Sometimes parents tell little white lies to make things easier around the house. Like when your mom said told you the car definitely drove faster when everyone was quiet. Here, people share childhood truth bombs that were told to them in adulthood. Enjoy!
1. "Staying up late" isn't what you think it is
My mom used to turn the clocks forward when I had sleepovers at her house... She'd run in to change the clock from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm while we were distracted (this was before we all had cell phones) and we'd be amazed at how fast time had gone. We would stay up "really late" and then fall asleep, confident in our "coolness". She actually got to go to sleep at a decent hour without making us all shut up six times in the middle of the night.
Now that I am older and value my sleep, I think she is a genius.
2. When your parents go to "talk about Christmas"
My parents used to lock their door to their rooms sometimes. When a sibling or myself would knock on the door they would say, "You can't come in, we're talking about Christmas!" We would always get so excited thinking they were discussing our presents.
They told us the truth a few years ago and my siblings and I were flabbergasted! Since then, my dad occasionally sings Christmas songs to annoy us (his favorite is Jingle Bells). And now I associate Christmas with my parents having sex.
3. The ice cream truck seems to always be sold out
"The ice cream truck plays music when they are out of ice cream for the day."
4. Uhh... it's only available at Christmastime
When I was a kid, my favorite cereal was Cap'n Crunch's Crunch Berries. If given the opportunity, I would eat nothing else. So for years my mother had me believing that they were only available during Christmas.
So about six years ago, I'm in the store with my ex and I see them. I explained how much I loved them as a child and we should get some. Then I realized it was July. I got really excited and even regressed a little I think. It was then gently explained to me that I'd been duped. I'm eating Crunch Berries right now though so all's well that ends well I suppose.
5. Alert: grilled cheese con artist on the loose
For years and years my Dad (single parent) would make grilled cheese for me by toasting bread and putting cheese on it. It was cool.
Years later, I discovered at one point while my Grandma was visiting, she attempted to make me grilled cheese the normal way (pan, butter, delicious-ness) but my Dad stopped her saying "No, then he'll know that exists."
Also, I was in Cub Scouts but only participated in local meetings, wondering why we never did camp outs or anything. Just thought it was something our troop didn't do. Recently found out, there were camp outs, my Dad just thought they were all jerks so he didn't let me go. Or tell me they existed.
6. Okay, you remember that zebra??
I recently found out at age 20 that the zebra my aunt purchased for her farm when I was a kid did not in fact die from not being able to handle the environment of upstate New York. Rather, it was (Continued)
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trampled to death by her llamas. Don't mess with llamas.
....Thought I would clarify a couple things: the original story wasn't that the zebra froze to death in a winter storm but that it was chronically ill from the wet and cold weather and eventually succumbed to this illness. Also, I have no idea how she acquired the zebra. She had an ostrich too and that thing was also mean as hell.
7. When a white lie backfires
My dad once told me fried calamari was just fried chicken to get me to eat it, assuming that I'd like it and he could tell me afterwards, "HA! You ate squid and you liked it!"
Joke was on him though, turns out I'm deathly allergic to squid.
8. The weekend is a prize for only the best children
A relative of mine tells her kid that if she behaves well at school for 5 days in a row, she can have two days off school. The kid has no idea that's the weekend.
9. My mom is SO SMART
I used to just spew out random numbers to my mom, telling to add, subtract, multiply, etc. She would, in turn, tell me what the final number would be. Blew my mind, and she was the damn smartest person on the planet. Then I got clever. One day I got a calculator out to make sure she had it right. She didn't.
10. I didn't want to know this one...
Wasn't really a bomb my mom dropped on me, but a bomb I unwittingly opened.
I was trying to get a job at several places when I was 16. I was pretty tech savvy at the time, and genuinely thought I could get a job working a help desk for a power company, a bank, and a few other places.
I started to check the mail every day to see if I had gotten a letter, since I wasn't sure they'd send me a letter, e-mail, or call. I got a few letters from the places I had applied to, and I excited opened them.
They were bills of significant debt, all defaulted on. She said she'd pay them back and close it. I believed her, so dropped it. I didn't know how credit worked back then, and I didn't know what extremes my mother would go to.
A few years later (Several years after graduating and entering the workforce), I try to get credit on my own and get flat denied by everyone. I got letters from collectors representing the companies that my mom had opened accounts with under my name. They said the bills were never paid on. I claimed identity theft and managed to get the responsibility shifted off of myself and onto my mom, after filing a police report and talking to several companies over the phones across the span of several months. All of them said that she opened the account in my name by claiming she was my wife.
