Kids usually think they know everything, especially when it comes to their parents. They can’t imagine that the adults in charge of their lives would harbor any secrets or even have a life before they came about. Here Redditors share some profound revelations they had about their parents that completely took them by surprise. It just goes to show that, sometimes, there is more to people than meets the eye.
1. The Truth Was Finally Revealed
I moved overseas when I was pretty young, about 21–22 years old, after meeting a girl. I'm close to my parents, but living overseas, I only got to see them once a year or so. Obviously, I missed out on a lot of stuff. A couple of years ago, my parents came to visit. I picked them up at the airport, and my jaw dropped. My dad was clearly not doing well.
I didn't know what the issue was, but he seemed very weak. We went home, had a bite to eat, and I noticed his hands shaking. I pulled my mom aside and asked if Dad had Parkinson's. Unfortunately, in my family, we avoided talking about negative things and unpleasant truths, so I got her typical, "Oh no, don't be ridiculous" kind of response. It was followed by, "He's just tired and hasn't eaten enough".
They went to take a nap, and after they woke up, we walked down to the river to go swimming with the kids. I was playing with my kids in the water, when I suddenly heard a terrifying sound. My mom was screaming on the bank, "Dad needs help! Dad needs help"! I looked up and saw my dad convulsing on the ground. A crowd gathered, and an ambulance was called, etc.
When he arrived at the hospital, they suggested that they'd like to keep him for a couple of days, and we all agreed. On the first day in the hospital, he seemed fine. He had had a seizure, but everything seemed cool. The second day he seemed off. He was aggressive, rude, and unpleasant, which was very unlike my father. On day three, I got a phone call asking me to come to the hospital.
I was informed that my dad was found wandering the hospital in the buff, and when approached by staff members about returning to his room, he started throwing punches. This was foreign territory. My dad was the most docile human being I had ever met. The doctor then began admonishing me for keeping secrets and not telling them the truth.
I was puzzled. Then he revealed a family secret I'd never known. The doctor told me, “You know, it really isn't helpful if you aren't honest with us about your father's health and conditions. We can't effectively treat patients if patients and their families lie to us about their health”. I said, “No offense, but what the heck are you talking about”? He told me, “Your father's drinking”. I replied, “What?!?!?!? What do you mean”?
The doctor responded, “His drinking problem”. I told him he must be mistaken. The doctor confirmed, saying, “Based upon his bloodwork, I can tell you with 100% certainty that your father is a severe alcoholic”. She led me down the hall to his new room, and I walked in to see my father as a group of nurses were trying to strap him into restraints.
It turned into a long and wild ride involving the ICU, comas, cardiac arrest, and an air ambulance private jet back to the US. The most shocking part was having a total stranger inform me that my father had a severe drinking problem.
2. Mom Had A Side Hustle
My mom and dad had only one kid—me—in their mid-40s. When my dad passed, I was in my early 20s, living on my own out of town. A few months later, I went to visit my mom, who introduced me to this tall, kind of grumpy dude who looked around her age and was living with her. My reaction was, "What?!! Oooookay, this is getting weird fast".
Something clicked in my head as I realized I had seen this man lurking around when I was a kid a few times off and on. This was during that period of time when I was a small child and just starting to have long-term memories. When I was older, my mom would occasionally pick fights with my dad, then go "home to her parents for a few days".
It turned out my mom had always kept in touch with her old hometown boyfriend from before she married my dad, as in meeting up with him with me in tow. That was my "Oh” revelation moment. She quickie-married the guy, then booted him out and divorced him six months later. I always thought my parents were stuffy, completely boring people until then.
3. The Apple Doesn't Fall Far
Growing up, my parents were good friends with this other couple who had a daughter four years younger than me. When I was around seven, my parents got divorced, as did this other couple. Time went by, and my parents were busy relocating; I changed schools, etc. Then the first strange thing happened. My dad started dating the mom of this other couple.
Apparently, my mom thought this was strange, and having coincidentally moved close to the dad of this other couple, she went over to talk about it with him. Soon enough, they were dating as well. They both remarried. This was how I lived my whole life, with my step-sister and I always together and living with the same four parents.
It was always a funny thing to explain, but other than that, I didn't think much of it. Over time, it became pretty clear that things were better off this way. My mom and stepdad were definitely more compatible and settled in fairly well. They were both more reserved and family-oriented. My dad and stepmom were doing well, too but seemed to value their own fun a little more.
Just about every weekend that my stepsister and I were staying with my mom and stepdad, my dad and stepmom were constantly out partying. They always had new friends (always couples) coming in and very swiftly back out of their lives, which was something we got used to. When I was around 18 years old, I had just started dating my now-husband, and we were exploring our relationship together.
