In class, the idea about people's morals and who they are as a person stem from their upbringing is always brought up. I have always been very interested in how people were raised and if it truly affects them and in what ways. For example, how do some parents raise a genius? Or what went wrong in the upbringing of children who become killers?
So I want to know..... How did your parents raise you? Was it a very structured environment or more of a day by day experiment? Were there any specific instances that you can remember where their discipline or lack thereof had a major affect on your life? Do you still apply the morals you were taught as a child to your life now? Do you believe that your upbringing has shaped who you are today? If yes, then how? Expand on this topic in any way that you would like, I'm just interested in what you have to say :)
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My parents raised me very close to how they were brought up my grandparents, their parents. I guess you could say it was a somewhat structured environment, but at the same time it was also an experiment. It was structured because every school day was generally the same: go to school, dinner around the same time, and then visiting my grandparents later on in the evening. However, between all of these regularly scheduled events things would change day to day depending on what was going on in our lives.
I also think that generally the fact that I was disciplined when I acted up or did something bad shaped who I am today. Also, and I know it sounds weird to say this, I'm glad that my parents made me earn the things I have. For instance, if I made the honor as a kid I would get rewarded by getting to pick out any toy I wanted. As I got older and started needing more money to do things, I did chores to earn my allowance. It wasn't hard labor, but I'm glad I was taught to dust, clean the house, and do laundry because now living on my own, it's required. Some of my friends that just moved out barely learned how to do laundry which is crazy!
Another thing that shaped who I am are the morals and values I was taught by parents not just when they told me something, but from actually watching them. My mom is always putting everyone else's needs before her own and helping out with absolutely everything, which instilled in me to help others and put those less fortunate needs ahead of my own. I grew up with my dad helping people he didn't or hardly knew. If someone looked like they needed help or a job my dad was there buy them food, give them work, or help them find a more permanent job. Because of his example, I make sure to give to people in need or volunteer for a worthy cause.
Overall, I do think that how you were raised ultimately shapes who you will become as an adult. Of course there are always exceptions to this like the people who may not have had the best childhood, yet still manage to become a successful adult.
I think I was raised more experimentally than structurally. I feel like I bounced around a lot. Not physically, we've lived in the same house all of my life, but there's always been something different as far as family structure. My mom has been single and my mom has been married. She's dated and people have moved in. Some of the men were better fathers than others and some were just a huge mistake. Even in all of this, everything I've ever needed has always been provided. There's always food to eat, even if sometimes we had to get it ourselves, and my mom has always shown that she loves me. She supports me in any sport I happen to take up and she is proud of how well I do in school. She isn't the kind of mom who pushes me to do my homework she just assumes that if I want to get somewhere in life, then I will do what has to be done. I'm thankful that she did that because now I have my own strong work ethic. She makes me do chores, but I am not rewarded with an allowance, just like I don't get rewards for good grades. I do, however, get the things that I ask for year round as long as they are reasonable. My mom taught me respect by punishing me when I was in the wrong. In the same way she taught me to respect myself and stand up for what I believe is right. Her morals were not always righteous, but she instilled in me a good moral compass by way of the "do what I say, not what I do" ideal. My upbringing has definitely shaped who I am today, and although my mom may have made some mistakes as a parent, I still feel that I have become a good person because of her and the things that she taught me.
I was raised in a VERY structured environment. My grandfather on my mothers' side was an Army drill instructor. She unfortunately carried the ways he raised her into me and my brothers' upbringing. For as long as I can remember I have always had schedules to follow, chores to do and both positive and negative consequences. At a young age, my brother and I had “chore charts". Once we completed a task my mom had to come check what we had done and if it was done to her liking, we got a sticker. If she felt we hadn’t done something right, she would tear it apart and make us start all over again. For example, if we were supposed to put our clothes away and just put them in the drawer without folding them, she would dump everything out of the drawer. You couldn’t get that cute little sticker until she had seen every piece of clothing folded and put in the drawer neatly. We scrubbed the crap out of our bathroom and had many other simple tasks. My brother and I weren’t allowed to do anything until we had finished our chore chart. When you’re dealing with a mother that puts Mr. Clean to shame, four simple tasks could take all day.
The one event that sticks out the most was when my friends and I toilet papered a house in sixth grade. I was at a sleepover for my friends’ birthday and we decided to TP the house that the “cute boy” from school lived at. He lived right up the street so we thought it would work out perfect. Long story short, we left the house at midnight, got scared (come on we were like 11-12ish) and decided to TP the next-door neighbor instead. BAD decision. We were not very secretive and her parents figured that the empty toilet rolls and toilet paper packaging in her room might have something to do with the toilet paper on the neighbors bushes no more than five feet high… We got in trouble with my friends’ parents and they of course told all of our parents when we were picked up. Most of my friends were grounded for a few weeks. I on the other hand was ground for three months because I had disrespected my friends’ family by leaving in the middle of the night when they were responsible for me, I had originally intended on vandalizing the home of a family they knew and were close to and just because the cute boy lived there it wasn’t his house and I disrespected and vandalized the home of someone I didn’t even know.
