Children often forget that their parents once had lives, some of which were quite risqué. Hate to break it to you kids, but you aren’t the only ones with secrets!
These AskReddit parents revealed secrets that could change their children’s lives forever if they ever came out.
#1. 2 BIG Things
“2 things… my daughter had an identical twin who didn’t survive, and the man she knows as her father is not her father. I was in an abusive relationship and the biological father decided he would rather us both be dead if I didn’t want to be with him so he started driving into oncoming traffic. I reacted by fleeing the vehicle at 45 mph because I saw a cop car parked a block away. I opened the door and grabbed my knees and tucked my head and rolled out and ended up really bruised and sore and killed one of the babies. But I made it the police and never saw him again.”
#2. Almost Abandoned
“It’s about my sister but when she was a baby my mother tried to give her away because she didn’t want her. My dad found out and got her back from the woman. She is 21 and still doesn’t know.”
#3. My Grandparent’s Lie
“My father was a great hockey player in my town and played quite well throughout university. I still get told all the time by everyone from my home town how great of a hockey player he is and I should be proud, and they don’t know how he never went to the bigger leagues. Well I was moving my grandparents to a nursing home and stumbled on a letter from a university offering him a full scholarship to go play hockey for them. THEY NEVER TOLD HIM because they didn’t want him to leave the family farm, and as far as i know he still doesn’t know about that (like at least 30 years have gone by). Now my grandparents have past and I still haven’t told him. If my parents ever tried to hide a opportunity like that from me I think I would disown them.”
#4. To crush their fond memories or not?
“My adopted kids came from a couple of meth addicts. Even though they all remember their birth mom and dad fondly, they have no idea how horrible they really were and how much they put the kids lives in danger and I’m not sure if I can ever tell them that.”
#5. Baked Goldfish
“My mother decided to wait till I was 20 years old to tell me about the time I cooked my pet goldfish in my easy bake oven because I wanted to make them seafood.. 🙁 We were in a store and I noticed they were selling easy bake ovens and I commented about how those things were still around and how I kinda remembered having one when I was a kid…and she proceeded to tell me the reason why they took it.”
#6. Good Parenting 101
“My teenage football star son will occasionally put on my wife’s dresses and hang around the house. He acts like he is being funny but he does it for hours. We noticed recently that he also does it sometimes when no one is home (dresses re-arranged, not put on hangers perfectly). So he’s a masculine, studly, cross dressing football star in HS. This would destroy him if it got out. We think it’s OK and are happy to let him explore.”
#7. Paternity Test Needed
“My youngest daughter probably isn’t mine. I love her just the same.”
#8. When the time is right
“Mine will probably (50% chance) get cancer due to a genetic defect (BRCA2). Will obviously tell them when they are old enough to understand what that means and how to keep it in check.”
#9. Just ask already
“When I was a child my mom started to tell me a story about me that apparently had something to do with right after I was born, but my dad stopped her and said “He doesn’t need to know about that.” Last I’ve ever heard of it. The eerie feeling you’d imagine hasn’t quite worn off, and this was 30 years ago.”
#10. Most Loving Uncle Award
“My nephews are like my own boys, and they’re my sisters kids. She married (and divorced) their father, a psychopathic abusive man. If the boys knew just what kind of abuse their father did to them… it would kill them. They both have broken noses because of him… and it happened when they were both under 4 years old.”
#11. Yeesh
“Not life-ruining, but when my little sister was a baby my parents became convinced she had down syndrome. They took her to a specialist and everything. As it turned out she wasn’t mentally handicapped, just a really derpy-looking baby.”
#12. 11 Toes
“My younger sister was born with an extra toe on her left foot (two pinky toes). My parents had it surgically removed when she was only six months old but the scar is still there. The first time she was old enough to ask what it was, we told her that she stole a toe from another baby and we had to cut it off to give it back to them. She believed that for years. Hehe.”
#13. Smothered With Love
“My fiancées daughter (6 years old) hugged a kitten to death when she was 2. We’ll not be telling her about that for a very very long time.”
#14. $10,000 Dollar Baby
“I found out my friend was a black market purchase and the woman who raised her wasn’t the original parent on her paperwork. Her relative was married to someone with dual citizenship. The woman who raised her gave 10,000 dollars USD for the man with dual citizenship to go to his home country, buy a baby, forge the paperwork and bring her home as a child from a former relationship. He then adopted her out to the woman who raised my friend. She knows she’s adopted but not that she was purchased.”
#15. What??
“I am not sure if it was an honest mistake or there is something I don’t know, but I have a picture if me as a toddler with my parents at Sea World and on the back if the picture the date is written in. The date is about 14 months or so before I was born. I am terrified to ask about it.”
#16. Happy Ending
“Something I will probably never tell my daughter: her father wanted me to abort her. I almost did. I changed my mind a few minutes before the procedure. Her dad didn’t want anything to do with her for the first few years of her life. Now, he and I share custody and he’s a great dad. But if she ever found out that her father didn’t want her and that’s why he wasn’t around in the beginning, it would devastate her. So, it’s something her father and I promised to keep to ourselves.”
17. Knowledge is Power
“I know his reddit username, it could ruin his social life if I told it to his Facebook friends.”