One curious Reddit user invited others to share experiences from growing up that they assumed were normal until they were given a rude awakening. From finding out that some people’s parents let them eat dessert to realizing what a privilege a clean room is, you’ll find the most interesting replies below. Enjoy reading through, and be sure to upvote the experiences that you can relate to! Every adult being sad. I assumed that was an inevitable part of getting older and that I would embrace it when the time came. Image credits: Ezra_Blair I went to a catholic school (UK). Everyone was Irish. When I got into the real world, I was shocked by the lack of Irish people. Image credits: anothestupidname Cutting against the grain of this thread: hanging out with your parents a lot. Image credits: BatteryBonfire Complete silence on a road trip. No radio, no talking, nothing. Image credits: TerrifyingTurtle Eating out all the time. I didn't know until years later that I was eating out more than the average child of a low-class family. Way more. Image credits: anon My family are not comfortable around each other. Never any touching, kissing or cuddling. Any physical contact is forced and horribly awkward. No one also talks and any disagreements simmer for years with a grudging resentment. Image credits: Kitcat1987 My parents didn't divorce. All of my closest friends' parents got divorced. Image credits: MightyCaseyStruckOut Mum always called those mini sausages ‘little boys’ so naturally that’s what we called them too. It wasn’t until I was in uni and we had a party with kids party food I got called out on it... Thanks mum Image credits: spook96 Always had a clean room. I told my mother that my best friend didn't have to clean his. Image credits: Flynn_lives Not being self-conscious about your naked body inside the house. Taking a shower and mom wants to ask something? She has always been welcome to get in the bathroom and ask, even with a glass shower box. Same goes for the other way around. If you need privacy (for, em, *business*), you can lock the door. Image credits: Beretot Apparently when I was a kid I used to pick up quarters on the street. My parents didn’t want me doing that so my dad told me to not pick up coins, because people put them in their butts. I didn’t use change for anything until I started driving at 16. Image credits: anon For your parents to not have boundaries. At least, in the United States culture. My parents snooped through my things, constantly monitored me, and over-shared information about their marriage that I didn't need to know. Image credits: ShinigamiLuvApples Microwaved scrambled eggs. mom always made them that way. grandma always made them that way. my chef friends were appalled. Image credits: lostlittlerabbit My family kisses on the mouth. It's not considered sexual. Turns out, not everyone feels that way. Image credits: naomi_is_watching My father used to leave for weeks at a time without telling anyone. Mom always told us they "he's taking a vacation, he's stressed", so me and my brothers grew up thinking it was a completely normal thing to do. Image credits: DrJohnnySarcasm Parents who didn't want me to have friends and resented my friendships. Image credits: GIfuckingJane I was raised being told that because my parents gave me life, and provided me with food and shelter, that I owed them. I had to do a lot of chores, and my home life was strict. They picked my school classes, and would restrict me from seeing certain friends. If I didn't do a good job, I was considered disrespectful and rude for not being appreciative of all I had. Insanity. Like, shrieking full bore f*****g insane ranting insanity. Just all the time. I remember when I figured out that other people didn’t have that in their houses. Image credits: anon Not eating dessert. I didn't even know what dessert was until I was out at a restaurant with a friend from middle school and her parents. Image credits: WillINevah My mother was way too open with us. I guess she thought not “sheltering” us was helpful. Image credits: anon When I turn my head too fast, I'll get a sharp pain on one side of my neck, my tongue will go numb, and my vision will go black on that side for a few seconds. I tried to ask my dad about it as a kid (he's a nurse, so I thought he might know why it did that) but I only had the vocabulary to describe it as "my neck hurts when I turn my head too fast" to which he responded "well, don't do that then." From then, I brushed it off as normal because he didn't seem terribly concerned. I am adopted. From a young age, my parents were extremely open with me about the fact that I am adopted. So open, in fact, that I just started assuming that all kids must be adopted. My parents would always tell me the story about the day that they picked me up from the group children's home I had been staying at and I was officially theirs. I assumed that's where all babies come from... that their parents just go to a hospital/ children's home/cradle and pick them up, and viola! You have a kid. I was in for such a shock when I was 6 and one of my best friend's moms got pregnant and my mom had to explain to me how some parents have their kids