Thursday, March 22, 2007

Values are genetic

People generally get their basic views and values from their parents. What brought this home to me more than ever this week was two incidents.

The first was a colleague at work describing how he thought no one should buy things such as furniture unless they already had the cash. He is the sort of person who is deathly afraid to get into debt, and he mentioned his parents were the same. This got me thinking about myself and how I see things.

I have a difficult time accepting things from people. When I first atarted Uni I wouldn't let anyone buy me a drink even (although people who know me now, know that's not the case anymore), and I nearly had a fit when a dear friend of mine spent what I deemed to be far too much on my birthday present.

This brings me to the second incident, this same friend mentioned buying a bottle of champagne at some point and showed me a rather expensive bottle. I said it would have to be for a special occasion and he just laughed at me, asking me if I wasn't used to being spoilt. The truth is that I am rather spoilt, by my parents at least, but when it comes to other people it's a different matter. From a young age my parents encouraged me and my sister to be thankful for any gifts we may get but to never seek them out. Also to say things like, "you shouldn't have" and so on. This lead to utter confusion for my friend who thinks I should just let myself be spoilt.

Maybe I'll loosen up in the future, but for the mean time at least I'm a cheap date!

3 comments:

KindaBlue said...

All of which also reinforces the point that morality, views, values - call them what you will - are predominantly social constructions as opposed to absolutes. Many of us seem to progress through life as evolving reflections of the environments we move within.

This is especially poignant when I realise that, as time wears on, I am becoming more and more like my parents in my attitude to life, if not my broader socio-political world view.

Just a thought...

JR's Thumbprints said...

I agree, we get our core values from our parents. I see too many inmates that are clueless in this department, which is probably why they had their freedom taken away. They have very little empathy.

thethinker said...

I'm the same way. I don't really feel comfortable accepting certain gifts from people. And I guess, to some degree, that comes from my parents.

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