Remember when you were a teenager and your parents wouldn't stop embarrassing you?
Turns out that was just revenge for all the crazy things you did and said when you were a toddler.
Being a parent is a crazy ride. You have this tiny human following you around and you are never super sure what it's gonna do or say. So of course, things will get embarrassing and fast. Luckily for the rest of us, the internet exists and given the general promise of anonymity, people are willing to share these embarrassing stories.
42. Kids these days
I was walking in a Target store with my then four-year-old daughter. It was a sale day, I forget what, and it was pretty crowded. She was getting tired of dodging carts and people so she asked to be held. I put her on my shoulders to make navigating easier, and when I was walking down the center lane this woman come out from the side, shoving her cart right in front of me and stopping to look at an endcap.
I had to come to a sudden stop to avoid her, and my daughter slipped a bit. I straightened her up and then went around her, muttering, "Stupid [bleep]" under my breath. Well, my daughter heard and as we passed the woman, my child turns her head and yells "Stupid [bleep]!"
I heard a gasp from the woman but I kept walking.
41. Keeping the magic alive
I have a friend who is a dwarf. He also has red hair, having been born of Irish heritage. For a long, long time, my kids would ask him if he was a leprechaun. I had many conversations with them about appropriate comments and questions. Given my kids varying ages, I'm pretty sure it came up at least once with each kid.
So one day, my friend is getting ready to leave, and my kids are saying goodbye to him, and I hear him quietly say to one of my boys, "You'll never get me pot o' gold!" It explained an awful lot.
40. There's no coming back from this
My brother used to do this with strangers. He would point and say “penis” at the men and “vagina” for the women. He would usually kinda just mumble so people didn’t really know what he was saying but one day he was with my mom grocery shopping and pointed at an older man and said clear as day, “mama, that man don’t got no penis.” Obviously, my mom was mortified and just scurried away as quickly as possible while the older man shot her dirty looks.
39. Keep telling yourself it means nothing
When my sister was an angsty toddler doing any shopping with her was a pain. If she didn’t get what she wanted she would yell “die, die, DIE!” and people would look at us like we’re some kind of psychopaths.
Phonetically, “die” is how you say “give” in Russian; our home language.
38. Always recognize good work
In a public restroom, I had my toddler with me in the stall, where she loudly exclaimed, “Wow! That’s a really big poop! Good job, mommy!”
37. Checkmate, dad
Four year old son was misbehaving in a store, and I told him if he didn't control himself we were going to leave. He escalated, and I picked him up and carried him through the entire store. He was surprisingly putting up little fight. As we pass the checkout lanes he loudly says "Hey mister, put me down!" I didn't hesitate, didn't make eye contact with anyone, just turned beet red and kept marching out the door.
36. You should probably chew your food more
During a private Remembrance Day (Armistice Day) ceremony with veterans, my 3-year-old soiled her diaper. I changed her in a back room and when we came out, it was the moment of silence. She slammed the door and yelled to all the vets, “I just had a BIG poo! And it had PEANUTS in it!”
35. He's not wrong
My youngest sibling is 10+ years my junior, so I grew up with him embarrassing me in public.
The worst was around Christmas one year when we went to Walmart after going to a church service. The service was about the virgin birth and how no other virgin had ever had a baby before. My brother was probably about 4-5 at the time, so while he didn't know exactly what made someone a virgin, that service taught him virgins couldn't have babies.
Anyway, we're in the check out line and behind us is a woman who is obviously pregnant. My brother points to her and says very loudly, "Look, that lady isn't a virgin"!
34. Can we get a burn unit in here?
Pregnant with second child, three year old daughter asks why mummy’s belly is so big. She’s told there’s a baby in there.
She turns to daddy and asks “do you have a baby in there too?” Dad replies gently “No, I’m just fat!”
A few days later in the checkout line and there’s a very large lady behind them in the line.
The little girl asks the lady “Do you have a baby in your tummy like my mummy?”
The lady is kind and just says no she doesn’t, to which the girl responds “oh just fat then?”
33. How do you explain this
My wife had my 3-year-old at the park one day. My wife decided to pick up some litter to make the park look nicer so she was throwing away pop bottles, chip bags, etc and he wanted to help.