biologically. We used to go into mcdonalds and our father would tell us all the stuff people left on the trays when they left was free food and we f*****g went to town on it. I was 15 years old when I found out that wasn't normal. Image credits: SwiftieNewRomantics I had pretty bad anxiety as a child. In 5th grade I had a horrible teacher that always gave me panic attacks but I never knew what was going on when one happened. I remember my throat feeling weird and thinking I was about to throw up. Because of this I would be in the nurses office every two days and my mom eventually took me to a doctor and they said that everything was fine. I ended up thinking that it’s normal to feel extremely nervous before leaving my house and have random panic attacks at school. For the longest time my mom thought I was faking being sick to get out of school. I didn’t suffer from panic attacks at home. When I was in high school it was finally discovered that I had some sort of anxiety disorder and I finally got the help I needed. My mom feels bad now for accusing me of lying about feeling sick during panic attacks. When I was in elementary school, I noticed that people that were in my class the previous year weren't necessarily going to be in my class the upcoming year. There were some kids I was always in a class with, and some kids I barely knew cause we always had different teachers. Multiple things relating to my heart defect. My bi-yearly appointments were the first ones that I brought up to friends. I remember telling them about my ultra-sound appointment, and they had no clue what I was talking about, I felt pretty special cause I got strange goop on my chest that they never got. The next one was taking anti-biotics (had to be liquid cause I was too young to take pills) before my dentist appointments, parents said everyone hat to take them, so I just went with it. Still cant have anything with fake Cherry or Strawberry flavoring cause of that disgusting stuff. THE CANDY MAN. Growing up my parents and grandparents when talking to me about my brother would refer to him as "brother" and vice versa. So we would do the same to each other and refer to each other as such. Standing up and almost blacking out (to the point of just collapsing a couple times) Morning spiritual alignment sessions in grade school. My school was weird. Sleeping with your parents. Slept with my mother since I was a baby right until I was a teenager and only started sleeping in my room after our relationship took a nosedive. When she goes to visit her 93 year old mother, they always sleep in the same bed. In one of my family photo albums there's quite a few photos of me when I was a very small child sitting next to various dead animals, the most notable being a lioness. I grew up on a game ranch and never really thought this was weird until I moved countries later on and made the mistake of showing the photos to a curious friend. They were pretty shocked and grossed out by the whole thing. Looking back on it I do think it was a bit of a weird photo op on my parents part and even now, in hindsight, they admit that they're not quite sure why they thought it was a good idea. I thought being mortally terrified of physical harm from your father was just how fathers are... turns out mine's just... not so great. Moms having naptimes for themselves. Turns out my mom has fibromyalgia and it largely affected her sleep quality, so she had to nap almost every day just to survive. My sisters and I could watch our hour-and-half of PBS shows or play quietly and look out for each other. It mostly worked, but it feels weird now that the parenting standards of watchfulness have changed. As a boy managing the entire house. Me and my brother did most of the chores in the house. I'm not talking vacuum here and there. I'm taking cook, clean, yard work, repairs, etc. Our parents would work and it was our responsibility to manage things at home. When we moved out, they got a gardener, a maid, and eat out every day. Not being allowed to take medicine that a doctor prescribed for you because it's "too strong". I've had chronic pains in my legs for My entire life. My grandparents would often take my prescriptions and give me benadryl or ibuprofen instead. My grandma claims that the doctors just couldn't figure out what was wrong (and to her credit there was one moron who claimed that my legs hurt because I was too fat for them), but it was really because I was never taking the medication they were actually giving me. I thought it was normal for parents to shower together. Until I was about 12, I had only ever seen my parents showering together. Every year, a few days before Easter, my dad would sit us down as a family to brainstorm how we would catch the Easter Bunny. Anger. My dad would get punch holes in walls. As an adult I have learned that bouts of uncontrollable anger are a big red flag and a sign of weakness. I grew up in a house attached to a Masonic Hall. My mother was the stewardess. I thought it was completely normal to have married parents that don’t trust each other in weird ways My parents both worked two jobs when I was a kid, my dad worked at a factory during the day and then a valet at night and