Did all of these things suck when I was growing up? Yes. Did it make me have a healthy respect for my parents? YES. Although now looking back I still don’t fully agree with everything my parents did in terms of punishment, they raised me to be a responsible young adult. I hold myself to a high standard, taking full responsibility for my actions and completing all tasks I’m given in life to the best of my ability. Even though I am now on my own and could get away with my parents not knowing about my choices, many of my decisions are still influenced by the morals set by my parents. I appreciate the person they shaped me to be because I know it will lead me to a happy and successful life.
This is actually a subject we were just talking about in psychology, how our upbringing effects us. It's the whole nature vs. nurture idea. I think that parents definitely help shape who we become later in life, especially in forming our moral values and defining what right and wrong means to us. Of course, genes and chance do play their part in who we become (some children are extremely gifted and although a parent can support their child's gifts, they cannot force their child to be a genius), but as far as how we view the world and what we see as important in it, parents are a very important influence.
Personally, I grew up in a somewhat structured home, it wasn't too strict or too unconventional. My life followed a schedule, which added to the structure that I had when I was growing up. I was disciplined when I misbehaved and was rewarded when I did well. The most important thing was that my parents explained their punishments to me. I always knew why I was in trouble, and it was never a "because I said so" kind of home.
Some of the most important values that my parents instilled in my sister and I were the importance of hard work and honesty. I was taught that education is one of the most valuable privileges we have, and that education would open doors for my future success. I was raised to have an openminded view of the world and all the people in it, no matter their culture, religion, or sexual orientation, and that is still an important value to me. I feel that my parents guidance has helped get me to where I am and shaped how I view the world.
My parents divorced when I was two, so I was raised in two completely different worlds. At my mom's, it was a structed but open environment, if that makes any sense. While at my dad's, it was more of an experiment; he was just doing his best. My older brother had most of the experimentation and my parents gained more control and understanding when I was growing up.
When I was younger and I would do good in school, I'd get a dollar or so for every A. It was not much, but to me I was rich :) As I got older, the reward system slowly stopped and I had to earn good grades because I wanted to not because I was "getting paid" to in a way. My parents have never been very active in my schooling, but somehow I have always done my homework and studied as I needed to.
My mom is extremely anal, so I was raised in a spotless home. I always knew when I woke up on Saturday mornings that I would have to dust, clean my bathroom and do my laundry. It was terrible, but I have come to appreciate it. I still am a very clean and self-sustaining person. A lot of the things my parents implemented in my childhood, I was not very fond of, but now I understand it more.
I went to Catholic school, however, my family does not actively practice the faith. Although, I still see myself believing in and following the morals that I was taught when I was younger. My parents have never really sat me down and taught me right from wrong or the way that I should live my life. They would just correct me when I made a mistake. So, I think my morals have developed as I have grown older.
I think my upbringing greatly shaped who I am today. All of the trials and tribulations in my childhood have made me into a stronger person. The way I was raised has guided me in the right direction and I have just added to it along the way.
I was raised in an environment that demanded respect for others and taught me to be the dependant person I am today. Even though my parents seperated, they raised us about the same, and what one parent didn't enforce the other did. My dad was very lax on rules such as curfew and where I was allowed to go once I got a car. My mom however, was exactly the opposite. They both strictly enforced getting good grades and for us to be honest to them. I believe this is exactly why I am who I am today. The other part of my upbringing was that my parents were loving but did not "baby" us at all. They attended school events but were never the chaperons for field trips or packed us lunches and spoon-fed us everything. In highschool, I never understood how kids' parents would still clean their rooms for them or wake them up in the morning. This has helped me grow up and be much more prepared in the world today.
I believe that upbringing has alot to do with who you become. But there are those who choose to break out of what their parents have raised them to be. Like a kid who aspires to break the cycle and go to school, even though the parents were abusive and high school dropouts. It is a matter of free will also.
I was raised in an environment that demanded respect for others and taught me to be the dependant person I am today. Even though my parents seperated, they raised us about the same, and what one parent didn't enforce the other did. My dad was very lax on rules such as curfew and where I was allowed to go once I got a car. My mom however, was exactly the opposite. They both strictly enforced getting good grades and for us to be honest to them. I believe this is exactly why I am who I am today. The other part of my upbringing was that my parents were loving but did not "baby" us at all. They attended school events but were never the chaperons for field trips or packed us lunches and spoon-fed us everything. In highschool, I never understood how kids' parents would still clean their rooms for them or wake them up in the morning. This has helped me grow up and be much more prepared in the world today.