We very quickly found out that we were into some weirder bedroom stuff. Eventually, we found out that there was a whole community of people like use in the area, and we wanted to get involved in swinging. So, we decided to go out to this club that specializes in such events and was the pillar of the community around where we lived.
It was great, we made a lot of like-minded friends, etc. However, then we got introduced to the club's DJ. We were told that this DJ played all of the spouse-swapping community events in the area and that he sometimes plays at the club in an effort to bring the two communities together for one crazy party. That was when it hit me. I had heard of this DJ before, and I knew from where.
My dad and stepmom had mixtape CDs of his in their car and had mentioned this great DJ that they had become friends with several times. My parents were swinging. And not just my dad and stepmom—all of them. I later confronted them about this, which is a whole other story, but it also confirmed that this was how my two sets of parents met as well.
4. A Loaded Relationship
My father constantly claimed we were not well off. It wasn't until I went to college that I started to sense the truth. The first hint was when I went to orientation weekend at the college, and at the initial welcome, they were talking about financial aid. I had no idea what that was.
Then, when it came time for me to speak with someone about financial aid, they asked all kinds of questions I couldn't answer, like what our household income was. When she asked me how I planned to pay for college, I told her I didn't, that my father was paying. She asked about loans, and I said I don't know if he took one out this year or not but that I had a signed, blank check in my bag to pay my tuition with.
When I got home and gave my dad the invoice for my tuition, I told him the financial aid department wanted a copy of his tax return to help me see if I qualified for assistance. He told me his tax return wasn't anyone's business. A few months later, I was working for him and came across the bank's yearly assessment of his finances, where they determined his net worth to be over 10 million dollars.
5. Fallen Hero
I define my entering adulthood as the moment I had this revelation. My father's reasons for leaving my mom were all lies. That's it. My hero, my giant, was full of it. The myth was that my mom was a beautiful but simple gal who couldn't keep up with my dad's awesomeness. She also refused to transfer her developmentally infantile but nonetheless important affections and loyalties from her father to her husband.
The truth was that my dad met a woman who drank as he did and whose father had more money than my mom's dad did. He had an affair and then abandoned all of us.
6. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
My mother had another child. The story is totally heartbreaking. I was about one year old, and she had a baby with her boyfriend at the time, who wasn't my father. My mom was 17, and his parents didn't approve and pushed my grandparents to pressure her into giving the child up for adoption. I have distant relatives who adopted the child. Her relationship with her boyfriend didn't last long after that, and she was pressured to get back with my father.
Then, she had my younger sister and brother. I don't know anything about this sibling, and there's no contact with that side of the family. My parents divorced when I was almost four years old, and my mom pretty much raised us by herself until our teens. I remember very minor moments where she mentioned the child she gave up, but it never really clicked until I finally asked her what she was talking about.
7. Devout Christian Dad Addicted To The Deed
My mom told me that my dad, a highly devout Christian who teaches and preaches the word of God and who taught me to be ashamed of any carnal desires, is addicted to bedroom intimacy. Apparently, my parents got divorced, which was a BIG NO-NO in their Christian community, because my mom stopped putting out.
Between them, my parents made me so ashamed to be attracted to people that I thought I was gay. I've now accepted that I can love someone and be intimate with them and enjoy it.
8. Mama Was The Drama
I realized what irredeemable jerks my parents were and are. The things that I put up with as a kid and internalized, I could never imagine doing to anyone, even less so to kids. When I was growing up, I thought that's what everyone’s parents were like. I remember talking to a friend about how much it hurt to get your hair braided.
She looked at me funny. I continued, saying, “You know because you have to suffer to be beautiful”. I only found out the real story much later. When I was older, my mom told me she intentionally pulled my hair and bruised out the knots harshly because I was "such a bad kid, and she couldn't take it" so she made my hair routine painful.
I also carried a security blanket, "greeny" around way longer than I should have. When I was 12, I had a slumber party and had "greeny" at it. I didn't carry it around like Linus. It was just there folded up like a folded-up blanket. The next morning, I couldn't find greeny and asked my mom where it was. She casually said, "Oh, I burned it in the fireplace. You're too old for that blanket".
I thought she was joking and was like, "No, really, where's greeny". I never got the blanket back. I asked her about it a few times over the years. She said she "has no memory of that ever happening" and then went on to say how much I exaggerated and am being overdramatic.
9. A Messy Split
I only recently realized how horrible my parents’ divorce was. For the past few years, I thought it was just a regular divorce, and I didn't remember any of it, even though I was 12 at the time. Apparently, my home was not a very good one at that time. My dad constantly accused my mom of cheating and threatened to end her and himself.
My mom was so scared she kept a blade under her pillow, and she stayed with him five months after the divorce because she was afraid he'd off my brother and me. My dad constantly fought not only with my mom but with my brother, who was only a year older than me. He always told him that the divorce was his fault. But my mom did awful things too.