my mom worked as a cashier at a pharmacy and then occasionally at the coat check at the same fancy retaurant my dad was a valet at. There were many nights when they would just bring me to the restaurant with them because there was no one to take care of me. I was just talking about this with someone the other day, but when I was younger my dad suffered with heart problems. I believe he had three heart attacks. They all happened at night and I remember getting up in the morning and my parents gone with just my Grandma there. I asked where they were, she said the hospital, and I'd be like "Oh, okay" and never thought it was weird or scary, it just seemed normal and he'd be back later that day or the next. I also found out at some point that my dad's biological father died at 28 from a heart attack, and his father at 30. I have a Polish father. Whenever my brothers or I misbehaved, he'd get on the phone and pretend to call "the gypsies" and would negotiate a price to sell us to them to cook and clean and be part of their travelling circus. He'd speak in Polish too and get very dramatic, this usually worked to put my brothers and I in line. Having a bath with some Dettol in it. I was always riding horses and we had a dog and cats and kittens etc so my mum would put Dettol in my bath sometimes, apparently that's not normal! Calling hair elastics “hair do-do”s Not flossing. As a child I had a “she wee” (basically a funnel girls can use to wee standing up) as I was jealous my brothers could wee outside. Coming from a most of the time 3 bedroom house with 12+ people. What is personal space and alone time? Only able to date after you finish your studies. Putting ice cubes in your soup I thought everyone was unhappy as a child. I was 20 before I realised some kids are actually happy with happy little families. People getting undressed when entering your house. Dad came home, stripped of his pants and just hung around in underwear. Mom came home, and threw her bra into the wash. My stepmom gave my sister and I a shot glass of "sleeping medicine" before bed. Turns out it was peach Schnapps. Mixing tuna, mayo and corn. I love it but turns out not many other people do this. My family belonged to the Salvation Army church. About once a month the entire church formed a marching band to walk down to the downtown bars and convert alcoholics. I was six. Marching down to the grimiest parts of town to find down-and-out men to bring back to our church. That is so weird to me now. I was locked in my bedroom all the time from up to 7-8 years old, all three of us kids had locks on the OUTSIDE of our doors. Thankfully we moved. The new house didn't have locks and was across the street from the Catholic church and school we went to, they probably were afraid once we got "bigger" we'd try to knock down the doors or someone could hear our shouting. I only realized later most kids weren't locked in their rooms. I spent the majority of my childhood in and out of hospital for regular outpatient appointments, stay-overs, surgery, physiotherapy etc because of my lung disorder. I just assumed as a child that all my friends and other kids went through that sort of thing, but we just never talked about it. Chopping firewood. Was shocked to learn that my friends didn't have to. I thought that humans started out as girls, became boys, then women and finally men. The hypothesis quickly fell apart since I could not remember being a girl. I never actually learned the concept of sharing. one of my friends who grew up with siblings would always offer to split food with me and i thought he was insane. he thought i thought he had cooties; i just couldn't comprehend why we wouldn't each get our own cookie. Staying home alone at a very young age. My twin brother and I got ourselves ready for school from the time we were six years old. We stayed home alone during the summer from the time we were eight, and we also watched our little brother starting at eight. He was three at the time. My dad was a troll (lovable and kind, but still a troll) so I have a million like this. Getting the belt, my ex girlfriend was shocked when I said I got the belt/hit as a kid. I thought everyone did but I think she didn’t because she was a girl, anyway, I realise it doesn’t have as much effect in comparison to other methods. I thought it was normal for your tongue to feel a little numb after eating celery. My parents gave me my next years school supplies for Christmas (I’m in Australia and our new school year starts February). Pencils, rulers, files, all the supplies. I didn’t realise this wasn’t normal till a friend pointed it out when I was about 25. Eating balut. As kids my sister and I used to get super excited when our folks would bring home some balut, I remember excitedly cracking open the shell and drinking the soupy stuff inside and just going to town on that fetus. Didn't know it was considered a gross food until adulthood. Upper middle class neighborhood in the 90’s I thought the one-eyed puppet that lived under everyone's bed was called Jim-Jamfinger, but someone later told me the one under their bed was called Sek. Must be related though, as the marks they made were similar. I thought a