11. Seems like all my loudest toys are missing
My favorite toys would go missing, turns out they destroyed them because they made too much noise.
12. When dad shows you his "poop"
My dad used to call me into the bathroom to look at his poop. I was always shocked out of my mind... it looked like little stars and perfect circles and even dog bones. I couldn't figure out why mine always looked stupid. Turns out he was (Continued)
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Turns out he was throwing dog food into the toilet and waiting for it to bloat up before calling me in. I'm glad to say I've inherited my dad's sense of humor.
13. Moms can always see through walls
My mom said she could see through walls. She knew when I was up playing and not trying to go to bed, so I believed her for years.
Turns out, my nightlight cast a very bright shadow on the wall, and she would use that to see if I was in bed or not.
14. And apparently they can also read minds
My mom told me that all moms could hear their sons thoughts. I went through ages 3-5 thinking she was reading my mind.
15. Sweetheart, you were the result of birth control fraud
My mom let it slip that the only reason she got pregnant with me was because my dad had switched her birth control pills with sugar pills.
16. "......Oh."
Not so much dropping a bomb, but when I was very young, I came downstairs at four in the morning to witness my dad, half asleep and wearing nothing but his underwear, placing presents under the Christmas tree while shoving the cookies we left out for Santa into his face.
His reaction? ".....oh."
17. These are just... long chicken nuggets
I was a very picky eater as a kid. My parents got me to try fish sticks by calling them "long chicken nuggets".
18. Lying for nutrition
For a good portion of my childhood, I thought we were just eating a different brand of tomato sauce. Turns out, my mom had been (Continued)
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liquefying carrots and putting them into the sauce to get us more veggies. Took me years to know that tomato sauce should not be orange.
19. This would be so hard to hear
The biggest bomb my mom ever dropped on me was that I had a brother that died before I was born. She waited until I was 6 to tell me. It really freaked me out.
20. I absolutely HATE that thing that you've secretly been giving me for 15 years
My husband's mother would always put 1% milk in the 2% jug simply because his brother swore that he didn't like 1%. He never knew the difference.
21. When you're not as good as you think you are
Thought I was the bomb at Connect 4 but turns out Mum just let me win.
22. When the child becomes the parent
It's the other way around for me. When I was in high school, my mom worked a lot of nights (nurse) so it was just me and my dad at home with the dog all the time. In an attempt to be healthier, I started using Splenda when I cooked, but especially when I made Kool-Aid. My dad HATED it and refused to drink Kool-Aid with Splenda, so I started putting Splenda in the paper bags that sugar normally comes in. He would watch me make Kool-Aid and then tell me how much better it tasted with the real stuff in it.
Used the same method with coffee. He has high blood pressure and refused to drink half-caff coffee because it tasted soooo bad. Just started putting half-caff in the regular caffeinated coffee tin and he loved it from then on out.
22. Hamster one or hamster two?
When I was a kid, I had a pet hamster that I loved as he would walk up my arm and sleep on my shoulder. Fast forward to age 16. My dad and I were talking about my childhood and he let slip, "Oh you mean hamster 1 or hamster 2?" o_O "What?" was my reaction. Turns out my dad accidentally left my hamsters cage in the sun and my hamster died. Then to make it better, they had the cage on their bed as they were deciding what to do, and I came in, pet the dead hamster and said. "Bye, I will see you later after school". My dad went to get a new hamster that day and when I got back from school he said I was ecstatic that my hamster got bigger. My mom confirmed this.
23. Golden Grandpa
When I was a kid we would take long family road trips to Ohio to visit my grandparents. I absolutely loved these trips - my grandparents had all sorts of cool stuff in the house, two big apple trees in the front yard, and they lived next to a train track.
My grandpa also loved Golden Grahams. Every time my brothers and I would visit, he would open his cupboard to reveals four or five boxes of Golden Grahams, explaining how much he (Continued)
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loved them and that he got some extra boxes just because we were visiting. I always thought it was so cool that my grandpa - who was, you know, old - had the same favorite cereal as me. I would always feast on cereal every time we went to visit.
Of course, years after he died, I was relaying this story to someone and the obvious dawned on me. Later I asked my mother if grandpa even liked Golden Grahams, and she got this big smile on her face, looked a little sad, and said "No... but he knew you did." Broke my heart. Still the story I tell when I remember him.
