The bigger badass. You or your parents?

[Abol98]

Pretty sure my mom is "on duty" as a patroller in Maine in this pic. She probably would just stick me in a tree well if she needed to work.

I currently drop my daughter off at ski school most of the time. Point: Mom. (Went on the slopes with her last year and her form is still perfect at 68).

[plugboots]

Dad lied about his age to join the Navy at 17.
Point: Dad.

[GoldMember]

Dad lied about his age to join the Navy at 17.
Point: Dad.

My dad lied about his age to join the Marines at 17. Was under continuous fire for two months in the S. Pacific during WWII
Point: Dad.

[~mikey b]

My dad skied in jeans and a wind shirt and a cowboy hat with a hudge handlebar and sideburns and a Marlboro Light in his mouth and a couple Coors in his pocket or a bota bag of wine under his arm. I don’t remember him ever wearing goggles, just his photo-chromatic everyday glasses. Oh and he wore Scott Racers and rode Hexels.

Point: Dad

[snoqpass]

Dad fought off Chinese human wave attacks in the Korean winter with a BAR, Mom survived driving over a land mine in Africa working as a NGO, both win

[viglio]

Mom taught in NYC public schools for over 30 years

Point: Mom

[Dantheman]

My dad was offered a full-ride wrestling scholarship to UCLA. Even today he would undoubtedly kick my ass in hand-to-hand combat if we ever came to blows.

Point: Dad


My mom dropped out of college at 19, flew to South America with a friend and spent a year dirtbag traveling the continent.

Point: Mom

[Abol98]

My dad skied in jeans and a wind shirt and a cowboy hat with a hudge handlebar and sideburns and a Marlboro Light in his mouth and a couple Coors in his pocket or a bota bag of wine under his arm. I don’t remember him ever wearing goggles, just his photo-chromatic everyday glasses. Oh and he wore Scott Racers and rode Hexels.

Point: Dad

Shit. You and I might have the same dad.

[LightRanger]

Mom worked nights in ICU for 20+ years, came home, slept for a few hours, did kid activities (XC/track/soccer games), most often prepped dinner, then went back to work.

Point: Mom

[Buster Highmen]

My dad was on the Nobel college.
He was tricked into signing up for the Navy and never spoke of his time in the South Pacific.

[~mikey b]

Mom was high school principal in San Jose.

Point: Mom

[~mikey b]

Shit. You and I might have the same dad.

Could be. He adopted me.

Point: Dad

[krp8128]

Pretty sure my mom is "on duty" as a patroller in Maine in this pic. She probably would just stick me in a tree well if she needed to work.

I currently drop my daughter off at ski school most of the time. Point: Mom. (Went on the slopes with her last year and her form is still perfect at 68).

lost valley ski area? Not big enough for tree wells!

dad has worked as a firefighter for almost 30 years, each shift potentially putting his life at risk to save someone theirs.

Point: dad

[Abol98]

lost valley ski area? Not big enough for tree wells!

Ding. Not at age 0, but later on they'd just leave me with the bartender and the donut machine.

[Meadow Skipper]

I love my parents (RIP) but they weren't all that badass. I mean, they took care of shit and everything, but they were kind of mild.

[grinch]

The old man
First family car was a 57 chev. After a week , mom was walking down the street to the house with baby me and discovered the 57 with windows smashed out, netting installed and big painted numbers. Stock car/fAmily car. Then mom became the bad ass and every time after she had to crawl in the window

[GeezerSteve]

The Old Man, who, as an Army Sgt in WWII hit a landmine while driving a truck on D-Day +8 in France. One of his passengers, an officer, died instantly. The landmine blew the Old Man into the air 20+ feet and knocked him out. He landed on his ass in a sitting up position, breaking his back in several places. He blew out both eardrums, one of which did not heal and rendered him single side deaf (which I have in common with him, although the other ear).

20+ years after he got hit, when I was a kid, I watched him dig a shard of shrapnel out of his leg with a pocket knife. He was in pain the rest of his life, in and out of hospitals, but I never heard him complain, although the pain often made him a miserable and mean SOB.

Ma was also a bigger badass than I. She grew up during The Depression without a father, who spent his final years in a VA hospital after getting hit in WWI. Her old lady was a deadbeat and they moved from town to town to avoid creditors. Ma went changed schools 15+ times, but nonetheless graduated valedictorian of her senior class.

Pretty much everyone I knew of that generation were bigger badasses than pretty everyone I knew of my generation.

[wyeaster]

Shit. You and I might have the same dad.

harry?

[old goat]

Me I guess. My dad was a meat buyer for the Army in Chicago at the start of the war, since he was a butcher. He bought the good meat for the enlisted men and the bad meat for the officers so they sent his ass to New Guinea to be a lab tech. He did come under fire once--from US bombers. Mainly he was miserable sleeping in a floorless pup tent in a rain forest, as a result of which he never slept on the ground again or did anything more outdoorsy than sit by a lake and watch us play. Mainly he worked. OTOH my kids are both way more badass than I am.