Suggested by Shaker jeanology: "What factor in your upbringing (like a choice your parent or guardian made, or the general philosophy with which you were raised) has had the most impact, positive or negative, on who you are as an adult?"
Two things immediately come to mind, and they were things that both of my parents and all three of my grandparents (my paternal grandfather died before I was born) did:
1. Encouraged reading in every possible way, from modeling being readers themselves to buying me books to reading to me every day and letting me read to them once I knew how.
2. Never using slurs or making bigoted statements of any kind, against people of color, women, members of the LGBTQ community, disabled people, minority religions, atheists, addicts, immigrants, etc. Every slur and stereotype I learned outside my house.
(The one exception to that was fat hatred. Which was mostly in the form of self-criticism from my parents. And that had an impact, too.)
This is not to suggest that there was never any uninterrogated prejudice or unexamined privilege modeled for me at home. There was. But I was told that all people were equal and deserving of respect, and, for the most part, that's what I saw practiced by the adults closest to me.
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