If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off
mrjamesbell.comMy grandfather told me a version of this story and I have been lucky to tell my kids (who loved it).
Our version:
There was once a boy that was born with a golden screw where his belly button should be. This made him very self-conscious about it. The kids at school would tease him about his golden screw and lack of belly button. It was so bad that he didn't want to remove his shirt when swimming.
One day his class took a field trip to the beach. The boy didn't want to remove his shirt, so he walked along the beach kicking the sand. He was very sad. Suddenly, his foot hurt from kicking something hard in the sand. He looked down and discovered a golden screwdriver.
His eyes brightened and he felt this must be some divine intervention. He immediately removed his shirt, grabbed the golden screwdriver and began to carefully unscrew the golden screw. This was the moment. He unscrewed it and finally this golden screw that had cursed him his whole life came out <dramatic pause> then his butt fell off.
<cue 6 year old laughing>
ChatGPT is the best:
Once upon a time, there was a young man named Jack who had a golden screw in place of his belly button. Jack was very self-conscious about this unique feature, but he soon discovered that it had some incredible powers.
One day, Jack was walking through the forest when he came across a beautiful fairy. The fairy was in distress and begged Jack to help her. She explained that she was being held captive by a wicked witch and needed someone to rescue her.
Without hesitation, Jack agreed to help the fairy and set off on an adventure to defeat the witch. Along the way, he encountered many challenges, including fierce beasts and treacherous obstacles.
But with the help of his golden screw, Jack was able to overcome each challenge and finally reached the witch's castle. He battled the witch, using his golden screw to conjure up powerful spells and defeat her.
The fairy was grateful to Jack and rewarded him with a magical amulet that granted him the ability to fly. With this new power, Jack flew back home, feeling proud of his bravery and accomplishment.
Years later, Jack discovered that the golden screw could do even more than he had initially thought. He realized that he could use it to shape-shift into any form he desired.
Excited by this new discovery, Jack began experimenting with his newfound ability. He turned into a bird, a fish, and even a dragon. But one day, he accidentally turned into a duck and couldn't change back.
Feeling frustrated and embarrassed, Jack decided to give up his powers and return to his human form. He unscrewed the golden screw and, to his horror, his butt fell off.
The story doesn't matter, it's the <cue 6 year old laughter> that makes it good.
lol, I'm sure you could shaggy-dog any joke this way.
I remember the Leisure Suit Larry punchlines, and wonder if you could reverse engineer jokes from the punchline, or make up punchlines and see if there's a joke to be made.
"...and there stood the pig and the cow!"
A variant of this version is in The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss:
> “Once upon a time,” I began. “There was a little boy born in a little town. He was perfect, or so his mother thought. But one thing was different about him. He had a gold screw in his belly button. Just the head of it peeping out.
> “Now his mother was simply glad he had all his fingers and toes to count with. But as the boy grew up he realized not everyone had screws in their belly buttons, let alone gold ones. He asked his mother what it was for, but she didn’t know. Next he asked his father, but his father didn’t know. He asked his grandparents, but they didn’t know either.
> “That settled it for a while, but it kept nagging him. Finally, when he was old enough, he packed a bag and set out, hoping he could find someone who knew the truth of it.
> “He went from place to place, asking everyone who claimed to know something about anything. He asked midwives and physickers, but they couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The boy asked arcanists, tinkers, and old hermits living in the woods, but no one had ever seen anything like it.
> “He went to ask the Cealdim merchants, thinking if anyone would know about gold, it would be them. But the Cealdim merchants didn’t know. He went to the arcanists at the University, thinking if anyone would know about screws and their workings, they would. But the arcanists didn’t know. The boy followed the road over the Stormwal to ask the witch women of the Tahl, but none of them could give him an answer.
> “Eventually he went to the King of Vint, the richest king in the world. But the king didn’t know. He went to the Emperor of Atur, but even with all his power, the emperor didn’t know. He went to each of the small kingdoms, one by one, but no one could tell him anything.
> “Finally the boy went to the High King of Modeg, the wisest of all the kings in the world. The high king looked closely at the head of the golden screw peeping from the boy’s belly button. Then the high king made a gesture, and his seneschal brought out a pillow of golden silk. On that pillow was a golden box. The high king took a golden key from around his neck, opened the box, and inside was a golden screwdriver.
