| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Poll: Who has influenced you the most? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:50
Serbian to English
+ ...
| For a good reason | Dec 17, 2023 |
Denis Fesik wrote:
They are not even on the list, how come? Doesn't propaganda influence people? There's always a time for a nice piece of propaganda. I know it, trust me
For a good reason.
It they (the propaganda artists) are really good at it, the recipients of their tender care are only vaguely aware of their influence.
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Tom in London wrote: Christopher Schröder wrote: Tom in London wrote:
You're lucky to have had a mother who was on your side. Isn’t that what the vast majority of mothers do? Not according to Alice Miller (whose book I mentioned). They may think they are on the child's side and "doing thie best for them", but this may be obstructing and frustrating the child, who may have other plans. There was a generation that understood this and wrote songs with lyrics like She goes down the stairs to the kitchen Clutching her handkerchief Quietly turning the back door key Stepping outside, she is free She, ... (we gave her most of our lives) Is leaving (sacrificed most of our lives) Home (we gave her everything money could buy) She's leaving home, after living alone, for so many years [Edited at 2023-12-16 11:14 GMT]
We are all the children of imperfect people. I think most parents genuinely do the best they can by their children, but many forget that their children are not mini versions of themselves, they have their own wants and ambitions, and that the world has changed since they grew up. Parents with narcissist and/or violent tendencies probably do the most harm. I have noticed that people who were raised by non-narcissists really have a hard time understanding the problems of those raised by narcissists.
When my children were small, I pinned the famous Kahlil Gibran poem on the wall in the living room to remind myself every day of the kind of parent I wanted to be (edited to remove religious references)
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness
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kaytrad wrote:
(edited to remove religious references)
Why?
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Tom in London wrote:
They may think they are on the child's side and "doing thie best for them", but this may be obstructing and frustrating the child,
Well nobody can do better than their best, and it's better than not doing their best.
who may have other plans.
I wouldn't expect anything less from you
There was a generation that understood this
And generations other than yours don't?
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Christopher Schröder wrote: Tom in London wrote:
They may think they are on the child's side and "doing thie best for them", but this may be obstructing and frustrating the child,
Well nobody can do better than their best, and it's better than not doing their best.
who may have other plans.
I wouldn't expect anything less from you
There was a generation that understood this
And generations other than yours don't?
It's interesting how you want to fight with me about this.
| | | | Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:50
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| It's because you're not very convincing... | Dec 17, 2023 |
Tom in London wrote:
It's interesting how you want to fight with me about this.
...and you're not very convincing in part because you fail to demonstrate how your experience might be relevant to other people than yourself. So why should we not disagree?
You've built your argument on vague and subjective grounds.
Why should we accept that what you say has wider currency than your own existence?
On brotel ground they buylde, and brotelnesse / They fynde
Dan
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:50
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Arrows shot into the future | Dec 17, 2023 |
kaytrad wrote:
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
He's not to everybody's taste, but this has always resonated with me. I have heard this (mis?) quoted as "children are arrows shot into the future", which I think also works.
Dan
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 13:50
French to English
Christopher Schröder wrote: kaytrad wrote:
(edited to remove religious references)
Why?
(That post was by me, using a profile I created years ago for reasons I don't remember and that I thought no longer existed, no idea how come I was logged in with that, it happened after my laptop unilaterally decided to update the other day)
Why edit, then?
This was the version I first came in contact with. I only found out that it had been edited when I searched for it later on. I keep using this version because I'm an atheist and can't relate to the religious parts. The text is beautiful and makes perfect sense without them.
I specified that it was edited to avoid being accused of editing on the sly, and in case religious people might want to go and find the full version.
[Edited at 2023-12-19 13:21 GMT]
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:50
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Dan Lucas wrote:
.....you fail to demonstrate how your experience might be relevant to other people than yourself. So why should we not disagree?...Why should we accept that what you say has wider currency than your own existence?
The fact that I said my parents fùcked me up seems to have disquieted some people here. That's good. I'm intrigued by how they feel they have been personally attacked in some way, even though what I said has got nothing to do with anyone else here. So I'm curious about that.
Philip Larkin is one of the most well known modern poets, and his "This be the Verse" is so universally understood, by millions of people with whom it resonates, that it certainly doesn't need me to start developing justifications for it.
As for the literature on that subject: I've mentioned a couple of sources; they are widely known and respected. Parents often abuse their children psycholoigically without knowing they're doing it. This has been widely known and studied for a very long time and the literature is vast. If you don't know about that literature, you should look into it. I would be here all day were I to start compiling a blbliography. Here's a link to get you started: http://tinyurl.com/ymh8hasr
Of course I talked about me. That was what the question asks us to do: "who has influenced you the most?" Not "who has influenced you the most, how might it be relevant to other people, and how do you justify your answer?"
[Edited at 2023-12-20 10:04 GMT]
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 13:50
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Parents make mistakes | Dec 20, 2023 |
Parents make mistakes but they also do good and useful things, just like everybody else.
You post a large number of external references, do you really believe people will be opening all those links and reading them?
Larkin & Co. were popular (and “respected”) because they came from high-class rich families and could pay for publishing, marketing and “respect”. IMO those references are totally unnecessary here, as this was a personal question, not a literary one.... See more Parents make mistakes but they also do good and useful things, just like everybody else.
You post a large number of external references, do you really believe people will be opening all those links and reading them?