He stoops to pick up some smoke butts and my wife says leave those to mommy (she wasn't going to pick them up but didn't want him to touch them either).
A few minutes later he has gone to play. He tells another mom, "I'm finding smokes for mommy".
My wife was so embarrassed and said she got the dirtiest looks from nearby parents who heard this.
Flickr
32. Gotta love kids, right?
I was in Target with my 4-year-old boy twins. One has a nervous habit of grabbing his parts. I quietly said to him “let go, hands off dude” and he yells at the top of his lungs “BUT MAMA MY PENIS WON'T GO DOWN!” I don’t think I’ve ever left Target so fast.
31. That's cute in an uneducated kind of way
I was in the navy and an old chief told me about stopping off in Russia one time. He was black and him and some buddies went to a bar in small town. There was a little boy there who was just staring at him. He didn’t really think much of it just a little kid staring at him. He just drank with his friends every time he looked at the kid he was a little closer. Then out of the blue the kid was right by him and licked his arm. The kid looked at him smiled and said chocolate. The guy figured he was the first black person the kid had ever seen and he was convinced he was made of chocolate.
30. Pretty cool of the school to do this though
My son came home from kindergarten with his backpack full of canned food. When pressed about the issue he confidently stated that he had told the teacher he was hungry and we didn't have any food at home! They had sent him home with the donations for those in need!! We got him to return the food the next day... It's a funny story we tell now but talk about embarrassed!!!
29. But was she?
I have a story about my sister. This happened back in the seventies and she was about three years old. My mom tells this story all the time.
She and my mom were in a very long line for the restroom. There was a lady a few people in front of them who was over 300 lbs. My sister yells "Mom! Isn't that the fattest lady you've ever seen?"
Other people in line were doing their best not to laugh and my mom is horribly embarrassed. And then my sister looks at her and asks "Isn't she the fattest lady you've ever seen?"
My mom had enough and took my sister out of the line and walked away.
28. Kids are like evil parrots
Me and my 3 y.o were at my mom's house and to get her to leave I told her, "C'mon we have to go home and take a shower because our bums are stinky."
Later when we got home in a full elevator, my daughter turns to me and says, " Mom you need to shower because your bum is stinky"
I was mortified.
Photo by Malcolm Garret from Pexels
27. Yar Har Fiddle De Dee
At the grocery store, my daughter, who was 2 at the time, and I were about to pass an African American lady in an aisle. At this point, she had never seen anyone with a darker skin color such as hers. She’s about 2 feet from us. So, she sees her, turns to me and yells (while pointing), “Look Mom!!! It’s a chocolate lady!” I froze for a second and said, “Yes honey, isn’t she beautiful?” She yells yes, and I practically ran away down the aisle. That poor lady was such a good sport.
We also met a man with a hook for a hand and she sprinted up to him to ask him if he was Captain Hook.
Luckily, he said yes and pretended to run after her.
26. Like bongos
“Are those your boobies Mom?”
Loudly. At a church Nativity play.
The question was accompanied by a vigorous patting motion on my chest
25. That's cute
My daughter says plenty of embarrassing things. She told someone I had a mustache recently (I have a barely visible lady stache thank you very much!) while laughing maniacally.
But the most recent embarrassment was this: Met up with a friend and his girlfriend with their three-year-old... He has some kind of nerve palsy that made one of his eyes droopy. He had surgery on it and it's a lot better but you can still tell. My daughter and their son played well together for hours... Then as we were leaving, she pokes him and says as loud as possible, "Hey, what's wrong with your eye?!" To which he sweetly said "Nothing!"
pixabay
24. The name didn't translate well
My 3-year-old, normally sweet and very empathetic, was being a total turd in Target. As we’re running around trying to get out, she sees someone with an obvious birth defect stocking the makeup shelves. Before we could whisk her away she shouts, “Look at his tiny arms! TINY T-REX ARMS!” She was so excited for this guy, who was not at all amused by her.
23. TV over here corrupting the youth
Back in the late 80's or early 90's my nephew saw a family standing in line at the grocery store and yelled excitedly, "look, Mommy, it's the COSBY SHOW" (apparently the only black family he knew). My sister was mortified but the family's mom thought it was funny.
