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5 Things My Parents Should Have Taught Me But Didn’t

5 Things My Parents Should Have Taught Me But Didn’t
Carly Jacobs

This is not going to be an expose on how shit my parents are. In actual fact, they are supremely ace. I was just thinking the other day that I learnt some pretty important stuff, many years after I should have. It’s stupid to think your parents will teach you all the important stuff (who has the time for that?) but here’s a few things I learnt from other people.

Raw chicken is basically poison

I had my cousin over for dinner one night years ago and she was watching me cut up raw chicken for dinner. I sliced my finger and immediately put my finger in my mouth. She shrieked ‘No! Bad life choice!’ and spent the next 20 minutes explaining to me how raw chicken is basically made of salmonella. At the time I would have 25 and it was the first time I ever heard this information. I really feel like my parents dropped the ball on this one.

Mum’s name isn’t mum

This one came to light in the first few days of primary school. A girl at school told me her mum’s name was Sue and I was like ‘Your mum’s name isn’t mum? That’s weird.’

She then informed me that MY mum had a name that wasn’t mum. I was outraged and marched home to mum (otherwise known as mum) and asked if she in fact had another name.

‘Yep. Sally. And dad has another name too, it’s Don.’

Out-fucking-rageous.

How to pronounce words correctly

To be fair, I read A LOT so I was constantly saying things before I’d heard real people say them. Here are some fun examples. These are actually things I said OUT LOUD to actual people.

Determined

Det-er-my-n-ed

Adhesive

Ah-head-sive

Anal

An-arl

Paradigm

Par-rah-dig-um

Thankfully people laugh at you when you say things like ‘an-arl’ when you mean ‘anal’ (before anyone calls child protective services I was 7 years old and read a Cosmo magazine my aunty left at our house and there was diary of a prostitute in it) so you learn these things SUPER quickly.

That the word ‘fuck’ does not mean ‘punch’

Spent a lot of time on the playground threatening to fuck the boys. Classy. My year 6 neighbour cleared that one up for me.

That dugongs are real

Legit thought they were made up. Like trolls or bunyips. I was actually quite to delighted to find out I was wrong about this one.

Also today is podcast day! Here’s today’s episode. Today is a lucky dip – we just answer a lot of random questions we’ve been asked. It’s a goody I reckon…

 

What things were you just totally wrong about and found out as an adult?

 

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15 Comments

  1. mymidlifemayhem 7 years ago

    When did raw chicken become a weapon of mass destruction disguised as meat? All this very important knowledge is what’s causing an over-population in some countries. Perhaps we should revert back to the being as ignorant as shit and the lucky dip mode of living? Ps My daughter has the same issue with word pronunciation. Her most hysterical is ‘naive’.

  2. Lisa Adams 7 years ago

    This has made me laugh very loudly this morning. I may have even snorted. Great post Carly. Love it.

  3. Lisa Fourman 7 years ago

    I choked at the point where you started talking about how you were going to “fuck” the boys. I didn’t know whether to laugh or give you a helping hand. I was seriously unsure there. This is a great post, though, because I’m sitting here with thoughts going through my head of everything my own parents didn’t teach me. I didn’t know the difference between “though” and “thought” until I was in my teens. Talk about a “duh!” moment, huh?

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 7 years ago

      Ha that would have been a real ‘Oooohhhh!’ moment. 🙂

      • Lisa Fourman 7 years ago

        I still remember learning the difference. I was reading one of The Series of Unfortunate Events novels as a kid. I think I was around 11 or 12…something like that. My mom told me the difference in the spelling and I felt like such an idiot. LOL I’m still laughing about it, actually, though I definitely wasn’t laughing about it then. LOL

  4. Kathryn 7 years ago

    Ha, I had to read something out loud in primary school and everyone laughed when I said Penelope. I don’t care what anyone says, Penny-lope sounds cooler.

    Everyone in Japan eats pink chicken. I’m not sure how they aren’t all dead. If I eat it by accident, I’m sick as a dog.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 7 years ago

      I would never have thought a primary school aged kid would know how to say that!

    • Nicole 6 years ago

      My mum was reading my daughter a penelope bear book and she said pene-lope 3 or 4 times before I cracked up. The i realised she was legitimately saying ut rhat was. Mum died 18 months ago and i now LOVE reading that boonto both my girls and telling the ‘Nana- Pene lope’ story.

  5. nessbow 7 years ago

    Oh my goodness! I had a similar experience thinking that narwhals were mythical creatures for the longest time. I mean, they are basically sea-unicorns.

  6. Harlow 7 years ago

    In grade 5 our class got to sit down with the grade 6 class next door and watch The Man From Snowy River. Now I remember absolutely nothing about what the hell happened in that film because the only thing I remember was the part where the guy comes up behind the girl and hugs her from behind. This is where one of the year 6 boys yelled out “DOGGY STYLE”. At which point the teacher instantly seized him and dragged him to the office! I thought that this must be one of *the* naughtiest, most offensive thing to say ever but I was soooooooooo confused too. I’d never seen a teacher that angry before! Anyway needless to say that phrase became very popular among the kids on the playground as the ultimate curse word – none of us knew what it meant of course. One day at home I was having an argument with my parents about something lame and decided to really push their buttons by saying The Worst Word Ever. I will never forget the look of homicidal rage on my fathers face that instantly went purple and the devastated look on my mothers face…I’d really gone and done it! Surprisingly, they managed to compose themselves fairly quickly and started to bombard me with questions about where I’d heard it. I know my father actually went and called the school. Afterwards I was told by my parents that the boy who used that word clearly came from a “very bad” home and not to ever use that word again. You better believe my surprise and then the hilarity when I eventually found out what that word meant when I was in my 20s! Although laughs aside, I hope nothing actually horrible happened to the boy who said it and that, as an adult I definitely understand why my parents were so upset.

    • Author
      Carly Jacobs 7 years ago

      Oh my god that’s so funny! I love how you used it even though you had no idea what it meant. 🙂

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