No matter what age or position in life, snooping rarely ever leads to a good outcome. Now in this day and age parents do need to be on top of their kid's private maters, it's imperative for safety but, then you must be prepared for the fallout. Kids are full of secrets and contradictions and deceit. So before you crack that phone code.... pour a bottle of something and take a deep breath.
Redditor u/kam-pow wanted to see if any parents would be willing to fess up about what uncomfortable things they've found on their children's private screens by asking.... Parents who went through their kids phones, what did you see that you wish you never saw?YouTube Guilty.
GiphyMy stepson (14) searched for "Sexy Starfire Video" and "Sexy teen titans" on my husband's YouTube. We had a good laugh and then told my stepson to use his own YouTube account for that stuff. buttsmcgillicutty
"Hot Girls in Bikinis."
When I was a horny 14 year old boy, I downloaded an app on my iTouch that just had a bunch of pictures of women in bikinis. It was nothing special so I deleted it, but then downloaded it again out of boredom. But then deleted it again after realizing I could just look up real porn on the computer.
What I didn't know was that the App Store on my iTouch was connected to my mom's email, so she got a notification that I had downloaded the app, not once, but twice!
She picked me up from school the day after and asked why I had downloaded this app of "Hot Girls in Bikinis." I fumbled my way through a lie saying how my fingers slipped and I accidentally downloaded it. But then she hit me with the, "But you downloaded it twice." To which I replied, "ya my fingers slipped again causing me to download it after I deleted it." She 100% knew I was lying but, probably not feeling like having the sex talk right then (I never got the talk tbh), she just let it go and my 14 year old naive self felt like I was the best liar ever. babygotdiabetes
A good Girl...
When I was 14 I got caught by my mom reading a large document pasted full of explicit, sexual fanfiction, both straight and gay fanfiction (you can tell I was in high school a long time ago, lol)
I was luckily reading one of the few straight stories when I was caught. I snuck back in before my dad got home and sanitized the document of any homosexual fics.
When they later confronted me, I got weirdly defensive and aggressive about it, like "yeah I was reading porn, what are you gonna do about it?!?" It must have been shocking coming from a previously goodie-two-shoes Baptist girl combined with how I had acted when first caught, but they weren't aware I took away the threat of conversion therapy, lol! Lycoris
Oops. Sorry mom.
I actually had nudes on my phone when I was 16 and my mom was trying to look through my pics so I screamed at her and took it from her, and she got mad, so I decided to come out instead and told her I had bisexual pride flags and stuff and didn't want her to know yet. She brought me cheesecake to apologize.... Oops. Sorry mom. MickeyBear
Be Blunt.
GiphyWhen I was 15 my parents found out by going through my messages that I used to smoke weed... So they got angry. But I got angry for going through my messages... Apparently I won that fight, because after that I could just talk to them about the amount I smoked like it was a normal conversation, and they never went through my messages again. rnottaken
Betrayal!!
Not a parent, but my mother once found a notebook (on my DSI, in 5th grade,) explaining in detail how I want to do some guy or something.
Worst part: I didn't write it. It was planted there by my ex-best-friend to get me in trouble. She admitted it to me. Hell, she even had a crush on the guy. My mom never believed me when I said I didn't write it. _Fengo
Mom's Secrets.
Went through a parent's phone... while staying with family, their rental unit's furnace shat the bed. My mom had absentmindedly left her phone on the kitchen counter when running to the store- it rang but I missed the call she was waiting for (from my dad.) Thinking I was getting instructions for when the HVAC appointment was, I opened a text and a voicemail.
Couldn't distinguish the first sentence but all I heard at the end was "blah blah blah heaters getting fixed. That mean I get some muff?"
I cried with laughter and never admitted to anyone what I'd heard. doublepulse
Apple ID....
When I first got my phone my whole family shared an Apple ID account. This allowed us to share purchases off apps or music and game progression wouldn't carry over unless we wanted it to. Normally the worst thing about it was whenever they changed the password I would need it again so I could download any apps. One weird thing about it though was that when you pressed the home button twice, it would show you what other devices were doing.
Usually it was harmless, my sister would be playing a game or my mom would be on Facebook. But once it showed my dad watching porn. I never told anyone in my family that I saw that but I soon after made a new Apple ID and switched over to it citing the password issue. I never listened to iTunes anyways so I didn't lose anything. Voop1121
NOOO!!!!
GiphyI was going through my son's phone to find something (he asked me to) and saw he had been reading a Fox News article. RealityJaunt
It's Cool.
I feel like going through your kids phone is fine, but it kinda just depends on the child, their age, their maturity and past behavior. Like I will never understand the parents who go through their kids phones like all the time for no reason. -UN-KNOWN-
These Gestures Are Offensive In Other Countries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
People explain the friendly gestures in one country that are offensive in another. It's imperative to do a little research about the destinations and culture...14 and Stupid....