spatula was called a ponky-flopper for the longest time because that's all my parents (and grandparents) ever called it. Being autistic. I never showed my family affection which is really weird for Dutch blood and Italian extension. They're all about being mushy and the cheek kisses at gatherings. I've always been really shy so meeting new people is a nightmare. My parents used to routinely explain to others that I'm not intentionally being rude. When i would go to someone's house, I always just stood there and never sat down or sat on like the arm of the couch not knowing that that isn't very polite. I was also incredibly self abusive when I'd get down on myself. I always felt I had to be perfect at whatever I did or else it wasn't good enough and the only way I knew how to punish myself for not living up to my standards was to hurt myself. I'd get about 8 times more upset when I'd see other people being really relaxed and nonchalant about things. Talk about culture learning that there was something wrong with me. Having vacations, two+ vehicles in the driveway and motorized toys. (4 wheeler, dirt bikes and snowmobiles.) I ate dinner late at 8 or 9. It was only when I started having dinner with my friends that I learned that normal people ate dinner at 5 or 6...when there's still light outside. Looking back on it now, there were lots of things that weren't normal. My parents would tell us who their favorite kid was. After my parents got divorced, my mom would make me sleep in her bed with her so she wouldn't be lonely. Turns out they were both abusive so I guess that isn't normal either. My family always called the remote control "the buttons" it made sense to me to call it that and its easier to say. Peanut butter sandwiches with "both kinds" of butter. Mom fed them to my twin and me. You just lather one slice of bread with peanut butter, lather up another slice with ACTUAL, legitimate butter (usually Country Crock), and then you smash those suckers together and go to town. Being terrified of my dad. Dad would come home sometimes and you could sense he was in one of "those moods." As a kid I quickly learned this meant you hid from him (usually in the basement). If you were hanging around where he could see you, you'd end up the target of his wrath and at least get yelled at and berated for something. If you were unlucky you'd get slapped or hit whether you deserved it or not. I also learned to never ever ever ever under any circumstance disagree with my dad as this would mean more yelling (even in public) until I would not only agree with him but admit I was wrong and an idiot for saying whatever it was I had said before. To this day my instinct is to agree with people to avoid conflict even if I 100% know I'm right. I just assumed this what how parents treated their kids and that all kids hid from their parents and were scared of them. All adults aren't actually born 50 years old. When I was kid all my adult relatives we're like "He's ten years old and still playing with Legos? Is there something wrong with him? Why, when I was his age I was married, had a job, and had just bought my first house.".#1
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My dad always made a point of spending time with us as kids, but after we became self-sufficient, we found ourselves just kinda getting along as friends. We never did any sort of rebellious stuff because of that. My dad even got into video games after a while, so we'd play co-op together when he got off work. My friends now hang out with my parents without me, and we invite them to come out with us when we do social things.
I think the key was that they spent time with us, and only used authority to make us do things as a last resort (which admittedly won't work with everyone - but we were analytical and would go along with a soundly-worded argument).
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When I first starting dating my now husband I was shocked his family would just sit close to each other, like their legs would touch on the couch. Like not overly touchy, just normal, but not normal to me. They also spoke to each other if they were upset. I was quite envious.
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EDIT:
Wow thanks for all the reply’s! Mums Australian, however I’m a New Zealander so it totally explains the bad communication over here! Haha glad I wasn’t the only one embarrassed by ‘little boys’.
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Turns out they were hoarders.
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It wasn't until I was a teen that it came up in conversations with my friends and they were disgusted I was seen naked by my mother somewhat frequently. That actually amused me - she changed my diapers for years and now we have to be embarrassed? Go figure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
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After I moved out, I had a pretty stressful period, so I just packed a backpack and went camping by myself, no phone, nothing to connect me to the outside world. I spent a week out of anyone's reach. Problem is, usually I'd call my mom every two days or so, except that one week.