She locked herself in a room and threatened to destroy some pictures of his family. He broke down the door and stopped her. That's the only thing I actually remember, the rest I've just been told. The consequences of this have been brutal on me. Knowing this shed some light on why I'm so messed up. A few years ago, I hated my brother so much that I actually plotted to off him. He hardly did anything to deserve it besides just being annoying, but my parents didn't help me regulate my emotions well.
10. Age Was More Than A Number
For the longest time, my mom told me she was in her 30s and 40s. There were so many things that didn't add up, but I didn't really question it. My dad was in his 60s. However, my mom, in her infinite wisdom, tried to justify it by saying they started dating when she was nine years old. I never even questioned it, but imagine what happened when I told one of my middle school teachers one day.
11. What’s The Deal With My Folks?
My parents both held full-time jobs and even owned a small business. But I just found out they were both living a double life. They were dealers. I was about 13 when my mom got my brothers and me together and proceeded to say, "Whoever took the ice cream container full of stuff is to return it, and there will be no consequences". I started laughing, but no one else was. That's when the penny dropped that they were serious.
My older brother 100% knew—obviously, he took it—and mom and dad's many visitors and friends all made more sense to me after that.
12. A Story Of Simpler Times
I learned about two separate versions of "doing the deed". One version of the birds and the bees came from my father, full of science, and another version on the playground, where we all talked like sailors. My dad was a gentleman from the old school. He was very polite and very respectful of women—a little too respectful, I think.
Back in the late 50s, my older brother and I were being driven somewhere by my dad in our 1954 Buick. I was in the backseat, and my brother must have asked something. I sure didn't. But suddenly, Dad stopped the car and commenced upon this lecture. There was stuff about male and female reproductive organs, spermatozoa, ova, and fallopian tubes.
It just went on and on. I just sort of hunkered down and listened. I could tell from my dad's voice that this was an important thing, so I paid as much attention as I could. I got some idea of what he was talking about, but I couldn't figure out how this all applied to me. In my defense, 1956 was a serious time. There were lots of “dadsplaining” talks about serious things, plus I wasn't interested in the topic at all.
My schoolyard education proceeded through the 4th and 5th grades. We swore like sailors on the playground and had a kind of brute understanding the things we were saying meant. I had figured out the mechanics of intimacy, but I couldn't see the “why”? Why would I want to do that?
It all sounded crazy. What were the risks? I was a slow study. I remember walking home from the 6th grade alongside a kid named Bobby Mee. Suddenly, all that information meshed in my head. All those dirty words, all those science words, just clicked. I turned to Bobby Mee and said, "You have to boink a girl in order to have a baby!"
He looked at me sideways and replied, "Get outta here”. I was having an epiphany; it all made sense now. "Yeah, it's true", I said. "Go ask your dad". He didn't believe it. He couldn't believe that any of that nasty stuff had actually happened this side of depravity, and certainly, not to his mother. Evidently, he asked his dad that night.
He came to school the next day with eyes as big as pie-tins and whispered to me, "You know, you were right"! We were both appalled. Our moms would never look the same to us again. It just didn't seem right. About 10 years later, my mother—who had five kids—laughed at my story. "You have NO idea". She didn't say more. I wondered about THAT as well but didn't ask. Some things are best left alone, and you’re better off not knowing.
13. Party On!
I found out that my parents didn’t really meet “in college”. The truth was much darker than that. They actually met at a crazy-fueled rampage and partied for nine days straight. After that, my father flew back to Idaho. My mom flew out a month later, and he proposed to her when she got off the airplane. I’m the oldest and came along two years later. My parents have been married for 41 years.
14. In The Money
My parents turned out to be extremely wealthy, but because my mother had actually grown up poor, she was just worried about money constantly. I used to have nightmares about the bank foreclosing on our house. I even got a job as a hotel maid at 14 years old, so I could start paying my own way. I only found out when I went to apply for student loans, only to discover I qualified for the lowest possible amount because of my parents' earnings.
They worked as a teacher and a self-employed accountant who had very few clients. It turned out that when you're a high-ranking teacher at an expensive private school and only have a few clients because you're a chartered accountant and the clients are all multimillionaires, you actually earn a fair bit.
15. Partying Parents
I grew up thinking my parents were very strait-laced, sophisticated, and boring. At 18, I went straight off to college, so my mother gave me a lecture about partying too much and not keeping my eye on the prize. She told me about how she, my dad, aunt, and uncle smoked a ton, drank all the time, and experimented with other stuff.
