As a kid, I never got the concept of "role models". For all their many faults and mixed messages, my parents drove home the virtue that we each live and do what we do, to be ourselves. Like, other kids have different rules that they live by. That's because they have different lives, different parents, different things are more or less important for them (values), and so on. I guess in short, the "run your own race" sentiment. I was also in karate for a long time, where the prevailing ideology is that the person you should be trying to be better than, is yesterday's you.
I never really understood it, either. There's people that I admire for one reason or another, but to call them role models? To act like they have to do everything right and never make a mistake? To bring up another pop star, I grew up loving Britney Spears and her music. My parents never complained about her performances or anything she did. She wasn't raising me, my parents were.
Well said. I kinda feel like, if you're worried about other people being role models for your kid, you might want to reassess your parenting approach, lol. But maybe that's not entirely fair, I don't know. My parents put a lot of wild expectations on me, but none of them were to be "like" someone else.
As a kid, I seldom looked up to anyone as a role model
Occasionally hiccup from httyd and Optimus prime, from TF Prime and a few other series but not usually other kids. Mostly because I was the oldest at my daycare by like 5-8 years but still
You know, you just reminded me, there actually was a single character I think was a bit of a role model for me as a young kid - someone I actually thought, "I want to be just like him when I grow up". Rocko, from Rocko's Modern Life.
The people who don't have that support are the ones most susceptible. Turns out you can solve a lot of problems by being fully present for your children.
That annoyed me so much back then. In school, teachers constantly bug students to write about their role models. I was looked at weird for not having one, so I always had to make something up. I only followed parents/teachers because I needed them to teach me things, I had no interest in being like them. I never looked at celebrities for inspiration because I don't know them outside of their work. I just wanted to do my own thing
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u/Caesar_Passing 4d ago
As a kid, I never got the concept of "role models". For all their many faults and mixed messages, my parents drove home the virtue that we each live and do what we do, to be ourselves. Like, other kids have different rules that they live by. That's because they have different lives, different parents, different things are more or less important for them (values), and so on. I guess in short, the "run your own race" sentiment. I was also in karate for a long time, where the prevailing ideology is that the person you should be trying to be better than, is yesterday's you.