Larkin & Co. were popular (and “respected”) because they came from high-class rich families and could pay for publishing, marketing and “respect”. IMO those references are totally unnecessary here, as this was a personal question, not a literary one.
[Edited at 2023-12-20 22:17 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London wrote:
It's interesting how you want to fight with me about this.
You're reading things into what was actually said, Tom.
I wouldn't try to fight with you, because you always walk away when challenged.
But you can't expect to air your opinions in a discussion forum without people wanting to discuss them.
I am genuinely interested in what it is you are trying to say about recent generations.
| | | | | Being bulletproof in good ways | Dec 20, 2023 |
How do we acquire bulletproof qualities growing up? Can a hothouse kid grow up strong enough to be able to weather the storms of life? I don't know just in case, but being raised by less-than-perfect parents, unless they are sadistic monsters which I believe is not true with most parents, can teach us some valuable lessons and is not supposed to change us for the worse, at least not by default. I remember me and my little sister, two kindergarten kiddies, sitting under a wooden mushroom in a pla... See more How do we acquire bulletproof qualities growing up? Can a hothouse kid grow up strong enough to be able to weather the storms of life? I don't know just in case, but being raised by less-than-perfect parents, unless they are sadistic monsters which I believe is not true with most parents, can teach us some valuable lessons and is not supposed to change us for the worse, at least not by default. I remember me and my little sister, two kindergarten kiddies, sitting under a wooden mushroom in a playground and talking about how we will live on the roof of that mushroom if father kicks us out of the house: I had five kopecks so we could buy an ice-cream, then sell it for ten kopecks, buy two more and that's how we'd become rich. Later we found a better place, under the stands in a stadium. Am I writing this to describe how awful my family was? Heck, no. ▲ Collapse
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| Stuff the poetry! Stuff the inquisition! | Dec 20, 2023 |
Tom in London wrote: Dan Lucas wrote:
.....you fail to demonstrate how your experience might be relevant to other people than yourself. So why should we not disagree?...Why should we accept that what you say has wider currency than your own existence?
The fact that I said my parents fùcked me up seems to have disquieted some people here. That's good. (...) Of course I talked about me. That was what the question asks us to do: "who has influenced you the most?" Not "who has influenced you the most, how might it be relevant to other people, and how do you justify your answer?" [Edited at 2023-12-20 10:04 GMT]
I'm very firmly on Tom's side here. It's all very well for folk here to laud the efforts of their own parents, to be positive about what 'most mothers do', or to suggest that 'nobody can do better than their best, and it's better than not doing their best'.
But, what about those of us whose mothers and fathers failed - perhaps through ignorance, perhaps through negligence, perhaps deliberately, - in their parental role? Is it not sufficient that we use that experience to remind others here that family life is not always a bed of roses? And if our experience has been painful, is it fair to demand 'justification' for the brevity of our answers? - justification for withholding details that might give our answers 'wider currency than our own existence'? Does 'revictimisation' mean anything to you?
Tom's strong language in condemnation of his parents requires no justification beyond the fact that he expresses a sincere personal assessment of circumstances relating to his private life, in the context of a 'quick poll' here on a public platform. He has no need to 'convince' us of anything - less still to 'demonstrate how [his] experience might be relevant to other people than [him]self'.
Although I prefer to avoid four-letter words when describing my own up-bringing, I too consider that my parents had a disastrously damaging influence on me. To the extent that already, by the age of 16 and after several suicide attempts, I had vowed 'never to have any kids [my]self', and to escape from the place my parents called 'home' as soon as I could fend for myself.
In the 18 or so years I lived under the same roof as my parents, never once did either one of them reach out to me emotionally, seek to understand me, relate to me as a human being, as their child (their 'son' in their eyes) - and not merely as a parasite that needed to be fed, schooled, clothed, housed,... My father died when I was 23, my mother when I was 65. Neither of them ever knew of, or met - and less still hugged - their daughter Jennifer.
Dan, is that the sort of explanation you require from Tom before you'll stop badgering him?
JL
| | | | Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:50
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Mistaken identity | Dec 20, 2023 |
Jennifer Levey wrote:
Dan, is that the sort of explanation you require from Tom before you'll stop badgering him?
Badgering? I've made two posts in this thread, neither of which were combative, and the most recent of which was five days ago.
Are you not confusing me with somebody else?
Dan
| | | | | In what area? | Dec 20, 2023 |
..... Translation, life, cooking, choice of pets, the supermarket I am going to, just to name a few.
But let me be a sport.
Translation - My parents actually, who spend their holidays abroad. As a child, I was fascinated by all those for me 'strange' sounds I heard around me, and (as a child) I wanted to learn all those languages.
Life - My history teacher, who also was a philosopher and knew his way around with us kids (in a positive way), but had to earn ... See more ..... Translation, life, cooking, choice of pets, the supermarket I am going to, just to name a few.
But let me be a sport.
Translation - My parents actually, who spend their holidays abroad. As a child, I was fascinated by all those for me 'strange' sounds I heard around me, and (as a child) I wanted to learn all those languages.
Life - My history teacher, who also was a philosopher and knew his way around with us kids (in a positive way), but had to earn a living too.
Cooking - The world. During my life as a globetrotter I found out that there were more recipes then only served in our dull Dutch kitchen.
Choice of pets - I would almost say the infamous polls of Proz, because of its absolutely interesting forums about the subject, but the truth is, I don't know. I grew up with cats and dogs though, even on dry days.
Supermarket - The price(s)
I hope I passed the audition. ▲ Collapse
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