Doing that eventually led to them dropping out, with the exception of my dad, who didn’t go to college. Her telling me that triggered something. I had a weird flashback and remembered my parents smoking “hand-rolled cigs”. That’s what they told me they were puffing on. I didn’t realize my parents partied hard until my mother told me that. It was an interesting revelation.
16. Breaking The Cycle
Growing up and learning about how awful both of my parents' parents were, I realized that my parents intentionally had gone out of their way to raise my siblings and me how they WEREN'T. For example, my mom had always been at every single remotely significant event in my life. She was always the last parent to leave when we drove away on a bus for school camp because her parents worked in social work and cared more about their clients than her.
17. Blaze Of Glory
The first time I got notably high, it really struck me that maybe my father shouldn't have constantly been doing this while raising me alone. I often told my friends that I was happy when he smoked because it lessened the chances of him being angry or being a stickler for his many arbitrary rules. Only in hindsight did his complete inability to understand me on so many occasions make more sense.
18. Who’s The Boss?
I tended to think that my dad was in charge and quite smart. I recently had the revelation that he is the second fiddle to my mother in every way. She is the one who controls and cares for the household and finances to great success. She puts mountains of work into housework, finances, and self-care and is well-read, intelligent, and empathetic. But the way I feel about my father is a huge secret.
My father, on the other hand, is an unimaginative idiot. He is charming and friendly but dumb as a post, with life goals composed of ragged aphorisms and an understanding of human nature somewhere between a children's cartoon series and 80s action flicks. I have no idea what my mom sees in him.
19. A Sad Existence
I was shocked to find out how oblivious my parents were. My mom was incapable of planning anything more than six months in advance, and she's already declared bankruptcy twice. My father was the one who actually got me mad. I have no idea what his decision-making process was, that's assuming he even had one. He had five children with two different women, both of whom hated him.
He cares more about his job than anything else, so if I try to understand his existence, I feel like somewhere he has a list that goes something like—have a lot of nookie, have kids, more kids, reproduce, become successful, make money. He has no personality or hobbies, it's just work, go home, and sleep. And he gets mad when I try to point out that his multiple divorces are probably because he expects people to live the same way he does.
20. Brother From Another Father
I found out in my late 30s that my mom had been previously married and my dad isn't the father of my oldest brother. My mom’s first husband abandoned her after their first child was born—my oldest brother. So my dad married her, not necessarily out of true love at first sight romantic stuff, but because she would be a good mother to his future children.
He also thought she would be a good, faithful wife, and she needed someone to take care of her and her child. He adopted her son and had four more children with her. It turned out he was right. She was a pretty good mom. All of us kids have good lives, and none of us went behind bars, and my dad was a pretty upstanding guy too.
21. What’s Love Got To Do With It?
I never looked at my parents as a romantic couple, and still don’t really see them as that. But I really didn’t understand or think of them as two people who chose to be together for one reason or another until my mom asked if I thought that they loved each other. I’m the third child of a rocky marriage. They constantly fought and argued but stayed together for the kids.
Sometimes they have their moments, but most of the time, they’re either at each other’s throats or off doing their separate things. It’s kind of weird to think of marriage as an extension of “boyfriend and girlfriend” when every bit of marriage that I’ve been around never showed much affection or caring.
22. My Family Is Whack!
When I moved out, went to college, and got a job away from home I was shocked to see how normal conversations could be. I got to college and made friends, had classes, partied, and had a normal college life. As more time went on, I found myself being more outgoing and adventurous. When it came time to come home for the holidays, it struck me. My family communicated by talking over each other, making jokes, and shouting.
Most conversations I’ve had with them end up with them shouting at nothing. The jokes are berating, illogical, and offensive, masqueraded by laughter. Then if I do not participate by laughing back, they act offended or dismayed, like I am the broken one and the one who needs fixing.
When I visited my friends' houses at school, I wouldn’t spend much time around their families. So when I visited my high school friend Amy’s house and got to be around her family for a bit, I was shocked and heartbroken. It was years ago, but I saw how they acted as a unit, how they smiled and really laughed. That feeling of a happy and real family was incredibly warm and, above all else, foreign.
23. Life In Ruins
I never realized how much my parents sacrificed. It sounds cliché, but I clearly remember a huge fight with my mom when I was an angsty teen where I shouted, "You ruined my life". She looked totally shocked and shouted back, "What? You ruined mine”. She then listed all the things she had wanted to do and never did because she became a parent. It sounds cold on paper, but it completely changed my perspective, and I had much more respect for them both.
24. Not Meant To Be
I realized that my parents, being 19 years apart in age, were absolutely 100% not meant to be together and that I probably shouldn't be here. From hearing the stories of how they used to party back in the day and get into arguments at the bar to my dad giving two children up for adoption before a family was created with my mom, it was more likely a train wreck of a marriage that I was too young to see personally.