This wasn't in public but when my son was little, he announced over dinner once, "this spaghetti is damn good!" (our family doesn't swear). Based on the surprised looks he received, he sheepishly asked, "does that NOT mean 'very'?" Apparently, he had gathered from TV that the word meant very.
22. That's a pretty neat trick
I grew up in the 80’s in a small town with very few people of color. My dad and I went out for lunch one day and our waitress was black. I was THRILLED. I kept poking my dad and telling him in a loud voice, “Dad! Dad! It’s Roz! Dad! Roz from Night Court is our waitress.” He was VERY embarrassed.
Years later I lived in the same town and had an employee who was a very dark skinned black man. We worked a Christmas in a retail shop together. One day the store is PACKED with people and kids and he says to me “Want to see something funny?” And I say sure of course. He walks by this mom and toddler that she’s carrying and waves at the little girl. Her eyes widen and then proceed to follow him around the store. Whipping her head around, wide-eyed, she will not let him out of her sight. He comes back over to me and says “I always can tell when I’m the first black person a kid has seen.” It was so cute and magical!
21. Way to blow it, kid
I took my nephew, now 11, to the mall once when he was about 3/4, and this girl started talking to us. She thought it was so cute that I brought my nephew to the mall and how I was such a good uncle, until...my nephew says, “ Uncle x, likes to beat me”. There was no coming back from that. I had never laid a hand on him, but damned if I wasn’t thinking about it then. All I can do now is laugh, and wait for revenge.
20. What would you do for a popsicle
This reminds me of the time I went to pick up my 4-year-old niece from pre-school. It was the first time I did this, so the staff didn't know me. But her Mom, of course, told the staff that her sister was going to pick her up, what my name was, etc... so they were expecting me.
I get there, show them my ID. The teacher lady takes me to where the kids are.
We find my niece, who is eating a Popsicle. The lady asks her "is this your aunt?" She looks up at me, and says "No." I was shocked, and thought for a moment they were going to think I was here to kidnap a child.
I think I said something like 'you know me, I've been sleeping in your room all week.'
Anyways, they knew she was just being silly.
Later, when her Mom and I asked her why she said she didn't know me, she said it's because she wanted to finish her Popsicle,. She could have just said that!
19. They don't call it the happiest place on earth for nothing
Took my 3-year-old to Disneyworld. Of course, after about an hour in the park, both I and the offspring have to go to the bathroom. We head off to one of the main bathrooms right next to the castle. I let the boy go first (he performed a nice quick dump complete with the customary "Good Job" from me as we were still reinforcing the potty training mantras...) then I of course sit down and perform my own glorious #2 complete with a nice "squeaky door" fart which had the offspring in hysterics. At this point, the child starts saying in a voice that can only be described as booming "GOOD JOB DADDY! YOU'RE THE BEST POOPER I KNOW!"
This, of course, led to chuckles from the long line of stalls populated by other fathers...The chuckles ended up turning into outright laughter...I was so proud of my pooping abilities.
Well, I'm somewhat shameless, so I clean up and go wash my hands to find that I'm now getting the nods of approval from everyone in the can who heard the interchange. I was the best pooper at Disneyworld that day...and internally embarrassed and entertained at the same time.
Photo by Park Troopers on Unsplash
18. Shenanigans
Not quite something she said, but embarrassing nonetheless. I’m a father of a beautiful 2-year-old girl. My wife and I like to take her to the Little Gym, but on days my wife works, it’s up to me to get to the Gym with the little butt. One thing you ought to know is that while it’s not rare to see a father in the group at the Gym, it IS common to see nothing but mothers. As it so happened, that was the case for my daughter and I that day, too.
We go in, business as usual, do our clap song and play go around the circle to “introduce ourselves”, which is just the parents telling everyone our kids name and age. When it gets to us, my daughter suddenly drops onto her belly and begins humping the ground savagely. Really going at it. She had never done that before or since.
Obviously, something that’s likely just what kids do, but all I kept thinking was how the mothers must have been thinking, “Mhm, I wonder where she learned THAT from?” Uggggghhh I still hate it.