> “The high king took the screwdriver and motioned the boy to come closer. Trembling with excitement, the boy did. Then the high king took the golden screwdriver and put it in the boy’s belly button.”
> I paused to take a long drink of water. I could feel my small audience leaning toward me. “Then the
> high king carefully turned the golden screw. Once: Nothing. Twice: Nothing. Then he turned it the third time, and the boy’s ass fell off.”
> There was a moment of stunned silence.
> “What?” Hespe asked incredulously.
> “His ass fell off.”
Seeing a masterful Rothfuss excerpt right next to its lesser, AI-generated counterpart (in a sibling comment) gives me pause, today.
I'm most certainly going to steal this.
Can’t wait to use this!!
As time progresses my respect, love, and admiration for my parents increases. They didn't do a perfect job, but they did it perfectly.
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"
Oh dear. This has made me a bit teary
it worked!
I completely agree with you. As we grow older and gain more life experiences, we are able to see and appreciate the hard work and sacrifices that our parents made for us. Even though they may not have done everything perfectly, their love and dedication to their family is truly admirable. It's important to recognize and show gratitude for their efforts and support.
Once you have kids for yourself, only then can you finally realize how much your parents (hopefully) loved you.
what's also fun is "perfect" just means "done" from its latin roots
They didn't do it perfectly but they did it perfectly? Do you have two different definitions for "perfect" and are mixing them?
Sometimes you do a perfect job, and sometimes you do a bad job perfectly.
But to avoid any more wordplay: Sometimes you need to use a flawed technique to achieve an end. You can execute that flawed technique perfectly, but that won't make it a perfect job.
Indeed, the 'perfect path' in life is not perfect. Life has so many paths, everything is a trade off. Spent more time with your kids? You loose time with friends etc. Whatever you do or choose in life, it means you can't do all the other stuff.
There were interesting comments about 'having regrets' previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33118584
I think you've missed the poetry.
This reminds me of Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear... seems that his dad told him a similar story :-)
> “Once upon a time,” I began. “There was a little boy born in a little town. He was perfect, or so his mother thought. But one thing was different about him. He had a gold screw in his belly button. Just the head of it peeping out.
The joke goes back to at least 1971 based on it's appearance in a book of Isaac Asimov's favorite jokes, https://old.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/3uul26.... I'm sure it's much older. My father also told a version of it back in the 80s.
Screws and screwdrivers are at least 500 years old, so this joke could have been mutating around its core punchline through generations for quite a long time before it was first written down.
My Dad was an avid sci fi reader, I feel this is probably where he borrowed from :)
One of my dad's favorite stories:
Once upon a time, all the dogs went to a big party. But because dog butts are smelly, they were required to remove them at the entrance and hang them up on the wall. Halfway through the party a sneaky cat pulled the fire alarm so all the dogs just grabbed whatever butt they could find, attached it, and ran out. Ever since then they've been smelling each other's butts so that they can try find their own.
We had a family dog whose butt/tail was a different color than his body, so of course this story just made perfect sense to us.
Michael Leunig did a cartoon of this, so maybe that's where the story comes from. (I tried to find it but my google foo failed me)
Unrelated, I fat fingered on a link without noticing. I was confused as to why the content I'm reading is completely unrelated to what I read 30s before.
This website is fast.
Exceptionally so for a WordPress site.
The theme he's using claims to be the fastest WordPress theme:
The belly button joke is very old and widespread, I believe my father was warned by his father.
My parents told me that you get a hole in your belly if you eat gum.
As a child I panicked once because I accidentally swallowed some gum, it's a mean thing to lie about :(
I think some people used to believe that a swallowed piece of gum might cause appendicitis. I don't know how accurate that belief is, but maybe your parents weren't trying to be mean, just cautious.
My parents told me something very similar about gum, and a whole lot of other weird things over the years. Is this a universal experience? I wonder if it's a helpful evolutionary trait, sort of like training your "mental immune system" the same way that your mother chewing your food and feeding it to you, germs and all, strengthens your actual immune system.
My eight-year-olds have gotten quite good at detecting when I'm pulling their legs. I never deceive them about anything serious, but I want them to learn to think critically about what authority figures tell them. My five-year-old is thoroughly convinced I can read his mind by putting my nose to his ear and smelling his brain; I established credibility when I was confident I knew what he was thinking. It works great for "I'm not tired" when he clearly is, or "my tummy is full" after two bites of food. Also, if he eats his eggs, at bedtime he will be strong enough to win a wrestling match with me.
