Even as this post is being written, there is a very popular TV ad campaign from a prominent insurance company looking to sell homeowner policies. The campaign focuses on a fictional counselor who helps young, first-time homeowners avoid becoming their parents. It is just an ad campaign. Still, there is some truth to it. Like it or not, you are becoming your parents.
In truth, we all are. We are products of who our parents are and what they taught us while growing up. The good news is that we are also individual people as well. We can choose to emulate the good things our parents modeled while discarding the bad things.
So, how do you know you are becoming your parents? There are lots of ways:
You Wear Socks with Sandals
Some fashion mistakes live on in perpetuity. They are always mistakes regardless of the evolution of fashion. A case in point is pairing sandals with socks. It is something your parents do. They like the comfort of the sandals but their feet get cold. So why not put them together? If that makes sense to you, watch out. You are on the road to becoming just like them.
You Wear Your Sunglasses on a String
You know those little strings you can attach to your reading or sunglasses? They are called ‘granny straps’ for a reason. Don’t be fooled because some slick marketer invents one and calls it a sports strap. It is still a piece of string designed to prevent you from losing your sunglasses. If you use one, you are on your way to becoming your parents – even if your sunglasses are from a hip brand like Olympic Eyewear, a wholesale sunglasses distributor out of Utah.
Your Sunglasses Are Wear-Overs
As long as we’re talking sunglasses, you may be on your way to becoming your parents if you own a pair of wear-overs. If you own them and use them, you are more than half-way there. You have crossed way over the line if your wear-overs are also wraparound sunglasses. There are just some things that you can’t recover from. Wraparound wear-overs constitute such a thing.
You Think Checkered Pants Are Cool
Moving away from designer eyewear, any thoughts on your part that checkered pants look cool is a surefire sign that becoming your parents is right around the corner. Let’s just put that myth to rest once and for all: checkered pants are not cool in any way, shape, or form.
They may have been popular in the polyester years between 1972 and 1984, but that was a long time ago. Let the past be the past. The only reason you should be wearing checkered pants is to work as a chef in a five-star restaurant. And even then, your pants are still ugly enough that they should never leave the kitchen.
You Share Your Life Story with Strangers
Some of the signs suggesting you are becoming your parents have nothing to do with your fashion choices. For example, don’t your parents find it extremely easy to tell their life story to strangers? Of course they do. If you are following in their footsteps, watch out. Telling complete strangers intimate stories about yourself is a sign you’ve lost what little good sense youth once offered.
One way or the other, all of us will end up copying our parents in some ways. It is inevitable. That is not necessarily a bad thing as long as what we emulate is positive. So all kidding aside, know that you are a lot more like your parents than you might think.
