You’ll roll your eyes at your dad’s jokes for twenty years and then catch yourself telling them to your kids.

What you absorb from the people around you never asks permission, and the parts you find most annoying often sink deepest. Phrases, jokes, the way somebody reacts when a plan falls apart: it all goes in through repetition and comes out of your mouth years later. Rolling your eyes is not protection from it.

Since you are inheriting either way, choose a couple of things on purpose. Name one habit from whoever raised you that you want to keep and one you would rather set down. Say both out loud once. Choosing beats absorbing by accident.