it got dark. We would stop and eat when we got hungry and when the girls had to pee. We were going to do everything differently than my dad did it. I was not going to be my dad.

But I am a stubborn fuck. Over the years I learned one useful side effect of being stubborn. Resilience. If I decide to do something, I will fucking do it. My youngest daughter was 11 when she went to her first KU football game. She decided right then and there she was going to be the drum major and lead the band into Memorial Stadium some day. As a senior in college she did a research paper on how few women drum majors there had been at KU over the years. She was also the drum major that year because by fucking God she had decided 9 years prior that she would be and no one could stop her. So I raised a couple of really stubborn daughters as well, who are also like my dad.

My girls loved being around my dad because of his snarky sense of humor. Glad I never picked up that bad trait.

So my question to you Oussie, is what did you learn from your parents? I learned how "not to live" and how "to live" from my dad. Both are valuable lessons. If you learned nothing of value for your parents, maybe that's not bad parenting. Might be that's poor childing.

[pdub]

That'll be 150 dollars - japhy the therapist.

[Shirley]

Not sure if blaming children for their parenting is woke, or MAGA?

Please advise.

[pdub]

That'll be 150 dollars but we know you have money so please prepay - japhy the therapist.

[Deleted User 863]

Arguing with strangers.





Ahhh, who am I kidding.

[DCHawk1]

Speaking of: is therapy overrated?

No, but parents are.

Certainly, Ousdahl's are.

[DCHawk1]

Not sure if blaming children for their parenting is woke, or MAGA?

Please advise.

The word is "based."

And Japhy is based.

[ousdahl]

Speaking of: is therapy overrated?

No, but parents are.

Certainly, Ousdahl's are.

When dating, inevitably, the topic of family comes up.

And many dating subjects may offer something like, “my parents are cray.”

Even myself! And depending on how the dynamic is going with the dating subject, I might candidly offer a, “full disclosure, I’ve had a remarkably difficult go of it with my parents.” To that the subject may reply, “don’t we all.”

But if the dating progresses far enough to meet the parents (you a pothead Focker?), I swear I hold the record for my date saying, “yea lots of doods say they have a tough relationship with their parents, but holy shit, your parents really are that cray! It’s a wonder you turned out as normal as you did!”

To that, of course, I reply: “wait, I turned out normal?”

[ousdahl]

anywho so I’m once again currently single…

[ousdahl]

But frankly, I blame that less on parents, and more on the failure of the wingman thread.

[defixione]

Dude.

[ousdahl]

Lol.

Thanks for your services during the tire change bro.

That chick hit me up on the gram, but turns out she already had a boyfriend all along.

so somewhere in that all is a joke about jacking off.

[ousdahl]

Also, didn’t you run into Gigi at new sky ranch again?

How do they make a living and stuff?

cuuuuz if I could figure out how to just live in a rustic old cabin on some acreage and do art and host other creative types, I’d be all about that.

Decidedly not overrated, no matter what my parents say.