Contrary to our beliefs when we were kids, our parents are not perfect. They are just trying their best, just like the rest of us.
So sometimes they make mistakes. And they are aware of the mistakes that they make. Most often, they wish they could take those mistakes back.
The best they can do, though, is learn. Just like the rest of us.
u/jonseh asked:
Parents of reddit, what was your worst parenting mistake?
Here were some of the answers.
Dat Hurt Mummy
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Put my son, who was about 8 months old at the time, onto our changing table that is about waist high and turned around to grab more diapers. Terrible decision.
Caught him rolling off the table out of the corner of my eye but it was too late...he fell 3 feet, landed directly on his face and did a full scorpion. He's never cried so hard in his life before or after. I held him and just started crying because I felt so guilty hurting him like that.
Expressions Are Lost On Three Year Olds
3 year old woke up in the middle of the night and came to tell me she had a bad dream. I walked her back to her room and talked to her about her dream. She said she was dreaming there were bugs crawling on the walls and in her bed. I told her that it was just a dream and the bugs only existed in her head.
She didn't get back to sleep for a LONG time after being told she had bugs in her head.
They Can Always Roll Over
Five months old:
"He'll be fine. He can't roll over yet." *places baby in middle of king sized bed and proceeds to finish getting ready for work*
THUMP
He could, in fact, roll over.
I'm sure there are more, but that's the one that really, really stands out.
My Fear, Your Loss
After my daughter spent all her own money on a skateboard, I relayed to her that I was afraid that one of the times she fell off her board she'd get hit by a car. In less than two days she didn't try anymore. I don't know if she had a scare or just didn't want me to worry, but I feel like I took one of the most physical hobbies she could have had away from her by projecting my own fear. She doesn't gravitate toward physical activity much now as a young adult.
This One, They Were Jerks
Neither of my parents have Reddit but they have told me this has been their biggest mistake with me of all time. I was a kid about 14 and I was riding my bike in the front yard. Anyway, I end up falling over onto the ground on my bike while standing up and not moving. Long story short it feels like I've just been drop kicked in my balls. So I head inside and lay on the couch in pain for a while.
Ask my parents to take me to the hospital and they refused. Told me I was just being a baby and that the pain would go away. About an hour and a half later and many tears they finally agree to take me in. Turns out I had given myself a testicular torsion and the lack of blood to that area of my body meant I was going into emergency surgery. I lost a testicle the same day less then ten minutes later. Never forgave them for it
No One Should Look Like Ted Cruz
My son is a freshman in college and I thought I covered all my bases but I realized during Thanksgiving that I never taught him how to shave. I probably forgot because I have a beard so I don't really shave all that often, but he definitely is not ready to sport one as well. When he walked in the door, my wife asked me why our son looked like Ted Cruz.
Big. Old. Whoops.
Oh man, one time my wife and I took our son on a trip to the harbor since he was now old enough to go with us on these trips. After a fun-filled day we were driving back home and my wife glanced in the backseat and goes "where's our son?" I guess we were not used to having a 3rd person with us when we went out so that's the story of how we almost forgot our child.
Can't Usually Control The Radio
I love listening to music in the car and some of the music obviously features some naughty or dubious words. When I had my young son in the car I would always skip certain songs but occasionally one slipped through the net.
Cue Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon. He got home one day and parroted parts of the song and I was desperately trying to distract him so he would forget it but he didn't.
I had the bright idea of trying to get him to change the word to something else. He was still in the early speaking stage so everything sounded slightly garbled. Anyway I had success with the word 'Shed'
For about a day or so he then just wandered around singing about how his shed was on fire. Then he forgot and moved on to something else and my mortal fear of him saying it at childcare subsided. I have not played that song in my car since and it has been many years.
Scared 'Em More
Not me, but when I was younger, like 6 or 7, I ate some watermelon seeds then got super paranoid that they would rip up my insides. My dad sat me down and told me that my intestines were as strong as this trash bag here, then he proceeded to test the strength of the trash bag and ripped right through it. I cried for, reportedly, 2 hours.
The Santa Question
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My then 8 yr old son asked me if Santa was real, looked me in the eyes and said he wanted the truth and wanted me to swear to him that I was telling him the truth. So I decided he was old enough and that I should come clean with him. He started crying big crocodile tears, and was absolutely devastated. Told me after the fact that some other kids in his class were saying Santa isn't real, so he wanted to make sure he was before he argued with them. This was 3 years ago, and he told me this past Christmas that it was the saddest he's ever been and I better lie to his little sister when she asks. Lesson learned.
