The Son Surpassing the Father

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ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

This week, while home for the holidays, I've been observing different classrooms at my niece's elementary school. One thing that I've been priding myself on is wearing a shirt and tie, nice pants, and shoes. There's something empowering about it, honestly. Plus, I look good in a suit. *grin*

Anyway, while home, I picked up a new shirt and tie for $20. I'm still struggling to tie a tie by myself and asked Dad to help me. My thought was: he worked in a bank for several decades, wearing a suit and tie every day. Except for rare special occasions (weddings, other engagements), I've rarely seen him wear one since. Surely, even after nearly 20 years of retirement, his muscle memory would still be there and he could whip a tie together in no time.

It turns out, he'd forgotten.

So, while he fiddled away in the washroom with one, I went to YouTube again (like I did a month or two ago) with another untied tie and tried it myself. I managed to get it in one try.

It seems silly, but to be honest, it feels like I've now surpassed him, somehow. The one thing I could never do, that I always admired about my father, and suddenly, I can do it while he's forgotten.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

I remember the first day I managed to out-debate my dad. My dad's a knowledgeable guy, and is a diplomat by profession, so being able to out-talk him was quite an accomplishment for me.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

The following might be TMI, you've been warned:

My father once made the argument that the case against Clinton was fake because dry semen can easily be brushed/rubbed off, so i don't actually remember a time when i didn't feel superior...
 
Mathias

Mathias

ThatNickGuy said:
This week, while home for the holidays, I've been observing different classrooms at my niece's elementary school. One thing that I've been priding myself on is wearing a shirt and tie, nice pants, and shoes. There's something empowering about it, honestly. Plus, I look good in a suit. *grin*

Anyway, while home, I picked up a new shirt and tie for $20. I'm still struggling to tie a tie by myself and asked Dad to help me. My thought was: he worked in a bank for several decades, wearing a suit and tie every day. Except for rare special occasions (weddings, other engagements), I've rarely seen him wear one since. Surely, even after nearly 20 years of retirement, his muscle memory would still be there and he could whip a tie together in no time.

It turns out, he'd forgotten.

So, while he fiddled away in the washroom with one, I went to YouTube again (like I did a month or two ago) with another untied tie and tried it myself. I managed to get it in one try.

It seems silly, but to be honest, it feels like I've now surpassed him, somehow. The one thing I could never do, that I always admired about my father, and suddenly, I can do it while he's forgotten.
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Dude you tied a tie...

You're not a true man until you tie an Atlantica knot and a full Windsor (getting the length right on a full Windsor is a pain in the ass).
 
phil

phil

Assuming your dad hasn't been bumming around doing nothing for 20 years, I'd say that forgetting how to tie a tie because you just don't have to is winning.

I mean my dad doesn't know how to make a latte, but there's a reason for that.
 
ElJuski

ElJuski

Staff member
Yeah, I'm not really seeing how this is such an amazing moment of surpassing your father. In fact, you'll probably surpass your father when you've been gainfully employed for as long as he had been. Tying a tie really isn't a big deal.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

*shrug* It felt like a big deal to me. I know it seems really small, but tying a tie was something I was never able to do.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

ElJuski said:
Yeah, I'm not really seeing how this is such an amazing moment of surpassing your father. In fact, you'll probably surpass your father when you've been gainfully employed for as long as he had been. Tying a tie really isn't a big deal.
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This is what I thought. I've done things my dad never did, but he could say the same. I'll see it as an accomplishment when I can afford my own house without having to work two jobs and I've held stable employment for over 30 years like he has.

Neither my dad nor my stepdad finished high school and they've been fine for decades, meanwhile most of the college-educated people I know can't get a job today. Odd how times change.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Quotemander Prime said:
This is what I thought. I've done things my dad never did, but he could say the same. I'll see it as an accomplishment when I can afford my own house without having to work two jobs and I've held stable employment for over 30 years like he has.

Neither my dad nor my stepdad finished high school and they've been fine for decades, meanwhile most of the college-educated people I know can't get a job today. Odd how times change.
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I don't know why but I became like the patriarch of my side of the family the day my brother died. I handled all the shit and kept it together while my parents were totally devastated. I had to hold my dad up during that time; that's when I'd say the son surpassed the father. Since then he's retired from all his "fatherly" roles at holidays (like carving the turkey etc...) and given them to me.

I think a son only surpasses his father when he becomes the rock for the rest of the family, including the father. So yeah, sorry, Nick. Enjoy your tie, but it sounds like your old man's balls still hang bigger than yours.
Added at: 09:00
ThatNickGuy said:
*shrug* It felt like a big deal to me. I know it seems really small, but tying a tie was something I was never able to do.
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Yeah, it's a feeling of accomplishment, but to say you've surpassed your dad because you've learned how to tie a tie is a bit over the top don't you think?
Added at: 09:02
Take Dave's situation with his dad. I'd say that he's far surpassed his father. He's pretty much the rock that everyone's leaning on. Sorry to go on about this, but to me that's a really big step in a man's life ( a right of passage if you will).
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Mathias said:
Take Dave's situation with his dad. I'd say that he's far surpassed his father. He's pretty much the rock that everyone's leaning on. Sorry to go on about this, but to me that's a really big step in a man's life ( a right of passage if you will).
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Sadly, his family doesn't even know it. :facepalm:

In the case of what you've summarized, I see my family headed for matriarchy in the future then.