When I came back, my mother visited me and broke out crying, begging me to never do that again. I didn't understand, so I asked her "why would you worry so much, father would do this all the time and not once were you that concerned".
As it turns out, my dad had attempted several times to [unalive] himself on those "vacations" (didn't go through because he didn't want to destroy our lives), and my mom was always wondering if he'd come back home or if she'd have to identify his body. They didn't want us, the kids, to find out how broken and dysfunctional our dad was, therefore making it seem normal to disappear every once in a while.
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I recall one time when I was in my early teens, I had to shovel snow. This was in central Alberta, where the snow could get waist high on me. After a couple of days of snowing and me shoveling, my arms and back were really sore from moving all the snow. We had a major snow storm, and I was required to shovel it all. After almost three hours outside, I could barely move my arms and I was feeling sick and dizzy. I wasn't done though, so I was not allowed to come back into the house for dinner because people who don't do their chores don't get to eat.
I thought it was normal, and that other kids who weren't treated this way were spoiled and would grow up to be criminals. I sincerely believed I was lucky that my family loved me so much to be that strict so I could be ready for life.
After running away from home I was adopted into a new family. They all did chores together, because a family helps each other. I figured out at that point that my parents had been guilting me into being a slave.
I was raised to believe that I owed them for my life, but really they had to provide food, clothes, shelter, and everything because they are responsible for the children they brought into the world. I don't owe them anything for the basics.
**Edit:** geez, this took off. I just want to clarify, I am not against doing chores. Chores teach children how to become independent and care for themselves. Chores help keep a household functioning. Very important stuff. In my case, the punishment for not succeeding in chores was severe, even if I was trying. I would have to get up from bed with fevers to clean dishes from meals I never even ate. I am not against the idea of kids shoveling snow, but working your kid until their arms give out, and not even letting them take a break to eat a family meal, all because they owe you for cooking dinner? A little extreme. I felt so guilty, like I was the most selfish 14 year old ever because my arms and back had given out after weeks of snow removal. That isn't normal or ok.
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Friend's parent: "What do you want for dessert?"
Me: "For...for what?"
Friend's parent: "Dessert! Don't you want some cake or a hot fudge sundae?"
Me: "Is it someone's birthday?"
It was thoroughly confusing. My family had breakfast, lunch (at school for the kids), and dinner. That was it. You had your food, that's it. Sometimes my parents would have coffee with breakfast, and that's as desserty as our meals ever got.
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It was weird when I went to other people’s houses and their parents were actually parenting and had boundaries/rules & zero “best friend” mentality with their kids.
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Fast forward around 15 years, and I'm hanging out with friends in college and accidentally turn my head too quickly. I make a noise/face/something to indicate that I'm in pain, come to, and complain about how I hate when that happens. My friends are clearly confused as to what just happened, so I try to explain. "You know when you turn your head too fast and your tongue goes numb and stuff?" I was met with blank stares until someone eventually tells me that no, they don't know, that's not normal.
I'm still not *entirely* sure what causes it, but it sounds an awful lot like Neck-Tongue Syndrome.
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It didn’t occur to her that mental health was a thing.
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So sometime in 4th grade I took out my K thru 3rd Grade yearbooks, got a bunch of scratch paper, and made what was basically a very simple excel spreadsheet. I really wanted to know if there was some sort of pattern or logic that determined who would be placed in what class.
I never really found a pattern, and then there were MACs (multi-aged-classrooms, like 1&2 Grade and 2&3 etc) which just threw everything into f*****g chaos.
It took me a long time to realize that nobody else cared about stuff like that.
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The biggest one was having the scar down my chest I thought it was completely normal, and everyone had one. When middle school hit, and we would dress down for PE, it was weird seeing the other kids with out one, then everyone wondered why I had a 7" scar down my chest.
Eventually I started telling people when I was younger I got lost and wound up in an ally way, and some guy came up to me with a hand held chainsaw and stole my left lung.
