Mind me asking what it's like having an ENFP parent?? I don't know any ENFP adults...and I'm curious what they're like!
I thought my dad was pretty amazing. He was one of those people who never stopped seeing the wonder in the world. He died last year from cancer...rather, I like to say that he walked out of this world. My dad was a dreamer and a man of strong faith. It was this ability to dream and to believe in what he couldn't see that kept him going when my mom died and my brother died unexpectantly within a two year time period.
My daddy was a feeler and I don't think that made him any less intelligent in any way. It only meant that people were willing to listen to him when he talked. People loved him because they knew he cared about them, cared about what happened to them and took a personal interest in their lives.
He was the son of a Mexican sharecropper and a poor Cheorkee woman. Both cultures valued "feelings" as being highly important, more important than either education or intellilect in the traditional western sense. Both valued the power of stories to connect families and tie generations together. My dad believed that if you stop the stories, you stop the very thing which makes a people, a people. He never wanted us to forget who we were. Although, he sometimes embelished his retellings!....okay he embellished LOTS. Still, he brought something to our family from the cultures of both his parents. He brought stories. Every night he gathered us around the kitchen table and he told us stories, family stories that had been handed down for many generations. And over at the country store [cause we lived in rural Appalachia] he would have everyone in stitches with his often made-up tales. My dad could make a tale up at the drop of the hat and make it absolutely believable!
He could charm the ticks off a dog! Seriously, everyone liked him.
He loved to joke around and was known for being a bit of a prankster. He loved comedy and our house was always filled with laughter because of him.
He was hilarious and he loved "junk". My sister [ESTP] used to tease him and call him Fred Sanford. He was always jumping from one 'scheme' to another and some of them were just funny. It's a good thing my mom was so patient! They loved each other fiercly. He was passionate and Momma was devoted.
Daddy was also creative. He made things with his chainsaw and he always put the needs of his family above himself. He wasn't the most careful of 'artisans' though. His work often had a rough edge to it. His tables would have one leg shoter than the others or his eagle would turn out looking like a chicken and Momma would laugh at him. Then he'd set out to prove her wrong, only to have something else catch his attention. So we always had a bunch of "it seemed like a good idea at the time stuff" lying around our house. I didn't care. When he brought those ponies home in the car, it turned out good. When he hauled that port-a-potty around the county courthouse, it turned out okay. Oh, and when he decided to rasie hogs, that turned out okay, too. He was always doing something.
Oh, and he was real big on "blood". By that I mean that if one of his family members got in trouble, he was there, no matter if it was that person's fault or not.
I will never forget that one time he looked at me and said, "Sis [he called me that], you're not like other kids. You're the weirdest child I got, always sitting around reading books and stuff, but you got a lot of sense. When you grow up, I want you to write our story. You write it in a book."
I told him I would.
So, I guess the best way to sum up life with my ENFP father is to say that it was one heart-felt adventure after another.