My dad is now just this quiet retired Veteran who wants to be left alone to drink and play golf and calls us every once in a while to talk for a few minutes. My mom is a wonderful, lovely woman who raised us with no regrets and overcame so many obstacles as a single mom. The final realization is that apart from their marriage, they're just these quiet people who would rather be reclusive.
My mom has been single for more than 10 years, and my dad is just living out his old retired man fantasy. I guess in the end, I'm not too different from them. I do love my alone time more than the next guy, it seems. They are both happy in their own right, and that makes me content for them both.
25. No Consistent Rules
My parents aren’t actually as great as they pretend to be. They’re very irresponsible with their money, show harmful tendencies—though not to any severe extent— provide no stability or consistency to their children, etc. My least favorite was always the unusual compassion and punishments they doled out. When I was sad or having a tough time in one of my classes, my parents were comforting or, at the least, friendly.
However, heaven forbid I would get sick or stay up late, I’d be grounded for days. When my sister was sick, my mom made her whatever food she liked and was doted upon. I would be so lucky to be welcomed outside of my room. Fortunately, I was allotted some more freedom as I became older, but the affordability of staying at home while attending college means I’ll be stuck with some of their awful rules and habits for a bit longer.
26. Nothing To Be Ashamed Of
I had been suspecting I may have ADHD for a while, and I had a conversation with my mom for a second time after the first one didn't end so well. She told me that my dad had previously told her that he thought he was on the spectrum and may have ADHD, which came as a shock to me. I have an older brother who had both autism and ADHD. My dad is most likely the reason why.
I'm honestly not too surprised about the ADHD because he had shown signs of ADHD ever since I was a kid, although the autism one caught me off guard. Unfortunately, my dad finds it hard to bring that up or get officially diagnosed because he feels insecure about it. In fact, he had quickly told my mom not to use it against him despite knowing that she wouldn't. I've seen how much some of the symptoms have affected not only his work and hobbies but also his relationship with others.
27. The Lost Sibling
I was shocked to find out that I had an older brother. Basically, a year before my older sister was born, my mom had a baby boy. However, he ended up losing his life when he was just three months old due to SIDS. I do sometimes wonder how different my life would be if I had an older brother.
Freepik, drobotdean
28. My Dad Was No Einstein
I realized that my father is actually kind of slow. He owns a successful business that was started in the 60s, but it has been declining over the last 15 years. I thought maybe he was just content with slowing down and ready to retire, but over the last 10 years, I have learned more about the business, and I am realizing he is just not very smart at all.
He relied on the necessity of his business in the area and loyal friends. He can’t even spell sandwich or about. As a kid, I thought he was a genius, but it turns out he got lucky. He's a good, reliable man but very unintelligent.
29. Not Normal
When I discovered that both my parents had anxiety and depression disorders throughout my childhood, and we were NOT, in fact, "just a normal family like any other". It really explained a lot about their behavior when I was growing up, and I wish I had known sooner. I always thought there was something wrong with me for not coping well with "normal life", but apparently, I had had it on hard mode.
After I found out, I started reading more about it all and recognizing certain patterns of thought that I had learned and began to cope. Knowing that it wasn't normal helped me realize when I needed to go to therapy myself. I think also knowing about their struggles with mental illness would have allowed me to be so much gentler and more compassionate towards my parents and myself.
Now, I can understand that they were stressed about other things and struggling in their own heads, and that was why they massively overreacted to stuff. My mom was also overprotective and strict because of the schemas she had developed when she was growing up. It definitely makes it easier to deal with now because I can recognize when either one of them is having an anxious or depressive episode, and I know what to do and that it's not necessarily my fault.
Since moving away and many years of therapy, it has amazed me how much better and all-around less stressful life can be when you're not tiptoeing around your parents' mood swings, blaming yourself. It was the mental illness talking, and it wasn't fair on either of us.
30. Grandma’s Dirty Little Secret
My mom has VERY complicated feelings about her now-deceased parents. I didn't know when I was a kid, so it was a shock when I was 19 and my mom casually let it drop that my grandma was addicted to pills and booze and was frequently institutionalized for attempts at taking her life when my mom was growing up.
Meanwhile, my mom idolized her dad for sticking by her mom because "that's just what you do", not processing that his refusing to remove his kids from the trauma might have damaged them further. I never knew because, by the time we grandkids came along, my grandma was a sweet, stable older lady, if a little bit dotty.
Needless to say, my mom has a lot of emotional issues that were never really resolved properly and developed bipolar disorder as a result. It didn't excuse all the things she did to us, but it helped me understand.
31. Parents Are People Too
My dad was depressed when he got older and started having health problems. My mom was anxious about everything and could barely leave the house without panicking. I was about 24 when I finally realized that they were just like me, only older and more experienced. They were just making things up as they went along too.