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When my brother and I were babysat by a friend's grandmother, her neighbor often invited us into his house to give us candy and other presents (often posters of cars, for some reason). He even tried to create a secret message system (buried glass bottles with rolled up paper as notes) that we were supposed to keep secret from our parents. My parents kept a weird one about me, but haven't told me what it said, just that they kept it in case they needed to talk to the police... I have weird nightmares about him and I'm not sure if they're real, but when I was a kid I really liked this man and thought he was friendly and cool.
We thought he was a nice dude and were upset when our parents found out and ruined out messaging system and told us not to talk to him anymore.
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I thought nothing of it until around highschool when friends started noticing and asked about it. We still do it for the most part and have to consciously think about it to use each other's names.
Note : We are identical twins and even my parents had trouble telling us apart; so I think this is where it comes from; guess they couldn't remember who was who. Hell; for all I know I started out as "A" and ended up "B".
Edit: Just remembered I have two cousin both, not twins; who do the same thing with each other; honestly, they are the only other people who do this that I know of personally.
Edit 2: Hearing that other siblings and family members do the same makes me feel better about it and not so self conscious. I kind of feel like it establishes how strong the bond between us really is.
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My mom heavily watched my diet. Crazy a*s s**t like “meat is for boys” and “half sandwiches/open faced or you’ll eat too much bread” started telling me if I kept eating the way I did I’d be fat around the age of 5 or 6.
Waking me up at 4 am before school to work out, everyday. Being told NOT to eat everything on your plate, if I didn’t have left overs she’d give me some b******t lecture.
Not too much fruit it’s carbs and sugar
Not too much meat you’ll get muscly and ugly
Not too many carbs you’ll get fat (rice bread pasta potatoes)
No candy, soda, or juice.
Also I only attended public school for 3 years. The rest of the time she would mark me as homeschooled and then leave me alone for 8-10 hours a day. I received almost no schooling for the entire time. It took her until I was 8 to realize I hated reading because I’m blind in one eye.
Edit: Guys I’ve been blind since birth. It wasn’t something that happened from malnourishment. Part of being left alone all day means I would eat secretly. I wasn’t 100% starved but was lacking in a lot of important nutrients. I have no permanent physical damage from it.
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I didn't realize how much we did until I hung out with other kids in the area and realized they don't do anything.
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Also, if my brother or I got a really nice toy, my grandfather would take it to "prevent us from messing it up". We would have to come and ask him for permission to play with our own toys, and he would almost always say he "didn't feel like getting them out" like he was tired even though he did jack s**t all day.
Come to think of it, he also basically forced me to stop playing with toys by putting my toy box in the garage. I was 9 and I was absolutely still playing with everything in there. But he claimed that he was "helping me out" by "getting it out of the way". I honestly cried. But because he said he was trying to help, I got called spoiled, and then he kept putting off bringing it back in the house. Guess where it is right now? Still in the f*****g garage. I'm 21 and I'm still angry about it.
Edit: we had a house fire in 2018, and all my toys are fine. Less angry now.
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One day, I was over my (fairly conservative) friend's house and asked where her dad was
"He's in the shower"
"But your moms in the kitchen???"
Cue awkward silence and me wondering why they weren't together.
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Night before Easter, he'd help us set the agreed-upon trap. When we went to bed, he'd spring the trap, nibble on the carrot (our bait), then leave a note for us from the "Easter Bunny" - either complimenting us on how clever our idea was, or saying how hard he had to work to escape it. How he wished he could stick around, but he had to go deliver candy to other kids. Signed "E.B."
One year, he went so far as to put a white rag under the trap, with fishing line tied to it... and when he knew we were watching, he signaled my uncle (holding the other end of the line, out of our sight) to sprint away and haul in the line - so all we saw was a white dash fly out from the trap and around the corner of the house.
When I got old enough to realize the EB wasn't real, I helped him run the ruse on my brother and sister.
Didn't realize until years later that other families don't set fancy traps on Easter. I've just got a super cool dad.
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We had a legitimate skeleton in a cupboard, it took a while before I realised most people meant that metaphorically.
Also, helping to polish swords and crowns at the weekend.
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My parents have separate bank accounts, even after 25 years of marriage
When they fight, it normally stems from one not believing the other
And when my mom goes to visit my half sister, my dad gets super jealous and grumpy about it
I thought that was normal until my mom sat me down one day and was like “we have a weird relationship, base how you think relationships should be off of (sister) and her husband”.