And actually, I don't even know where my dad fits into that with his side of the family. He wants nothing to do with them and the only reason I knew them when I was younger is because my mom enforced us visiting with them. I'm not that extreme, but I live far away from everyone besides my aunts and their children. No one tells me what's going on in New York anymore, even when I ask, and I find things out through word of mouth from my aunts. I can see my sister stepping into a "head of family" role years down the line.
 
Mathias

Mathias

Quotemander Prime said:
Sadly, his family doesn't even know it. :facepalm:

In the case of what you've summarized, I see my family headed for matriarchy in the future then.

And actually, I don't even know where my dad fits into that with his side of the family. He wants nothing to do with them and the only reason I knew them when I was younger is because my mom enforced us visiting with them. I'm not that extreme, but I live far away from everyone besides my aunts and their children. No one tells me what's going on in New York anymore, even when I ask, and I find things out through word of mouth from my aunts. I can see my sister stepping into a "head of family" role years down the line.
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Well what I was talking about doesn't necessarily limit itself to your entire extended family, it could be just your little unit. I guess in a broad sense I define it as the point in your life when you're responsible for the well-being of more than just yourself, and people depend on you as a source of stability in their lives. And yeah, of course that could include a family matriarch too.
 
phil

phil

ThatNickGuy said:
*shrug* It felt like a big deal to me. I know it seems really small, but tying a tie was something I was never able to do.
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I see what you're sayIng. In retrospect my last comment stemmed more dismissive than I intended. I really meant it to be more like "always have a new goal to strive for" ya know?

Like be proud that you'd have to help your dad tie a tie, but also take his example and work on having the luxery of not needing to know how.
 
M

makare

Nick, I get what you are saying. You associate that skill with your dad and now you can do it and he no longer can. The feeling of surpassing a parent is a personal thing that other people cannot quantify.

I don't care about surpassing my parents jobwise or moneywise mostly because that was never something that I really cared about. But the second I can cook even one dish better than my mother, then I will feel I have surpassed her. I am pretty sure that will never happen.
 
doomdragon6

doomdragon6

Staff member
I don't want to surpass my parents. They deserve to be ahead of me in every way and I would never want to overtake them.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

It's kind of inevitable though, Doomster. They're getting old, more frail, and forgetting things they used to master. They won't be the super gods that you looked up to when you were younger. My dad used to put young guys on the tennis court to shame with perfect control over the ball's direction. Now, he still plays, but he's a lot more tired, now, and his hands shake almost all the time, so anything he holds tremors. As you get older and wiser, you'll master things that previously seemed out of reach. The whole point of children are (ideally) to be better than their parents when they grow up. That's part of the role of the parent: to help their children not make the same mistakes they made or learn from them in a different, better.

Anyway, I don't feel like I've fully surpassed my father, but after years of seeing him tie a tie every morning for work, only to see him struggle with it now? It's surreal.
 
Vrii

Vrii

The thing that confuses me here is that you're feeling proud of your ability to tie the tie...after you looked it up online. Do you think your dad would be unable to do it if someone showed him a guide? If anything, you should be talking about how you surpassed him because you thought to use the internet and he didn't, given the situation.
 
Grytpipe-Thynne

Grytpipe-Thynne

Have any of you thought what happens when your own offspring will be making this sort of post?



Incidentally, I have always used a Windsor knot, and can still tie my own tie!
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

If all goes as planned, I'll be the first in the entire history of my family to get a post-grad degree. But, on the other hand, I'll never have a purple heart like my dad or raise 3 children on my own with a shoestring budget like my mom, so it's all relative (no pun intended).
 
S

SeraRelm

As far as I know, I was the first to marry another woman. All in all though, I don't think I've ever felt a need to surpass my mother.
 
Bones

Bones

I will never be a better man than my father, hell I will be lucky if I ever seen as a man by anyone and not a overgrown 10 year old. >_>

although I would probably help my case if I wasn't such a massive cartoon nerd.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

Vrii said:
The thing that confuses me here is that you're feeling proud of your ability to tie the tie...after you looked it up online. Do you think your dad would be unable to do it if someone showed him a guide? If anything, you should be talking about how you surpassed him because you thought to use the internet and he didn't, given the situation.
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It's more the fact that he completely forgot and couldn't help me like he used to.

Anyway, I regret making this thread in the first place.
 
M

makare

My mom was the first person in her family to get a college degree and I am the first to get a law degree. I don't know I guess I am just glad I am not the worst of the bunch (one of my uncle lives in what I believe is a crack house... he kind of sets the bar low). Beyond that I just want to do the best I can and also, most very importantly, what I want.
 
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