I wrote a post about what my Greek Mom has taught me a few weeks ago so I only thought it was fair to give my Dad a fair shot too! The differences between what a Greek Mom and a Greek Dad teach you are quite vast. But in both, I am sure that you are likely to get a chuckle. So here goes, here are 10 things that my Greek Dad has taught me.

1. Don’t go into the restaurant business. Yep, the cliche. My Dad has worked in or owned restaurants all of his life, right up until retirement. Even when I would help out there as a kid for extra allowance money, he would always tell me. Don’t do this, go do something else.

2. Don’t take shit from anyone. He didn’t want me to take crap from anyone. If someone teased me, he told me to put right back at them.

3. If he is threatened by you, he’s not the right guy. A lot of the Greek ladies would be apalled when I did something, like buy my own home. They said, if you buy a house, what will your husband by you? How will he feel like a man? My Dad’s response was always, he would buy her a bigger house.

4. If you love someone, marry them. He’s a true softie at heart. He always told me that he didn’t understand all the games of dating today. For him it was simple, if you fell in love with a woman, you married her. That was it, done.

5. Milk covers alcohol. If you don’t want mom to smell alcohol on your breathe, drink milk- don’t worry this was when I was over 21. He didn’t want me to get yelled at by my mom for being at a bar when my friend dropped me off.

6. How to check my oil. My first car was older and so I had to keep an eye on things. I asked my Dad and he took me out and showed me how to do it all. My mom was in amazement as to how I knew. Um, I asked?

7. Insurance is important. Whether it be for your health or your property, always have insurance. Do your best to afford however much you can but don’t think you’re invincible and go without it. My Dad has always been big on making sure you are covered since you never know what can happen in this world.

8. Math. This one isn’t completely true. My Dad is great at math but not so great at teaching it. Whenever my mom would have me ask him for help it would be a nightmare. He would do it in his head and say the answer is 8x. That doesn’t help me, I need to know how. So he gives me the answer to the halfway step, say 8x-z+1. Then doesn’t tell me how to get to that. I always ended up telling him, if I knew how to get there, then I wouldn’t have asked you for help! In some ways I think that made me get better at it just to avoid ever having to ask him for help.

9. Education. Go to school, do the best that you can. Get whatever degree you want in whatever subject. He always acknowledges that things aren’t like when he was growing up and trades were more popular and experience mattered more than a diploma. He was a firm believer in school coming first.