Reddit user, u/Sylvizard, wanted to hear the saddest screenings you've had when they asked:
Parents of Reddit, when was your worst case of not checking a show before showing it to your kids?
Maybe Skip The First 15 Minutes For Younger Viewers...
GiphyShazam. For my 11 year old autistic son who is a big fan of superheroes. Everyone kept talk about how heartwarming and family oriented it was. I thought I was in the clear... until... a woman was incinerated and her flesh melted off and turned to charcoal dust... and then we were introduced to 7 demons which represented the 7 deadly sins. One of the demons bit the head off a man in a boardroom.
My son freaked the ever loving freak out.
You Grow And You Learn. Hopefully.
My Dad to me and my brother to see Wayne's World in the theater. I was 10, my brother was maybe 14.
Upon rewatch as an adult I actually understood the jokes. Not really appropriate for a 10 year old, IMO.
Edited to add: My husband totally thought it was fine to let the 5 year old and 3 year old watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, because "it's not that scary!" I then had to remind him of the part where THE NAZI DUDE'S FACE MELTS OFF.
And Then They Remade It!?
When I was a kid, it was Watership Down. I still remember the horror. Cute bunnies on the cover, but an absolute bloodbath filled with disturbing imagery awaits.
As a parent myself, YouTube! You really never know what you're getting on YouTube. There's plenty of great content for kids, but they're always just a few clicks away from a Holocaust documentary or true crime footage.
When You Can't Trust Anyone
I checked, but the response was misleading. A South American friend highly recommended this art film; the title was "Black God, White Devil". I asked if it were suitable for young children. She said that it was totally suitable; no problem. So I took my wife and kids, aged 5 and 6.
Just as they were preparing to hack a baby to death with a machete on screen, I yelled at my wife and kids and we ran out.
"How did anyone think that was appropriate for young kids?" I wondered. Still wondering.
Come On Now, It's Just...The Devil...
I have a much younger sister and let her watch "Rosemary's Baby" with me when she was five and I was old enough that I should have known to read the plot summary beforehand.
Emilio!
I played the Mighty Ducks to a group of first graders I was subbing for.
There's quite a few bad words I had forgotten about.
Freddy's Gonna Get You...
When I was about 6 or so my mom and dad had company over and were all sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking.
My sister and I kept running around and being loud and interrupting the adults, and after many repeated warnings to be quieter my dad escorted us into the living room, assigned us each a seat, and told us to be quiet and not to get up, and that the next time we interrupted them we'd get spanked. Then he turned on the TV and left.
We preceded to see some sort of sex scene where a woman pulled out a guy's tongue and used it to tie him to his bed. Then the BBEG appeared.... It was Freddy Krueger!
NSFW: The Scene.
We cried for him and he came in mad, but then saw what was on TV and apologized lol.
But, Chimichangas?
GiphyMy kids insisted I take them to Deadpool because their friends saw it.
Being the nice why not you're only a kid once kind of dad I am, I sat through too many awkward gratuitous sex scenes and made them promise we wouldn't say anything to mom but they were cool about the whole thing.
Watching Someone Else Goof Up
I worked at a movie theatre once upon a time. I was working as an usher this particular night, so once the run of showings started, things got quiet for me.
Until some dad came storming out of a theatre with his wife and kids in tow, ranting about how he thought they were seeing a cowboy movie.
Brokeback Mountain ain't for everyone.
You REALLY Messed Up There....
Happy Tree Friends
Was hoping for this comment, thank you for traumatising your children for our entertainment.
Oh this ain't SO bad...
Blazing Saddles.
Anything by Mel Brooks! Spaceballs is also not appropriate for children. Woops.
I adored spaceballs growing up but as a little kid i just would say "I wanna see balls". Lot of embaressment on my moms part
Roger is the best.
Well My friend told me once that his parents didn't know what American Dad was and they let him watch it downstairs while they were upstairs one time (He was About 7 years old at the time )and then about 3 days later his mom told him she was doing the dishes and he said: "Yeah you do that bitch." He didn't know what curse words were until he watched American Dad. His mom got pisssssed.
Oh God
Sausage Party.
That's the worst one possible in this situation.
Wurst?
Grisly
My parents let me watch Robocop when I was about 6.
Funny enough, it wasn't the massive gun fights, or the dude turning into toxic waste when hit by a car, or the blood, but when Robocop took off his mask thing. That freaked me out horribly and gave me nightmares.
I didn't know Robocop wasn't a family-friendly movie until about 2 years ago. I still haven't seen it, but when I was a toddler my slightly older cousins were obsessed with it.
Frank n beans, hair gel
When I was a kid, we were taken to watch Something about Mary. HAHA then quickly left to watch cats vs dogs.