24. Wow, so many mice found good homes!
Prepare your minds for a medium length story about a 12 year old child that desperately wanted a pet mouse. I begged and begged and then finally my father took me shopping for the perfect mouse. I named him basil and he was a cute little furball. But poor little basil needed lots and lots of play time which I couldn't give. So I bought him a female friend. He became a horndog over night. And would like to chew on her ears. So I thought to myself, maybe another mouse will help. So in goes another female the following weekend. I let two female mice get repeatedly mauled by Alpha Mouse. I was confused and angry at him. He didn't listen to me nor did he stop. So I managed to get my father to buy me a huge fish tank. Maybe two metres in length, one metre high. And separated the tank with two inch thick cardboard. Too late, they were pregnant. Anyway, a couple weeks later I had too many baby mice (wow they jump high!) and Mr Basil chewed his way through the cardboard and was a crappy father to the baby mice. I didn't want them to get pregnant as well...
I got home from school one Friday afternoon and I noticed my Catholic family of mice were all gone! Except for basil, he had the whole fish tank to himself. My mother gave me around $30 and said that she sold them all to the pet shop for $1 each. I was stoked. First of all, I had $30 and second, they were all going to go to lovely homes.
Fast forward twelve years: It was Christmas and we were laughing at the time I hand delivered 28 odd baby mice, and my lovely mother dropped the bomb that she had actually just.... exterminated them.
25. Adoption...
26. My parents are people of their word... or...
On my 21st birthday, my parents took myself and my housemates out for an early dinner (so as not to interfere with the festivities planned later on) and my dad flipped my world upside down.
When I was 10 and my brother was 7, we took a family trip to the Liberty Science Center, which, for those of you not in the NJ area, is essentially a neat multi-story playhouse full of science-related activities designed for kids. They have an IMAX theater attached that plays interesting documentaries, for a while they had a "touch tunnel" where you would crawl through an extended area in complete darkness, and several demonstrations on different floors with everything from insects to aquatic life to the classic shattering-a-banana-frozen-with-liquid-nitrogen routine. To my parents' credit, they had me interested in science from a very young age, so this was a real treat for my brother and I, however, since we were still 10 and 7, we couldn't stand to be stuck in a car for more than an hour without bickering with each other. After fighting almost the entire way there, my dad lays down the law. "If I hear one more word out of either of you, I'm turning the car around." A deafening silence reigned over the rest of the car ride, until we are literally pulling in to the parking lot, when one of us (I cannot remember who) said something snarky, and my dad, true to his word, turned that car around, and we drove all the way home.
Fastforward to my 21st birthday, that story happened to get brought up, as I tend to use it as an example of how, while my dad was really cool, he was not one to mess with. My dad then revealed a life-changing secret that only he and my mother had known: (Continued)
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They never intended to actually drive all the way home after the long ride. They just wanted us to get the message. However, my dad misinterpreted some of the traffic signs, and ended up back on the Garden State Parkway, which has few and far between opportunities to turn around, so he just took us home. The entire thing was an accident, but they played it off as intentional for the sake of their parental authority. They did take us back the following weekend because you bet your betty we were the most behaved children on the planet for the next few days.
27. Sia's looking a little ...er... pale
I used to have a cat when I was about three named Sia and I loved her. She was a Siamese-looking cat and I had her for like two years. When I was five, she got really sick while I was at school and my parents took her to the vet. After about two weeks of asking my parents how Sia was, she finally came home.
"Now, Sia's going to be a bit pale because she's sick and she may act a bit funny. Being in the hospital is scary!" That's what my parents told me.
So Sia came home, and she was a lot paler than I remember. Almost grey-ish white. She also climbed behind the sofa, refused to come out, and hissed at anyone who went near her. She eventually calmed down, but didn't sleep in my room per usual. She slept on the rafters in the basement instead.
Turns out (found this out about six months ago) Sia had actually died and they replaced her with one they found at the shelter and the little dumby that was me didn't notice.
28. When is Matilda coming on screen?
I remember when I was a little girl all I wanted was to see the movie Matilda. My parents wanted to see the Nutty Professor. So they took us to see the Nutty Professor and told me it was Matilda. I just kept waiting and waiting.... it wasn't till the end of the movie I realized my parents where dicks.....
29. This almost seems worse
My first pet was a dog I named sparky. Had him for about 2 weeks then one day I come back from school with my dad telling me he ran away. Looked for that dog and set up "missing" posters for weeks.
Turns out they gave him back to the pound they adopted him from cause we couldn't afford him.
30. Whole wheat bread is just toasted white bread
I used to hate whole-wheat bread. My parents convinced me that it was just part-toasted white bread so that I would eat it.
31. We're dining on lamb tonight, sweetheart
My parents told me that lamb was not only the name for baby sheep, but also the name used to describe sheep that had died of old age on a happy farm...
Seven year old me was not happy when they told me the truth.
Image source: Asier Romero / Shutterstock.com
Text source: Reddit
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.