I also enjoy planting small "easter eggs" for them...e.g. whenever we drive through the Holland Tunnel I hum the Super Mario underground theme, which I have explained simply as "tunnel music". One day they'll get it.
Not sure how helpful it is. I wasn't told much lies as a kid. Plenty of wrong things, yes, but those were all common misconceptions (some still widely held by people today, plenty of them present on this Wikipedia list[0]).
Someone close to me, however, was told a lot of such lies in their childhood, and continued to believe them into adulthood. When we met during our university years, I unknowingly debunked a few of those stories during casual conversations, and the person later thanked me and told me that, sadly, this completely shattered the trust they had for their father.
----
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
If you get in contact with your friend: point out to them that part of being a parent is building up an independent, bullshit tolerant, reality questioning adult.
If none of the things you debunked were serious, then it may have been seed planting for later epiphanies.
I've made very sure that the kiddos I spend time with have a rich mix of truths, half-truths, and jolly equivocations to sort through in their life, and they have no end of fun working their way to proving me wrong.
I consider this an investment in their future development of bullshit filters to keep things running when mine have finally given up the ghost (May it not happen in the forseeable future).
> this completely shattered the trust they had for their father.
Friend of mine felt this way when he learned the truth about Santa Claus. No joke.
I’d tell my kids a lot fewer lies if they actually fell for them. Half the fun (and the entire point) is watching them get a more and more sophisticated nose for bullshit.
Yes, it is universal, at least in my circle. I think it’s not a trait, but simply our evolutional tolerance to stupid things parents say when it comes to parenting or to just being reasonable. You don’t die from not swallowing a gum, avoiding black cats or praying to invisible dude. So these things can live ages.
Only to my 30s I began to realize how much of this non-contextual nonsense was put in my mind, from gums to proverbs to rules to… basically everything was a subject for reevaluation.
What's the stimulus and response if you tell your kid a joke/lie and never let him figure out it was a joke?
The correct way would be to intermingle jokes with truths and telling/laughing some time after they swallow the lies they should have doubted.
My kids seem to doubt everything they hear (pain in the bum for teachers), yet almost religiously believe everything I've told "for real".
> Is this a universal experience?
What, being spun some BS by your parents?
My mother told me that picking my nose would result in my nose becoming like a cow's nose. She was right; my face is now indistinguishable from a cow's.
> your mother chewing your food and feeding it to you, germs and all, strengthens your actual immune system.
[citation needed]
The comment you're replying to was obviously written by a bird.
First hand account here from back in the 80s of grandmas chewing adult food for babies. No they were not birds but humans, all of them. Make what you want with this information.
I read a comment recently by a person born in an Asian country, where it was normal for babies or children to be fed by their parents “pre-masticated”. Makes complete sense to me. You might also do it for someone who was ill.
They mentioned that getting fed food was something they still occasionally did, that it was a supremely intimate thing to do.
Do birds chew gum?
The "bird" didn't mention chewing gum.. They take plastic, so possible they can also take gums..
https://www.blastic.eu/knowledge-bank/impacts/plastic-ingest...
It's bad enough when they spit on a hanky and wipe your face with it!
Civilized mothers use covfefe.
My wife was terrorized by her older siblings, who told her if she swallowed a watermelon seed she would wake up dead the next morning.
The brother of an old friend got curious, went downstairs really early in the morning, found his dad's tools, and tried to unscrew his bottom. He poked around in his belly-button with a screw-driver until it started bleeding. This guy became one of the best car-mechanics later on in life.
Great, now my Navel Pressure Monitoring System sensors chime every time I start the ignition.
So widespread, it apparently transcends borders. My grandparents used that one a few times. Hello from Germany. :)
It reminds me of a line in a Sopranos episode. Only it substituted penis for bottom.
That actually seems more realistic.
I can't recall the exact lines but Thomas Pynchon's V. has an interesting variation of this story.
"Somehow it was all tied up with a story he’d heard once, about a boy born with a golden screw where his navel should have been. For twenty years he consults doctors and specialists all over the world, trying to get rid of this screw, and having no success. Finally, in Haiti, he runs into a voodoo doctor who gives him a foul-smelling potion.
