Have you ever caught yourself doing or saying something that made you feel like you’re turning into your mom or dad? It happens to the best of us, and people first come to this realization when they’re around 30 years old, new research reveals. But they start noticing the first signs a lot earlier, at around age 20.
According to a survey of 2-thousand U.S. adults, 27% of Americans worry that they’re becoming their parents. While a quarter of respondents don’t mind picking up certain traits of their parents, 38% admit they’re trying to avoid it altogether.
So, where do people see the strongest similarities between themselves and their parents? The top three areas are their food habits (cooking and eating), their daily lifestyle habits and their language.
- A lot of people also notice they’re turning into their parents when they’re traveling, with 41% saying they’ve become the “airport dad,” by getting to the airport really early, being prepared and keeping track of luggage.
- The top travel habits people have picked up from their parents include arriving at the airport early (25%), forgetting something at home (19%), finding the gate before doing anything else (18%) and going to the bathroom right before boarding (16%).
- But more than a third (38%) of those polled think they have better travel habits than their parents.
- If travel awards were being given out, baby boomers feel most confident they’d win “the suitcase weight is right” award (49%), Gen Z says they’d win for “most likely to get lost in airport crowds” and for “the worst sense of direction” (41% each).
- Respondents think their parents would be most likely to win the award for “acting like a tourist” (33%), “being the biggest complainer” (30%) and “falling for tourist traps” (23%).
- Moments when people first realized they were becoming their parents include bargain shopping like their mom and grandma, talking the same way or giving the same advice they did, talking to their kids and going through all the names of their other kids before getting the right name, when their kids pointed it out, and watching the shows their parents like.
Source: Talker