GiphyNot a parent but me. When I was about 14, I chatted with an older woman (older being early 20s) online who turned out to live extremely close to me. We exchanged a lot of pics & messages (stuff no parent would want to see of their teenage son) and agreed to meet up. But I left my phone in my mom's bedroom to charge and she discovered everything. In hindsight, it was incredibly stupid, but being a horny teenager I really didn't consider the risk. Probably dodged a bullet. But yeah, I bet she wishes she didn't see my penis pics. Reddit
"make sure to put that stuff away"
Back when I was a freshman in high school and the world wasn't full of kids with cell phones (it was just starting as this was 2001), this meant that we got our jollies other ways. As a budding writer, I took a shine to writing my own smut stories.
One in particular was rather colorful and I left it on my desk one night after writing it. Forgot about it and the next day, went to school.
A storm hit during that day, lots of rain and wind, and my windows were open in my room so during the day, my Ma ran in to close the windows and found a bunch of papers scattered across the floor. Yep, it was my story. hahahaha.
Ma gave me a brief suggestion to "make sure to put that stuff away" as my younger sister was known to go in my room and rifle through my stuff on the daily (usually to bring the Playstation into her room). Ma avoided eye contact the whole time. I elected to not be hungry when it was dinner time that night haha. mangledmatters
She is 11 years old.
My sister-in-law found on my nieces phone a WhatsApp group where her and her friends were talking about having sex with a corpse.
She is 11 years old. My sister-in-law was actually so concerned about what she saw in this chat she told the school (after speaking at length to my niece about it)
She snitched her own daughter and the other 15-16 kids in the group to the headmaster who absolutely destroyed them, they were in hysterics.
They all pointed the finger at one boy who had posted all these pictures into the group. Last I heard the school were arranging to meet up with his parents. MC1787
Mom is Cray..
When I was 14, I accidentally left my laptop unlocked one day and my mom took that fleeting opportunity to install parental spy software on it. For weeks without me knowing, she was reading literally every myspace message I was sending to my friends and then-girlfriend. It's worth noting that I wasn't doing anything "bad", as in I wasn't smoking, doing drugs, or even drinking at this age. Just random conversations and talking sexual with my gf.
My mom printed out a booklet of "evidence" against me, sat me down, and grounded me for 4 months and forced me to break up with my gf. Obviously this had a horrible impact on my social life during a pretty critical time. I lost loads of friends, and while it's been like 13 years since then and I've since repaired my relationship with my mother, I still don't really forgive her for that. Lpunit
Not Our Stuff...
GiphyWe upgraded my teenage son's phone so he didn't have to deal with the busted speakers on his old one. When the social-distancing kicked in my 4yo was going nuts because she didn't have anything to do so I took his old phone that I had held onto and booted it up. I figured I'd factory reset it and install a bunch of kid friendly stuff for the little one. When it came up it looked like he had already wiped it so I was doing a quick glance to make sure and found a bunch of pictures of him using some of the sex toys his mom and I had hidden away in our closet.
I took this as a good opportunity to talk to him discretely about personal space, respecting other people's boundaries and also some sexual health stuff. He was embarrassed at first, but we ended up bonding over it. I apologized for invading his privacy on the phone and he apologized for invading ours with the toys. basedonfacts
Ironing the Kinks....
The wife found her 16yo sons browser history on the family computer, and it was some really really kinky stuff!! She was mortified as she kept scrolling and her eyes were like saucers! I quelled her fears and told her that it was probably just mostly curiosity, and not to worry. When I talked him about what his mother saw, he turned white as ghost. I didn't make a big deal about it I just told him to be sure next time he uses a private browser or delete the history. genxerbear
Being 13....
My mom went through my phone when I was 13, and found sexual conversations and pics of me in my bra I had been having with a boy (same age) when I was spending too much time on my phone. I thought I was gonna die that night. Not just from getting murdered but embarrassment too. My god. Throwawayuser626
OUTED!!!
my mother was suspicious of me doing drugs and as she was looking through my texts she found a chat with my boyfriend (now husband), as she was reading them in tears I walked in and looked at her knowing exactly what had happened. I didn't plan to come out to my parents at the time. LayOffMyEggs
Opposite.....
Opposite. When my dad got a new phone, I was going through his old phone bc it was about to be mine. Saw a facebook account logged in and it wasn't his name. I opened the messages and it was all conversations with different women. Some didn't reply, some are engaged in a flirtatious manner. Didn't tell anyone but I gave him the cold shoulder for essentially cheating on my mom. It was years ago and I really hope he stopped doing it.
Nobody in my family knows what I knew. 21Units
search history....
