I figured out my parents were dumb as hell when at age 11 I tried to calmly explain to my screaming father in the midst of an absolute meltdown that leaving the Windows 95 shutdown prompt on “restart” didn’t ruin the computer.

He just screamed at me not to touch the prompt anymore and that I didn’t know anything about it computers or the Internet. Which is rich coming from the guy who routinely downloaded porn dialers and malware from his fellow closet cases in bisexual chatrooms.

At the same time we stop believing everything we read on the internet. As told to us by the people who now happily believe every oh so absurd made up bullshit on the internet or TV.

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It doesn’t happen until you have your own kid who thinks they are smarter than you

I definitely see myself understanding the world more, and that obviously will come with experience. However, with that also comes wisdom, and specifically the wisdom to look back and see that some adults were fucking fucktards.

I was a better person than them then, and am certainly a better person now.

Enjoy hell, Mr. K.

I’m guessing the average Lemming was a weird little nerd. I was.

If anything, my own parents had trouble recognising I actually still was a kid.

My narcissistic, selfish, and abusive parents abused things like “because I said so,” “you’ll understand when you’re older,” and “you’ll understand when you have kids” among other things.

I now understand. They were shitheads that never wanted to actually explain things or be held accountable for their fucking abuse. I understand that it literally took EFFORT for them to be so goddamn angry and verbally/physically abusive to us, and it takes a serious level of hate to sprinkle in the emotional neglect and somehow be okay with treating your child like that.

I can’t fathom doing half the shit they did.

You mean the dad who had me rewire the telephone lines in our house when I was 14 because he couldn’t figure out four wires? That one?

Ignorance and hubris are consequences of youth. The fact is that your parents do probably know quite a few things that you don’t, if for no other reason than they have more lived experience. That shouldn’t necessarily make you feel foolish. Part of growing older is realizing that you possess a microscopic fraction of all the knowledge in the universe. Meaning that most people know things that you don’t and you could learn something from them. That’s wisdom. Some adults never embrace that, seeing their ignorance as an asset and turning their hubris into blind arrogance. Those people should feel foolish because they are fools. But they probably don’t.

I don’t agree with every decision my parents made. But in my mid thirties, I do now understand why they are the people they are and why they made some of the decisions they made. They were far from perfect parents. But they did ok, especially in light of the incredibly shitty examples they both had for parents.

When you have kids.

I was smarter.

That did not prevent me from being foolish like all kids are.

They never said I’d feel like a fool, but mentioned that I’d probably understand later in life, and they were spot on, but it comes gruadually.

As an example: when I started paying my own bills, I stopped taking endless showers and later started being frustrated when my kids do.

I also very recently started understanding why they hated smartphones with small screens as they typed so slowly, as I keep mis-typing more and more myself.

So I’d say it starts when moving out and the realities of life hits you square in the face, and then the rest come dripping slowly over time.
Becomming a parent slaps you with another big load as well.

Thankfully, my parents never tried to undermine my self-esteem like that.