32. Doing Their Best Was Good Enough
Both my parents had terrible parents and families. Some of the things they did and said made absolutely no sense to me. It wasn't until I got older that I realized my mom was protecting me from her childhood and her mortifying experiences with older men. My dad was protecting me from a life of depression—it runs deep on his side of the family—and he combats it with his crazy discipline.
It doesn't fix the depression, it just lets him hide it and seem "normal". My mom would tell me that "older boys like to experiment". I had no idea what she meant because I was only seven. I thought older boys were all scientists because of her. My dad would make me redo my bed until it was smooth enough to be featured in a home magazine.
Both my parents meant well and tried so hard to give my brothers and me a childhood we could look back on with joy. They did great, and now that I'm an adult, we can laugh about these odd things. We have had some very deep conversations, and it reassured me that they were honestly doing everything they could to not be like the people who raised them.
33. Gone Were Their Golden Years
I was raised by my maternal grandparents since I was about a week or so old, so they were my mom and dad. It was just a fact of life that my biological parents had pawned me off on them, and I didn't think anything of it growing up. My grandparents’ other daughter's kids were also raised in the same house with me, although that's a whole other story.
My biological parents named me after my grandmother, but a shortened form of her name. It makes me wonder if this was all a devious plan. If they were trying to butter her up for what was about to come. When I was 19, it hit me that my grandparents threw away their golden years to take care of me. My aunt did have a kid a few months after I was born, but they thought he would be gone in less than a year.
When they decided to take me in, they were fully prepared to give up their dreams of moving out and being able to enjoy life after spending decades working their knuckles off. They didn't know about everyone else who would come along, so they were willing to give up their lives to take care of a five-pound asthmatic child that needed special food and diapers.
My grandmother had heard about my biological parents' plans to get rid of me. They didn't ask her to take me. She could have talked them into putting me into foster care, but she didn’t because she would spend the rest of her life worrying and wondering. It also recently hit me that the day my grandmother came to get me was a crazy day. This was in the early 90s, back when only rich people had cell phones. My grandfather was at work that day, so he had no idea what was happening.
He came home to a house that probably looked different than when he left because this baby he had only met once was now living there. From what I've been told, his reaction was basically nothing. He just went to make a sandwich and just went on with his life as if I had always been there. It seems surreal that they were able to just jump right into things.
My grandmother faced one of her biggest fears—driving on the interstate—to get to me, and she never hesitated once. She also had all the baby stuff set up by that evening, although I'm sure my aunt helped with something. Still, in less than half a day, they changed their entire lives.
34. On The Wrong Side Of Reality
I realized that I couldn’t trust a word out of my mother's mouth. As a child, her words were gospel; she was my mom, after all. Then as I got older, I realized that she was a pathological liar, often without rhyme or reason. I would ask her where she had gone, and she would say the nail salon when it was the movies, stuff like that. A lot of stories I had heard my whole life were made up, and throughout my whole childhood, I would confidently parrot things that were blatantly wrong. It was really embarrassing.
35. Not Just Teen Angst
I realized how much of a jerk my dad really was. I grew up with him talking about how once I became a teenager, I would start hating my parents because that's what teenagers did. I didn't believe that because, in my eyes, they were the greatest ever. One day, years later, I woke up from a nap to my dad yelling at my brother about potatoes and threatening him.
When I asked what was going on and why he thought that was an appropriate reaction, he started yelling at me. It turns out hating your parent(s) wasn't a “teenager thing”, just a “my dad being the jerk that he is” thing. On the other hand, my mom was the greatest person I know, and I love her more than anything. Growing up, she was nothing but supportive.
36. They Were Living The American Dream
I never realized how incredible my parents really were despite the odds and that they were both the most successful of their siblings. Also, the sheer number of traits I may have inherited from them. My mom was one out of eight kids, and my dad was one out of three. Both of my parents were the only ones in their family who took that major risk of packing up their bags and heading to America with only a couple of bucks as first-generation immigrants.
I didn't spend much time with my parents growing up because they were almost always working. However, now looking back, for someone that came to this country and lived on minimum wage in project homes, they ended up significantly more successful than many people I know today, even those who actually grew up here with multiple generation families, PhDs, and college degrees.
Today, my parents own a $1 million mansion I never even knew about until adulthood, along with other real estate both here and in their home country and stock accounts in the upper six figures. They raised me as if I was from a very humble income group, always clipped coupons, and only bought things I needed. I went to public school with tough kids and never had sneakers worth over $60 until high school.
I had to grow up and visit my parents' hometown and country and the rest of their siblings to realize that most of my family still lives in small second-world country homes with ripped walls, cramped bedrooms, a piece of wood for a bed, insects, unsanitary living conditions, and a hose used to shower. A lot of those frugal traits are still in me.