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That all happened before I was ten, but when I was ten he had a quadruple bypass surgery. Again, didn't really think it was weird or scary, didn't realize how serious it was. Honestly it wasn't until I was telling my friend all this the other day that I realized what a big deal it was.
My Dad's surgery went well and he is now in his 70s, works out daily, lost weight, and hasn't had heart problems since.
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My mom used that for my sister and I when doing our hair, to make things more fun. I realized that other people didn’t use that term until i was a junior in high school and asked an entire locker room full of girls if anyone had a “hair do-do”
I never gave it a second thought until then.
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Thought it was totally normal until I brought it up with friends about a year ago.
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31 still single. Have a few siblings and only one is married. Thanks mom and dad!
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I also reasoned that stains on your clothes must just be invisible to other people because mine were always dirty and everyone else’s looked clean.
That domestic violence must be okay because I told my mother what happened at my dads house at the weekends and she didn’t do anything. I only realised last year that if i’d have told a teacher what I told her that something might have changed.
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Friends of the family going topless. Getting a kiss on my forehead from topless women that i have never met and saying hi before going back to play with my lincoln logs. Having way too many people in my living room and it getting so loud that i go back to my room to play in quiet.
Babysitters sleeping in the same bed with me until age 12.
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Edit: TIL I may be British.
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Totally did not realize this was weird until my ex-husband and I had a kid. I told the ex, "Man, I can't wait until [kid] is about six, so I can go to the store without him!"
Ex said a totally justifiable "WHAT." And then we looked up the legal age to leave kids alone in our state. Turns out it's 12.
(Kid is 11 now. I've left him alone once, when he had strep and I had his prescription. I set him up on the couch with his phone and some TV and ran to the Walgreens five minutes away.).
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The funniest/most embarrassing one is probably one that started 32 years ago and then came to a head 15 years ago. When my sister was born in 1986, they put a little bow on her head and took her hospital picture. I asked my dad how they kept the bow on her head when she didn't have any hair, and he said (completely dead-pan), "Oh, super glue." I was only 5, so I believed him.
Fast forward to 2003, and I had just had my first daughter. I was sitting in the hospital room and someone came in and said they were going to borrow my kid later to take her picture, and if I had anything special I wanted her to wear, I should put it on her beforehand.
I was immediately like, "Ok, sure, but I don't want you to put any super glue on her." The woman looked at me like I had lobsters crawling under my ears, which I interpreted as her being offended. So I started trying to make excuses, and for some reason it stressed me out so much that I lied and said, "I know that was common practice, but I read a research paper recently that said it wasn't good for her skin." She just sort of stared at me for a minute and excused herself.
A few minutes later my doctor was in the room asking me how much morphine I had been given that day. (I'd had a c-section.) The whole thing got more and more insane until it dawned on me that I was a f*****g idiot and my dad was an a*s. Lmfao.
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#65
I've always grown up loving celery and learned to enjoy the feeling of my tongue being numb.
It wasn't until a month ago I realized this wasn't a thing for everyone.
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All latchkey children
Started having baby showers in middle school
All my friends pregnant before 15 and on a 2nd before 18.
Everyone’s parents totally nonchalant about it
Apparently those kids were great targets.
Scared the c**p outta me and been on BC since 13.
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#72
I grew up in a small town, but my dad made over six figures. He had two cars and a pickup truck. Me and my brothers all had snowmobiles and stuff. I grew up thinking that its easy to have all that as an adult and some of my friends didn't have it because their parents just spent their money on other things. Turns out that most of my friends were just rather poor and that you have to work hard as an adult to have all of these things. My wife grew up rather poor and we once compared the stuff we ate as kids and vacations destinations we've been on. Really put it in perspective how normal I thought my home life was.
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#75
i never fail to get strange looks when i ask someone to pass the buttons.
#76
I remember when I asked my new step-mother if she'd make me a sandwich like that, she couldn't believe that I'd ever eaten the dish that I was describing.
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