17. Out of the frying pan...
When my sister was around three my mom was running errands after picking her up from kindergarten and when they were waiting to cross the street, a little person stopped beside them. My sister mumbles something apprehensively to my mom and she’s like “you need to speak up, honey.” to which she screams:
“I DON’T LIKE THAT SMALL MAN, MOMMY! HE’S SCARY!”
Of course, the man heard and stared daggers at my mom. My mom didn’t know what to do and couldn’t think of something appropriate to say fast enough so she says: “You don’t have to be scared of little people, they’re nice! If they weren’t, Snow White wouldn’t be friends with seven of them!”
It’s been 20 years and my family still hasn’t let either of them live it down.
16. Maybe not the best way to phrase that
In November of 2018, my brother in law passed away. Normally I'm not the parent that takes kids to funerals because it's just weird to me, but we had to take my 3-year-old because there was no one to leave her with. We sat far enough back that she couldn't see him up front in the open casket. About 10 minutes into the service, she announced to everyone, "Ok we're done now! Time to go home, everybody!" Everyone died laughing at her, and I imagine that brother in law would have found it hilarious too!
15. Yo no se
Getting my nails done in a salon where the owners/workers were Korean. My then 4-year-old daughter literally yells, "Why are all these people speaking Spanish in here?" Never have I wanted to floor to open and swallow me so badly as I did at that moment. Fortunately, I'd gone there a while and they were very kind about it.
14. Peepee rocks are no joke
My 5 year old told our waitress that her dad was peeing out rocks and crying and that's why she's only going to have lemon water and no soda ever again because soda gives you peepee rocks. He was mortified. She also asked her aunt why she's doesn't have a boyfriend since she's "fat but still beautiful" on her 34th birthday. I love my daughter but man does she have some timing with her word vomit.
13. Kids have no shame
We were potty training my daughter, 2 yrs old, and found the best way was to just let her run around naked and she did really well. One day our middle child accidentally facetimed my boss and her son answered, who happens to be my daughters best friend. My daughter heard his voice from the other room and came running in and said hi to him and his mom, my boss, and noticed he didn't have a shirt on and said "your naked too?! So am I see?" And proceeded to take the phone and give a full on shot of her lady parts... mortified I'm pretty sure I may have broken the sound barrier as I flew off the couch and across the room to snatch the phone out of her hand.. I am actually now dead of embarrassment and am writing this from the afterlife.
12. I get what you are trying to do here, but please no
My wife and I were taking the kids to NYC on the Metro North train one day. We found a set of four seats facing each other, and across the aisle there was just one man sitting alone. He was markedly obese. My older son, who was about four at the time, wouldn't take his seat, but just stood there and gawked at the poor man, before saying, "Mommy, Daddy, there's something really wrong with that man!"
We did our best to distract our son, both feeling terrible because there was no way the guy didn't hear it. But I was also very proud because my son was overtaken by empathy; he really was concerned and wanted to help.
11. Why has this become a theme?
We went with my friend and her 2 kids, OC (older child) and YC (younger child), to the nearby park and tried to tire her little bundles of joy out with no success. My friend got tired and said that she was going to take the kids home and try to get an early night so we headed off in the direction of her parked car.
At some point, I started running with the pram and YC in it, who was laughing her head off, while OC, mum and our friends slowly caught up. OC asked his mum for a bar of chocolate just as I took off and, seeing an excuse to palm off her child, told him that they were in the bottom of the pram and to go and "Stop the Chocolates."
So we have this little child, running after a grown man with a pram, shouting "stop the chocolates" at the top of his voice in a park. Literally, half-way between us a group of black teenagers come round the corner and see this kid running towards them shouting something that, without context, was probably really racist.
I was mortified but mum was peeing herself laughing.
10. There really should be a way to distinguish between different pairs of grandparents
I apparently once was very insistent with daycare staff. My parents had informed the staff that my grandmother would be picking me up that day. So the staff, making conversation with a young me, were like “your grandma is picking you up today, are you excited?”
To which I loudly and brazenly told them “NO! My grandma isn’t picking me up!!” The staff tried to correct me but I was very adamant.