I think about how crazy most of my friends who graduated college and grew up in multi-generation families with lots of potential, now pretty much work regular classic 9–5 jobs living on a mid-level humble income.
37. The Positive And The Negative
I found out that my parents were kind of negative people, maybe even with diagnosable depression, each in their own different ways. My mom had a short temper, was picky, struggled with weight, and was nearly late all the time. My dad had a driftless career, a lack of friends, hoarding tendencies, and very frequently drank, though not heavily.
This was not to say they were bad parents at all. They truly cared, and we always had a stable life. It was always NPR, PBS, educational toys, and so on. In fact, one other realization I had only years later was just how much smarter and more independent they were than most other people, and they were not just ones to go with the flow.
Despite the positive things, I can't help but think about my own challenges and wonder if I would have become a more well-adjusted and enthusiastic person if I was born into a different family or with a few different genes. Either way, I am a product of both their negative and positive traits.
38. Life Is Full Of Compromises
I never knew how much having kids affects your career prospects and choices. Having had me limited the type of work they could do, the likelihood they could take a promotion or a transfer for a better job, etc. It was one thing I suddenly realized when I was talking to them about work. They both said that they had been in various work choice/promotion situations where the main decision-making factor was, "Can this work and not disrupt the family"?
All that stuff is pretty easy when it's just you or the two of you, but when you have kids, it’s not about you anymore. It made me really think about what they had given up for me and what I might have to give up to be a parent too. You can't have the ideal full-time career and be a good full-time parent. The sooner one realizes that to have one, you have to compromise on the other, the better.
39. Haters Gonna Hate
I was shocked to find out that my parents HATED each other but stayed married for over 18 years because of us kids. They faked being nice to each other until almost the very end of their marriage. Even then, they didn't fight in front of us kids. My dad dealt with it mostly with booze, and my mom was on all sorts of high-end 1970s prescription meds. After over 30 years of being divorced and both having remarried, they STILL, to this day, make snide comments about each other and truly hate being in the same room.
40. Failed To See
My mom drinks a bit, and as her children have moved out and on with their lives, the quantity she'll drink each night with and after dinner has increased quite a bit. Recently, she told me that she can't drive at night anymore due to having cataracts. I kind of went, "Alright, that makes sense", because her 90-year-old father had cataracts as well.
Then, I read something that changed my life forever. It was a nonfiction piece in The New Yorker called "Why Aren't You Laughing"? about the author's mother and her relationship with drinking. In it, his mother uses the exact same excuse, and he states that he and his sisters knew that the real reason was that she was too hammered by sundown to drive. That was a really big "Oh" moment for me. I had to put the magazine down for a few minutes after I read that section.
41. She Broke The Mold
My mom was a nurse in the neonatal unit. There would be days when she would come home, and it was obvious that she had been crying. At the time, I’d give her a hug and tell her to feel better, then go play outside or go back to my video games, not thinking much of it. I was 10. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school that the light went on in my head.
It dawned on me that often the reason she had been crying was that a baby had lost its life on her shift. I can’t even imagine having to deal with that on a semi-regular basis. She later told me she was often responsible for supporting the parents, and one of her talents was making clay molds of the baby’s hands as a keepsake for the parents. Thinking about doing that and having to make the molds made me realize that my mom was the most incredibly strong and compassionate person I had ever known.
42. Watching Every Dollar
I was shocked to find out how poor we were and how well my parents handled it. We weren't extremely poor to the point where we were homeless, but as I got older and started to penny pinch I realized how much my parents had to. We regularly had grilled cheese or eggs for dinner, which I now realize was because they are relatively inexpensive.
Our vegetables were always grown in our tiny garden. Our grandmother was our only babysitter. My father worked triple overtime, and my mother worked double. My mother would "splurge" on a box of wine that would last a month. My father would always wear the same clothes for years. We always had great holidays, and they never skimped out on spending money on us if we needed it. It really does make me appreciate them.
43. Wild Days Of Yonder
Growing up, my parents always warned against drinking and talked about avoiding peer pressure to drink. I had never seen them touch a sip. At home, my parents always mocked people who drank and got sloshed. This all resulted in me waiting until I was in college to drink and waiting until I was 21 to let them know that I had when the subject came up,
At my grandpa's funeral, one of my dad's high school friends came up and started talking to him. My sisters and I were listening to them reminisce. Then, his friend said, "I still remember that night we went out driving with a bottle of Johnny Walker and—". My dad cut him off super quick. My sisters and I were shocked to find out that my dad drank in high school and college.
None of us knew about it. He sheepishly explained how he used to be and how he didn't think it was right. We thought it was funny that we all assumed he never had a lick of booze, but he probably had gotten wilder than we ever had.