He drinks it, goes to sleep and has a dream. In this dream he finds himself on a street, lit by green lamps. Following the witch-man’s instructions, he takes two rights and a left from his point of origin, finds a tree growing by the seventh street light, hung all over with colored balloons. On the fourth limb from the top there is a red balloon; he breaks it and inside is a screwdriver with a yellow plastic handle. With the screwdriver he removes the screw from his stomach, and as soon as this happens he wakes from the dream. It is morning. He looks down toward his navel, the screw is gone. That twenty years’ curse is lifted at last. Delirious with joy, he leaps up out of bed, and his ass falls off."
I thought of the same thing when I read the title of the post as well. Lovely book, made me laugh many times.
Thanks for the reply. I tried to search for the passage but couldn't find it myslef.
It’s interesting to find this out!
Nice writing. Made me feel warm remembering a few people with similar persona from my childhood days. I feel there were a lot of people with similar persona in my dad's generation. Ubiquitous connectivity via Mobile/Internet and how much our cities/towns have changed makes it difficult for this persona to exist today.
I hope my dad is partying with yours in the ahem great-ISO-9000-in-the-sky. They would enjoy each other's company. And I would enjoy his, would give anything for 10. more. minutes.
> Maureen must have been skeptical, but Mum immediately backed up Dad’s story.
The author’s mom also sounds pretty cool.
Having a significant other who is on the same wavelength as you as who is your partner even in silly stuff is one of the underrated blessings in life.
"When you turn 12 you will have to get your belly button re-tied."
> the ancient Lancastrian martial art of Ecky Thump
I thought Ecky Thoomp was from Yorkshire (via the Goodies).
And I thought it was a White Stripes song/album title. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icky_Thump_(song)
That's civil war talk right there... :)
My father was originally from Manchester and there is a good chance he borrowed heavily.
Nice read. I really like the idea of writing lessons learned from a person when they pass.
I used pincers and fished out massive piece of navel lint the other day. It was quite solid. And there was white strands growing from it, somekind of mildew.
I was aware of danger of scratching yores navel, so I doused the area with Alcool and Betadine.
When my first kid was born, I planned to start preserving my navel fur to be able to knit him a sweater for his 18th birthday. I regret that I never got around to that. He’s 15 now and I don’t think 3 years will yield enough for a sweater. Socks, maybe, but I’d always see those as a symbol of my lack of perseverance.
No way! I've been collecting it for three years now, planning to create felt plushies with it brand name is Nabelfilz. Sadly during the pandemic the harvest was bad, since production requires fabric and friction and I wasn't wearing shirts or walking much.
Omphalolith? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalolith
This got me in the feels regarding my father, who’s bbeen my rock through and through.
Loved reading it. Fantastic piece. That writing got very close to me, watery eyes and so and I also read it from my perspective of being a dad of a small child right now.
> the great ISO9000 audit conference in the sky
Not exactly my idea of heaven.
Beautiful.
First place I heard that question was on a Jasper Carrott concert from the late 70s. :)
No... It is: If you unbutton your belly button, your legs will fall off.
:)
This was just lovely :-)
> This, along with the “lying still game” and many other “games” ensured hours of peace and quiet for adults trying to
It’s funny how fathering is about using a thousand tricks to make kids go through life even when they don’t want. And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cleaning up the floor.
Whenever I cried, my father would say “Don’t put your mouth in W”. How can you not laugh at that. We’ll it doesn’t teach to negotiate, I don’t remember my parents bending for anything, they’d use gimmicks to get out of the situation. If it’s not good to let kids get spoilt, bending from time to time teaches them how to use a little seduction to ask for things.
I also remember my father coming back from a disabled-school visit, and he’d tell me that a kid taught him in sign language “I - love - working”, and that’s the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. Or seen.
So that’s it, I don’t know how to complain properly, don’t know how to seduce, and I work all the time. I became deadweight for my parents at 40, since I’m single, millionaire and incel, but at least they had nothing to worry concerning impregnating women, doing drugs or not working enough.
> I don’t know how to complain properly
Oh I don't know, I think you're doing a fine job of it.
All of those things you complain about not being able to do, you know that you can't do them.
If you know you can't do them, and want to do them, then you can learn how.
Alternatively, you can lay your issues at your parents feet and mope about how hard your life is as a millionaire.
Ignoring the moping millionaire part he's got some truth to what he's saying. I'm confronting this now as a new parent while thinking about how I want to raise my son vs. how I was raised by my father.