I believe that upbringing has alot to do with who you become. But there are those who choose to break out of what their parents have raised them to be. Like a kid who aspires to break the cycle and go to school, even though the parents were abusive and high school dropouts. It is a matter of free will also.
I was raised in a very open and loving environment. With a brother who is nine years older than me, my parents had some practice. My life had some structure but it wasn't super strict. My parents were always very trusting, as long as I told my parents where I was and what I was doing, I didn't really have a curfew. I was also raised very Catholic, attending Catholic school for 13 years. I think these morals that my parents raised me with definitely shaped who I am today. Right now I'm not super Catholic, but I still hold those fundamental beliefs that I was raised to believe. I think the way you were raised has a huge effect on who you grow up to be. I really can't think of any specific instances, but I do believe that.
My upbringing I would say was a day by day experiment. My parents were new parents and they just wanted to get it right. Sometimes they would have too many rules, and sometimes they would have no rules. But I was a mischievious child, and I did get disciplined quite a lot.
I think my parents did a pretty good job raising me. I mean, they didn't do everything perfectly, but they really put in a lot of effort and love into bringing me up to be the person I am today. I still very much apply the morals I learned when I was little to my life today.
My upbringing has definitely shaped my life today. My parents instilled in me a good set of values, morals, and goals. All those lessons of "right" and "wrong" when I was younger still influence what I do today. I still seek out my parents' advice for many things, as they've constantly been there to guide me in my life.
Since I'm in college now, my parents really don't have that much "parenting" anymore. It's really interesting to see what they do in raising my little brother. I see similarities and some differences in their methods. Oh it seems the young have it so much easier :P.
While my parents had high expectations of me, they weren't rigid or strict. They were very consistent in what they wanted of me, and most of the time it didn't really occur to me to want to disobey them. They treated me with a lot of respect and affection, although they never really blurred the parent/child line.
In both my experience and my impression of friends' lives, upbringing has a definite effect on who you become. Most of my morals, manners, and standards of behavior come from internalized lessons my parents taught me. But I'd say that your upbringing has an even bigger influence on your happiness as a child/teen. I acquired a powerful dislike for bad parents during my middle school years, when 2 out of my 3 best friends were having major issues because of their parents' issues.
I guess I can sum up by saying that I'm firmly on the "nurture" side of the nature-v.-nurture debate. It's all about parenting-- unless you have hardwired character strengths/flaws.
I was raised in a very structured home. We had set rules for every area of our life, and I am so glad that we did. Everything about the way I grew up has made me who I am today, and I am glad to be who I am. I was taught morals, and Christ, and to do the right thing according to God's standards. Every decision I now make is done with consideration about whether it's what I should do or not, and while I certainly make mistakes, I think the way I was raised helped to form my particularly sensitive conscience. All in all, I know that the way my parents raised me is the reason I am so aware of other people's feelings. If I had not been raised with rules and discipline, I don't think that I would be as understanding as I tend to be to other people's situations, and I KNOW that I personally would be more selfish. As an individual who tended to break the rules and act like a brat, I needed the structure my parents provided to grow up to be an acceptable adult.
I definitely believe that the way I was raised has played a huge role in becoming the person I am today. My parents raised me and my sister in a very "structured" environment. We had rules to follow: such as sitting at the table until we had finished all our food, going to bed at a set time, only eating candy when they said it was okay, doing daily chores... like emptying the trash or setting the table etc. As a child, this just became a daily part of my routine and I never thought different.
They taught me to respect them and also respect myself. Although, yes, I would get in trouble occasionally it was never for anything major. And I found as I got older, I tried harder to do what was right because the worse feeling in the world was disappointing my parents!
My parents instilled in me their values and morals but I never felt like they forced them on me. In high school I did a lot of searching within myself and started forming my own opinions and beliefs and I'm glad that they all came from the foundation of my parents. My parents were an incredible source of wisdom and guidance to me and I would not be the person I am today without them.
I am the first of three children, when I was growing up I was protected from the evil that was the outside world like a baby from fire. I was brought up under fairly strict rules. One of my mom's favorite stories about me when I was growing up, was that she had me convinced ice cream was yogurt, and cookies were graham crackers (way to go mom, you fooled a baby). Growing up, I learned their idea of manners and morals, because they were necessary to have any fun (to this day, if I don't know who is calling, I say, without fail, "Hello, this is Dominic, may I help you."). But I think that the disciplinary action that had the greatest effect on me was an act of inaction. My parents decided to not punish me for getting bad grades when I didn't do my homework. It was strange that I was responsible for myself in the end, regardless of what my parents said or did, and that form of inaction help me realize it more than anything else.
I was never taught, I learned. This could be the foundation of an autobiography I could write about my upbringing as a child into manhood.