Freepik, master1305
44. On A Wing And A Prayer
My parents had no idea what they were doing. My dad ran his own business for over 20 years, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps starting my own. I started asking a lot of questions about business and how stuff was done. One day, he sat me down, looked me in the eye, and said, "I really don't know how I made it work because 90% of the time, I had no clue what I was doing. But when you run a company, everyone assumes you're an expert”.
He continued telling me, “Convince them you know what you're doing even if you don't. Running a business isn't stressful because of the calls and the work, it's stressful because most of the time you're lost and making things up as you go". I eventually told my mom about that conversation, and she pretty much said the same thing.
Before then, I thought I was just terrible at being an adult. It turns out everyone is just winging in and hoping for the best. However, my dad was never going to tell his kids that. My brother and I thought he was some sort of superhero, and as I got older, I was very proud that my dad owned a company. Other people's fathers worked at companies, but my dad owned one.
45. Snoozer’s No Loser
When I was a kid, I used to always get upset at my dad because whenever I tried watching a movie with him, he would always fall asleep. It wasn't until I was older that I realized the reason he fell asleep was that he was so tired from working two jobs to try and give me a better life. Despite that, he still attempted his best to do something with me and spend time with me, even if he ended up asleep.
46. All Lies!
There were many, many lies my parents told. My dad didn’t go to work. What he got up to instead shocked me. He would cash checks from a trust, and when that would run out, checks from an aging relative. He also slept with some of my classmate's moms. My mom had a drinking problem and would overreact to everything.
Also, my brother wasn’t a misunderstood intellectual, although my parents insisted on this. He was in a gang that beat up little special needs kids in the school bathrooms.
47. Thanks For The Memories, Mom
I found out that my dad, who passed when I was eight years old, wasn’t the perfect person I thought he was. The depths of his depravity were unbelievable. He didn’t lose his life because of a stroke, but rather an overdose, and he once held up a gas station and made my unknowing mom be his getaway driver. She was taken into custody during her bridal shower for it.
I came to the realization he wasn’t a very good person to my mom and that she was so strong for letting me have those happy memories of him even though it was painful for her.
48. Indebted To My Dad
Growing up, my father had a drinking problem. My mother and father divorced when I was about 15, partly due to that, along with racking up crazy credit card debt. However, I still chose to live with my dad. I still loved him because growing up, he was never physically aggressive or mean in the slightest. He was just a happy-go-lucky father who always had at least one brew in him.
One day, I had to clean out his storage locker because he couldn’t afford to keep his stuff there anymore. That's where I made a tearjerking discovery. It was mostly full of files, tools, etc. I was going through the files and shredding anything that could harm him if it got into the wrong hands. Putting two and two together, it was clear he was getting himself into debt to keep all of us fed, warm, well-clothed and under a roof, and in a good neighborhood so we could go to a great school.
Since going through his files, I had a newfound respect for what he did for our family. He never said a word about what he was doing, not even to my mother.
49. Putting Myself In Her Shoes
My mom had me when she was 18. She got pregnant in the spring before she graduated, and she had me that fall. I'm 19 now, and I graduated last spring. I can't possibly imagine having a baby and raising it at this point in my life. I didn't turn out perfect but considering her circumstances, she did an amazing job taking care of me. My dad wasn't in the picture, but her parents and sister helped some.
That realization hit me when I graduated, and recently it hit me again even harder while I was trying to free up space on our computer. Somehow there were still old documents and a few emails from years back. I read them out of curiosity. They didn’t contain anything overly personal or bad, but just the tone my mom used back then seemed childish.
She was definitely an adult, but they seemed like things I could easily imagine someone my age putting down. It just really hammered home the fact that she was literally just a teenager/young adult doing her best to raise a child and keep her head above water. I always knew it was hard for her and that she was still really just a kid when she had me, but it didn't feel real to me until I found those old files.
50. Dancing To A Different Tune
My parents are five years apart in age, with my mother being older. While I was growing up as the middle of five kids, I always saw my dad as the fun-loving, kind of immature one, while my mom was a bit uptight. It wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I understood what was really going on. I found out that every single one of their friends was associated with a local exotic dancing club.
When my parents first got together, my dad jokingly asked to take my mom to one of these club, knowing she would say no. To his surprise, she agreed, and off they went. Years later, they were weekly regulars. My parents made good friends with many of the dancers, bartenders, and even the place’s darn Pepsi delivery guy.
They came around all of the time, knew my siblings and me well, and really became family. Seeing how all the different people aged and went down separate paths while all still keeping in touch was crazy. Some turned out great, and some turned out horrible. It’s weird to grow up and realize your parents were young and fun once too.
Sources: Reddit