OPs point to all the distracting tricks rings true for me. Very much a "my way or the highway" household I grew up in, and although I don't feel there was major harm from the upbringing, I can see where the gaps in my development originated. Like OP, I don't do confrontation well. I don't have a healthy grasp of expressing desire or wants. I find it difficult to have healthy debate with others. It's mostly a habit of avoiding the conversation because I was taught during childhood/teens that things will be done like this so there's no point in arguing.
It isn't so simple as that overall though, but I do heavily look at the type of upbringing I was given and how it contributes overall. I want to do better for my son, and avoiding the easy "tricks" to get kids to quiet down and behave (be less like kids) is something I'm aiming to avoid.
Oh, I completely get it. I think those of us who are new parents are of a particular generation.
I was brought up with "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about", my parents would get angry that I didn't know how to do something (well you're the teacher, how is it my fault you didn't teach me!), and shouting. A lot of shouting.
It has definitely affected me, even now if my wife shouts me from downstairs get that feeling of being a child again, waiting to be smacked for something I've supposedly done wrong. I think it will always be there.
However, my parents had it much worse than me. They were born into poverty and their parents were dysfunctional, raging alcoholics who didn't provide for them. As a child my dad had to break into abandoned warehouses to pull up floorboards to use as firewood, because HIS dad was too busy pissing away his money in the pub and on gambling.
That they managed to come out and raise kids in a more loving environment than the one they grew up in is a testament to them.
I think most of us want our children to have a better life than the one we had. People are human, people make mistakes.
I forgive my parents for the mistakes they made, because I know that even for the things they made me do that I still detest and think they are wrong for making me do, they did it for the right reasons, they still loved me. And I love them
> I want to raise my son vs. how I was raised by my father.
What many (most?) people do is overcompensate to not make the same obvious errors their parents made, and thereby make a different series of errors.
Oh, certainly. I've sorta tried to tune into the generational "style" of parenting I've seen and it swings like a pendulum. Overprotected parenting, absent parent, etc.
My parents had different parenting styles from each other (they ultimately separated) and my friends had different experiences from their parents too. My wife had an abusive upbringing while mine was both neglectful in some ways and overbearing in others. The wife and I joke at times about what type of broken our son will end up being but recognize we're trying to fix what we see as generational trauma while still providing a foundation for him to grow from.
So for me it is about repairing the emotional stunting I've developed. I want my son to be able to express himself in healthy ways without being afraid of confrontation. My wife recognizes how her upbringing lead her to hide and avoid her family, to be self-reliant and forced to navigate the world without a support structure to fall back on. What will develop after that? I just hope he is able to grow confident and know he is loved. What branches out from there is to be figured out when the time comes I suppose.
>> I don’t know how to complain properly
> Oh I don't know, I think you're doing a fine job of it.
:D If I knew, I would address the issues with the right person and solve them.
So I ended up speaking to computers instead. The rest is so dark that I shouldn’t tell it online, but honestly, you should stop being hateful towards anybody. Any human. Anyone. Don’t do that. Hard no. You are creating hate when you hate people. And man millionaires can be as violent as any other man, as uncaring, as ... We’re no special race. Wasn’t born with a silver spoon either, I was making the point that it was hard work and no life balance that led me here, not privilege or inheritance, just good sustained work, moving until it worked, and lacking social attachment. So I’m gonna go back to my computer and try forgetting about how people like you intentionally ruined my life.
Don’t.
> you should stop being hateful towards anybody.
Explain to me how I am being hateful? I do not hate you, I do not know you. I am merely pointing out that you are complaining about problems you know that you have. If you just want to complain, that's fine, but if you want to fix these problems then it might be good to seek out counselling, a psychologist, a medical professional, someone who can help you
> Wasn’t born with a silver spoon either,
I never said you were.
> So I’m gonna go back to my computer and try forgetting about how people like you intentionally ruined my life.
If you view people who critique your opinions as "ruining your life", then that problem lies with you, not them. You are giving them power over you that they do not really have.
It is nobody's responsibility to make you happy. Only you have that power. You are the master of your own destiny.
Here is a youtube channel I highly recommend, I implore you to watch this man's videos. I found them enlightening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UeJzbx1iu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1G4JFuLlO8
If you know you can't do them, and want to do them, then you can learn how.
Some people learn how and just do it.
Other people learn how and just do it.