What the staff didn’t know was that my parents had nicknamed my father’s parents “grandma” and “grandpa.” While my mother’s parents are “grandmommy” and “granddaddy.” Young me didn’t realize this wasn’t a common convention.
But when my grandma showed up I ran back over to the staff member and said, “See? It’s my grandmommy!!”
Pixabay
9. Way to go, kid
My daughter, roughly the same age (4) is in her booster seat in the back while I'm driving. I manage to get stuck behind the town sloth who likes to accelerate like sap down a 12/1 slope. Slow as sin.
Now, I'm not vulgar when I drive with my girl in the car, but I am expressive and my frustration can sometimes make me blurt out relatively safe phrases.
So as I approach my 4th red light behind the living, breathing 100yd dash, I let out a very frustrated exhale and before I can even speak a word, my daughter has pulled herself towards the rolled-down window next to her and yelled out at the top of her lungs "It's the one on the right!!"
Sloth still doesn't budge, I sit there blinking in disbelief that she just yelled out one of my go-to safe phrases at the barely living embodiment of corpse dust ahead of us. I opted to mask my frustrations for the remainder of that trip.
Silver lining: I took an opportunity to pass the sloth by going around a block at slightly faster than I should have speeds and managed to hit the crossroad on a green and get ahead of them. Small victories.
I love my daughter.
Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels
8. This kid is going places
So my younger brother was 5/6 years old. My dad was coaching my basketball team (was in 7th grade) and my brother came along to hang out at the practice. Now my brother has Asperger's so of course, at that age social awareness is non-existent. There are a few black kids on the team and my brother was learning about Martin Luther King Jr. as it was around the time of the holiday. So his brain is processing.
During the practice, my brother is standing under the basket as we're doing lay up lines. All of a sudden as one of the black kids goes past him my brother goes, "Are you an African-American?" and my friend chuckles and goes "Uh, yeah" and my brother with a completely dead serious face and tone just goes
"I knew it."
The whole team was rolling on the floor laughing.
When this happened my dad exclaimed, "Nothing gets past my boy!"
7. The colonel disapproves
My daughter (4) and I were in an old mom&pop country market, doing some light shopping and they had just dropped some chicken into a deep fryer.
I'm guessing the oil was multipurpose because it had a rather odd smell to it. Didn't faze me any, but my daughter was having none of that.
Initially, she was simply holding my hand and walking alongside me. At some point in time, I suppose the smell hit her, so she tugged on my shirt and wanted to be picked up. She's tiny, we'd been walking around for quite a bit, so I obliged.
She took this moment to lean in a bit close to me and say, "It stinks in here daddy."
I made the mistake of saying 'What?' which brought along an avalanche of her then declaring, quite loudly, "It stinks in here daddy!" She proceeded to do this for the remaining 15 minutes of our shopping, only pausing to bury her face in my chest and shoulder.
I use this as an excuse to speed up my shopping process as I was getting the occasional side eye and giggling from random passersby.
As we approach the cashier, my daughter with her face buried in my chest, now mumbling it stinks without lifting her head, they were kind enough to ask my little girl how she was doing.
Without missing a beat, my girl pulls herself away from me and leans towards the cashier and, once again, exclaims 'It stinks in here!' before resuming her buried face.
I shrug my shoulders, pay for my stuff and walk outside. My daughter then detects that we're no longer surrounded by the stench of bad frying oil and takes a huge, exaggerated breath with an exhale of relief.
She was a character at that age.
6. That's literally called "Being the older sibling"
My sister used to tell lies for the attention all the time. For example, when she was in kindergarten, it was always some talk about how badly the other kids misbehaved & threw blocks but didn’t get punished even when they hit someone. My mom asked the teacher about these alleged incidents during parent-teacher night, only to be greeted by confusion as none of it had happened.
My mom had a little chat with my sister, & she quit telling lies about things like that at school. She did, however, keep telling them at home, & that I was beating up on her, wouldn’t share toys, etc. My mother always believed her & would scream at me that I was the oldest so it was my job to be nice to her. I eventually lost all interest in playing with her as she always had to have her way or she’d go tell my mom something made up to get me in trouble.