GiphyI'm 15, I think the most embarrassing thing my parents could find would be porn on my search history but the most damaging would be finding out about my bisexuality. LIyre
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "
" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk to him about it.
Do you ever wonder what it must've been like to experience major events throughout world history when reading about them in text books?
But if you take pause and actually think about it, we're living through many newsworthy current events that succeeding generations will be talking about long after we're gone.
Reading about them online or in newspapers is one thing. But seeing them happen unfold before our eyes is another.
Curious to hear from those who'll have anecdotes to tell in the future, Redditor "What is the most historically significant event you witnessed IN PERSON?"
People recall the natural disaster events they've witnessed.
Tremors
"1964 Good Friday Earthquake 9.2 Richter. Was a boy in Cordova, Alaska at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
"My father was skipper of the USCG cutter stationed there. He was inport, and when the quake struck shortly before 5:30pm, he and my mom gathered me and my three siblings on the front porch. At first, it felt like the house was crumbling at the foundation, but on the porch we could plainly see our whole world was shaking. I remember watching telephone poles swaying, and the wires snapping and crackling in the street. The quake lasted about five minutes initially. My dad got his ship underway to avoid the tidal wave which was sure to come. We had several aftershocks in the coming weeks, some of which were quite strong, though nowhere near as strong or as long as the quake itself. I was seven at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
Collapsing Freeway
"October 17th, 1989. I watched the 880 Nimitz freeway collapse during the San Francisco earthquake. The Honda in front of me had the upper deck crush her front-end engine compartment. The mother and her daughter were shaken up but completely fine."
"I was driving a convertible Triumph Spitfire, which was scratched up slightly from debris. However, I walked away unscathed. Aside from the fact I pissed my pants, which I didn't notice until much later."
– CatDaddyWhisper
Thar She Blows
"I sat on the roof of our house and watched Mt. St. Helens erupt less than 100 miles away."
– stinkykitty71
"This must have been fascinating and terryfing in equal measure. What a thing to witness."
– runrossyrun
"It was amazing! The ash that covered everything like snow was interesting to kid me, but less so to my parents."
– stinkykitty71
People recall seeing major catastrophes as a result of malfunctions or judgement errors.
Bomber Crash
"The b-52 crash that led to changing what large military aircraft are allowed to do for airshows."
"I didn't see the plane, but immediately saw the fireball. It was just a perfect, bright red turning to black mushroom cloud."
"Fairchild is a nuclear air base and there were a few minutes there where I was sure the world was about to end."
"A few years before a KC-135 doing the same thing crashed near the school while we were in class."
– goffstock
Tragic Takeoff
"I was standing on my front porch watching the launch of the Challenger."
– StarChaser_Tyger
"Was riding in my parents car to a basketball game in the next town over in north texas when we saw a shooting star and thought that was neat."
"It was the Columbia..."
– Misdirected_Colors
Demolition Gone Wrong
"The failed implosion of the Zip feed mill in Sioux Falls, SD in 2005."
"They hyped it up, sold tickets to it, had a big 'BOOM' marketing thing, and broadcast it live on TV."
"The explosives took out the main supports on the first floor, and the rest of the building above it just plopped down 10ft or so and came to a rest. It was a massive failure, and was a funny little blurb on news stations around the world that day. Definitely not major news, just the rest of the world taking 20 seconds to laugh at us."
"The building sat like that (the leaning tower of SuFu) for quite a while until they figured out how to safely demolish it."
"Here's a clip of the failed demolition."
– KitchenBandicoots
These well-known historical events were seen by very few who are alive today.
Historical Remnant
"The tumbling of the Wall in Germany… along with people selling bits and pieces of it on tables in lobby in front of commissary and px in the following weeks and months. I had picked up a chunk about the size of an oreo and kept it… has blue spray paint on the flat side. Wonder if anyone is buying them now?"
– SingedPenguin13
Major Upheaval
"I would have to say the LA riots. I lived about two blocks from where it started. I was on my way home from school and saw someone throw a brick through a window. I didn’t even wait. I just started running the whole way home."
– Scarlaymama0721
Day Of Infamy
"9/11, I could SMELL the collapse of the towers."
– go4tli
"A friend of mine was there. One day in the warehouse we worked in together there was an odd electrical burning smell. He stopped in his tracks and went 'this is what 9/11 smelled like.'"
– mantistoboggan287
I didn't physically witness the fall of the World Trade Center but I was living in New York City at the time.
However, I did see the smoke.
I was living up north in Washington Heights at the time and knowing what happened, uncertain of what was to come, and seeing the plumes of smoke from the attack site was the most ominous sight I've ever seen in my life to date.
Have you ever lived through a historic moment or witnessed something sure to be noted in history books? Let us know in the comments below.