Besides a large quantity of small errors, I was usually never being a bad kid...Where my parents could find out about it. This was largely due to my older brother being the focus of my parent's wrath. My older brother made millions of varying mistakes that taught me how to better communicate and understand my parents. I began to understand that TRUST was the foundation of my parent's relationship with us, their children.
As I began to watch my brother become more and more untrustworthy when it came to dealing with my parents, I began to see how this inversely affected his freedoms and privileges as a teenager. From this I understood a couple things. First, never get caught. Second, never lie to parents. And last but not least, never tell anyone anything they need not know.
I used these rules as the foundation for the relationship between me and my parents. The day-to-day between me and my parents was extremely minimal as they saw I knew how to take care of myself. Thusly, I was and am an extremely independent person who likes to deal with every situation without assistance.
Is that a good thing? I don't care, I'm doing pretty good so far.
Yes, I definitely think that my upbringing was a vital part of me becoming the person I am today. My parents raised me in a somewhat structured environment when I was little, but as I grew up they gave me more and more freedom, which I think was needed. I benefited from the trust that they gave me as I grew older because it put the responsibility of my choices and actions into my hands. I learned from experiencing things that were good and not so good. Those experiences greatly have an affect on my everyday choices in life.
I also know that a big part of me learning what kind of person I wanted to be was watching my older sister go through some of the experiences that I had yet to go through. I'd watch her do something bad and see how it affected her privileges and see my parents reaction to her so I'd learn that I wouldn't want to do the same thing.
So I think the combination of how my parents raised me as well as watching my sister go through experiences ahead of me both contributed to how I act and behave today.
I guess the environment that I grew up in was more structured. But it's a different type of structured than what some other people have said. I never really had rules, chores, or punishment. My parents just had really high expectations for me. They expected me to do well in life, particularly school, and if that didn't happen then seeing their disappointment was enough to make me not want to do it again. This went for other things as well, such as cleaning my room and what not.
I guess the most "structured" part of my upbringing came when I got older. When I went places, my mom insisted on knowing where I was and who with, and required that I be home at a certain time. So annoying! I knew she did it out of love (and sometimes out of loneliness). It really forced me to take the initiative and decide what was more important, being out late with my friends or staying at home with my mom. It helped me to grow up.
Also, I, like Amanda, was raised in a Christian home. Additionally, I went to a Lutheran elementary and middle school. The values and lessons that I learned from my religion are the ones that I still carry with me and strongly influence my life daily. It isn't that my parents didn't specifically teach me things or that they didn't shape me into who I am today. They were the ones who put me into those schools; they knew what they were doing. So I am who I today both directly and indirectly.
I have terrible memory, so I don't remember much from when I was small. I was the first child so I was pretty much an experiment. My parents have never told me any horror stories whatsoever of me misbehaving or anything of that sort. The worst thing I've heard was putting my hand in my birthday cake or accidentally pushing down the baby barrier and sliding down the stairs on it like a sled. They raised me Catholic and so I went to a private Catholic school from kindergarten until the 8th grade. I was super shy and my mom ended up working at the school so I was terrified to do anything wrong. My parents never really had to bother intimidating me because I did it all to myself. In high school I started acting up a bit, but I snuck around so they didn't find out right away. They were so sure they would never have to deal with me getting out of hand that when I did they freaked out. The last two years of high school was a constant struggle between us, trying to see who would get their way. In the end some things happened and they realized that I was soon going to be old enough to do whatever I wanted anyway. I don't think this happened because they raised me wrong, I just think I turned out to have such a different personality than I used to. We still play tug-o-war over the control issue, but I think we are more open now and we are trying to do better. I still remember the things they taught me, I didn't forget all of that, I just look at it differently than they do.
I have terrible memory, so I don't remember much from when I was small. I was the first child so I was pretty much an experiment. My parents have never told me any horror stories whatsoever of me misbehaving or anything of that sort. The worst thing I've heard was putting my hand in my birthday cake or accidentally pushing down the baby barrier and sliding down the stairs on it like a sled. They raised me Catholic and so I went to a private Catholic school from kindergarten until the 8th grade. I was super shy and my mom ended up working at the school so I was terrified to do anything wrong. My parents never really had to bother intimidating me because I did it all to myself. In high school I started acting up a bit, but I snuck around so they didn't find out right away. They were so sure they would never have to deal with me getting out of hand that when I did they freaked out. The last two years of high school was a constant struggle between us, trying to see who would get their way. In the end some things happened and they realized that I was soon going to be old enough to do whatever I wanted anyway. I don't think this happened because they raised me wrong, I just think I turned out to have such a different personality than I used to. We still play tug-o-war over the control issue, but I think we are more open now and we are trying to do better. I still remember the things they taught me, I didn't forget all of that, I just look at it differently than they do.
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