Unfortunately, the consequence is that to this day we’re not close as adults. At some point, I really stopped wanting to have anything to do with her as kids since all she did was gloat when I got yelled at. Even as adults, she’s had to continuously be my mother’s favorite, to the point of getting jealous & upset at me if I take up too much of my parents time.
5. That's a big oof from me
My two year old and I were waiting in line at Nordstrom. She was being so quiet and so patient so I decided to reward her by purchasing a Melissa and Doug stamp set. As soon as we got to the checkout, she randomly announced to the girl that was checking us out, “Mommy has a penis.” I just stood there for a moment, expressionless, wondering where that came from before I finally said, “yeah...I don’t.” The lady just stared at me, forced a smile and replied: “have a nice day.”
We’ve also been talking a lot about my pregnancy and wondering whether the baby is a boy or girl. Somehow that must have raised some questions in my daughter’s head because she announced to daycare that “daddy decided he wants to be a girl so he is going to become a girl.” Daycare never mentioned it until our daughter told us this at dinner one night and we about died. Asked the teacher if she had, in fact, stated that...her teacher said, “yes, she did. It seemed sensitive so obviously, we didn’t want to mention it.” (My husband is NOT transitioning).
Ahh, kids. Love them.
4. That could have gone completely differently
There is a man who lives in our village with no arms, Mr. M. His children attended my son's nursery so he has met him many times.
We were in a packed doctor waiting room one day and Mr. M came in.
Son, at full volume: Look mummy! There's Mr. M that I told you about. He has no arms! Look! LOOOOK! [Pointing]
At this point, the whole waiting room, in true British style, have turned their heads in the opposite direction to Mr. M, and are actively trying NOT to look while similarly avoiding eye-contact with me, and the 'disrespectful small child' who draws attention to peoples disabilities.
Me: Ah yes, that is Mr. M. We see him at school don't we.
Son: Yeah, he came in to talk to us one day, he drives his car with his feet! He is TOTALLY AWESOME!
[massive sigh of relief] Yeah dude, he really is!
3. What a helpful kid
While walking around the zoo, my son who was 5 at the time saw a guy in a wheelchair who didn’t have any legs below his knees. So when my son asked me why his legs looked like that, I didn’t think anything of saying, “he lost his legs.” Obviously in my head that just meant something medically happened and doctors had removed them, but as that’s pretty descriptive to a kiddo, I thought my answer was enough.
I turn around for a second to look at an animal and my kid approaches the wheelchair guy and asks, “do you want me to help you find your legs? Maybe they’re by the tigers.”
Ugh. Thank god the guy laughed because I wanted to die right then and there.
2. My cousin refers to short people as "Tyrion"
My daughter was 3 and was learning the concept of BIG vs SMALL at nursery. Cute, right?
I picked her up from the nursery one day and had to run to the bank before heading home. It’s our turn, I’m talking to the bank teller, and my daughter looks at me and goes “mama, you’re big!” “Yes baby, I’m big!” She turns to the bank teller and goes “I’m small, and you’re big!” Bank teller is laughing with my daughter, ooh’ing and aah’ing at how cute she’s being, when all of a sudden, a little person walks up to the counter next to us.
My daughter notices. She looks at him and screams “mama look! It’s a SMALL MAN! LOOK, MAMA, HE’S SMALL, SO SMALL MAMA LOOK AT HOW SMALL!”
I’ve never wished for the floor to open up and swallow me whole more than that moment. I honestly wanted to die.
1. I'll be that girl
For a few days at home, we were listening to a Barenaked Ladies album around the kids since the music is upbeat. My wife and I really didn't pay attention to the lyrics and assumed the kids also would also be oblivious to the singing.
Saturday we are at the library for toddler story time, surrounded by other families. When it ends, my wife asks our 3-year-old to get ready to leave and states that "we would come back to the library tomorrow." Our toddler replies "If I had a gun, there would be no tomorrow". The other parents who could hear her all stopped and stared at my wife with a look of shock. We nervously laughed it off and got out of the library quickly. It took us the rest of the day to figure out that she was singing a line from a Barenaked Ladies song.
We no longer listen to that album around the children.
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