You can’t see a difference until you get in these “other” shoes and realize how much unreasonable, irrational, disorienting discomfort they give. But minds aren’t shoes so you can’t just try on that.
Assuming they are otherwise physically and mentally capable, they can do it if they want to do it.
The hardest thing about life is not knowing.
Once you know that you don't know something, then you can try to know it.
I am talking as someone who spent a significant amount of my life thinking that I had to live and was consigned to living in one particular way, because I didn't know any other choice was open to me.
Right, but the assumption in this argument is too narrowing. When people get anxious of e.g. complaining, it’s their mental inability, not just lack of a proper method. People get anxious and procrastinative (which may be a result of unnoticed anxiety) a lot. It’s not something affecting only around 1%.
Well this comment took a turn in the last few minutes.
How slow do you read??
I can't speak to everyone's experience or abilities, but I can say that one of the hardest things about overcoming abuse is identifying what reality is and distinguishing the difference between what is true about who/what you are and something you are gping through as a result of the experiences you had.
Between the inflexible authoritarian way my parents were, and the coping mechanisms I used to make it through the years I lived with them, it was a many-years-long journey later on in my adult life (and still ongoing) to work back through the layers and shift the foundations from where they were involuntarily built to where I wanted them to be.
I have a particular grief, for the time in my life I could have been more like who I may have been had it not been for abuse and trauma. The years of lost experiences and mistakes that may have been much less arduous had it not been for the coping mechanisms I adopted for survival. When you say you don't know how to complain- I think it may be more accurate that you may have trouble with communicating with/relating to other people, or you can't find the proper way to articulate how big of an impact or determine at what point something is really part of you or a mindspace you find yourself in.
I spent a long time trying to deal with it on my own, but where I really started to make traction was talking to a professional and actually being honest, painfully so when it came to my dysfunctional way of dealing with intimacy. After some years I was able to begin admitting where I was the source of my own anguish and forgiving myself but also taking accountability of putting in the work to change what I could so I could live life more functionally and really be able to experience things without that weight I hadn't realized I had been carrying all along. To an extent I had become attached to it and it became an extension of me, a part of my identity.
My family in general was (in some ways still is) incredibly problematic, and I've come to realize a lot of the problems started with a desire to be validated and/or accepted by the parental figures. Not saying this is the case for everyone, but it is possible to forgive people (and still love them, if you wish) who caused a lot of harm, and work to heal. You deserved better, and future you can find what you yearn- it's not an easy road working through all that but there is hope to be found in the process which may not have felt feasible otherwise.
Can you share which therapetic techniques were most benficial for you? EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, something else?
Imagine you're a function whose implementation body is written over time by you (the conscience). Your function is invoked once at your birth and seizes to execute when you die.
* You don't control what arguments are passed to your function
* But you do have complete control over the implementation
It's OK to verify your arguments, but then, once you realized you've been given less-than-ideal values, you don't have to continue processing them. Stop writing code that depends on these inputs and write your own implementation as if those arguments never existed. You're not the product of your input values, they're just there and it's your decision whether to use them or not.
Also, how are you dead weight if you're a millionaire? This would mean your parents are carrying you. Buy a house and GTFO then. Visit your parents once in a while. Call your mom.
Man this resonates. My parents (who were grandparents) were 1) industrial electronics hard worker type, 2) stay away don’t speak too much something might happen what can you do type. Guess whom they raised.
>And another part is politeness rules teach kids to be convenient for the parents, for example “don’t play with food, there’s kids in Africa” was never about African kids and more about cleaning up the floor.
Seriously? You don't see the problem in nurturing the (subconscious) view of African standing for the malnourished, poor, disadvatage, and so on?
You don't see the utility of pointing out that being in a position to "play with food" is not a given, paired with a real life counterexample?
Stop seeing racism in everything. If you keep holding ypur mind like that, it'll freeze that way.
The need to educate a person not to waste food or about one's privileged life has absolutely no dependence on your example, nor is the latter inherently about racism, unless that is your actual motivation, or a real life counterexample. You just pointed to a convolution of stereotypes about a continent, which is quite the irony when you wish to teach about privilege.
And your lame counter-accusation is basically a common rebuke of your average actual racist.
More over, the original “don’t waste your food” trope hides hypocrisy, because those parents don’t necessarily care about African children. They care about cleaning up. Some actually care about Africa, but it’s disjoint from keeping kids clean.