I first saw parts of that movie (Something about Mary) when I was younger (around 10 y/o) and always wondered why her hair was standing up like that... only just realized a few years ago after re watching it as an adult what it was (0.0)
I was too young to really question that and by the time I was old enough it was just one of those beliefs that didn't ever get challenged so I never bothered to even think to question it. I was a book worm who spent most of my time reading educational books I checked out from the library.
In one of those books I leaned about the Ecumenical Council. I had no idea there were more books to the Bible. i had never heard of apocryphal texts or even considered that I was reading some highly watered-down and edited version of this "guide to life" - because I had absolutely been sold the idea of the Bible as a guide for life. I learned that a bunch of politically-minded men sat around and decided which gospels counted and which didn't. I learned there was tons of information out there that someone just decided I shouldn't know, so they got booted.
What!?! I felt so lied to! I had done a LOT of church and nobody had ever once mentioned that some royal dude put the bible together with some of his homies. Why was nobody talking about and reading from these other books when we were at church?
Little me was heated, fam. Heated. It had never occurred to me that information could just be altered, or kept from you, or used in any sort of a dishonest or less-than-honest way. It messed with me that I felt like the information was kept from me on purpose. Keeping things from kids is how you end up with suspicious, nosy, and angry little girls who lead tiny rebellions.
So one Reddit user asked:
What fact totally changed your perspective?
I needed to know if anyone else had the same sorts of reactions to that mind-blowing moment. Turns out no, I'm just extra and have been since childhood. Also turns out there's a lot of really interesting factoids that we didn't know or hadn't thought about. Here are some of the more popular responses. Some of these are still kind of messing with us, honestly. The one about making it three minutes could change a lot of lives.
Castles
GiphyThere are real life castles that are less expensive to buy than a New York City apartment.
Literally Nobody Cares
Most people are too wrapped up in their own lives and insecurities to focus on your little stumbles. Try to think of other people's embarrassing moments. It's actually quite hard to do! And if I do think of something, I don't dwell on it or give it more than a fleeting thought - it's usually no big deal. It's kind of nice to know that no one reeeeeally gives a shit and maybe that one cringey thing I once said isn't actually that big of a deal.
Related note - when I realized that I would never talk to someone the way I talk to myself, it was a little light bulb moment. Self compassion is a long road.
Not Your Problem
Knowing that the way someone treats you is often a reflection of their own problems or issues and quite possibly has nothing to do with you.
Two Problems
If you have a problem and you completely lose your head over it, you now have two problems.
- Saphnich
Actions And Perspective
We judge others on their actions, but ourselves on our intentions.
- BiJa90
I remember reading that the right question to ask is not "Am I a good person?"
It's, "What good do I do in the world?"
When I started thinking about it that way, I realized I wasn't actually a very good person.
- moal09
In psychology we call it the fundamental attribution error and applies to others as much as yourself. Basically the more familiar you are with someone, the more likely you are to understand their behavior as a result of circumstances. The less familiar you are, the more likely you are to blame something intrinsic about the person for the behavior being displayed.
For example, if a random drunk driver kills someone, you are likely to just dismiss them as a bad person who did a bad thing. If your best friend drives drunk and kills someone, you're more likely to think of it as them making a horrible mistake because they are having a rough time and it ended in a freak accident, etc.
That knowledge hit me so hard that this was one of the few tidbits from a psych degree that I've retained as meaningful.
Five Degrees
GiphyDuring the last ice age, the global average temperature was only 5 degrees lower than it is now. It helped me understand why 2 degrees of global warming would be a pretty big deal.
- luchubbs
If I Wasn't Me
This sounds really obvious but bear with me. Recently I "realized" that reality only exists in one form and that's in you; your brain, your body, your perspective. So wishing you were someone else, looked like or acted like someone else or had different talents is literally wishing you were born in an alternate universe or something, which people don't typically do. Everyone accepts that we live on planet earth as humans and not mars as aliens. So what I need to accept is that the only life there is ever going to be is mine. I won't ever have the option to like, select to play as a different character or whatever because once I'm gone this is over. Like, from my perspective there was no reality before I was born as myself and the instant that I die the world will cease to exist. I mean sure, other people will live but I will not. Every single about me is literally the only thing that makes sense because if I wasn't me I wouldn't be anything at all.
- oKay21
I, too, have taken LSD.
but I do get what you mean.
Three Minutes
The longest a nicotine craving will last is 180 seconds. That means all I need to do is resist for 3 minutes. My last cigarette was January 25 2008.
- nivla73
It's OK To Whine
Just because someone has it worse doesn't mean you can't complain about your own problems. It's ok to be a whiny little b*tch sometimes.
Wash Your Face
No girl wants someone who doesn't take care of themselves.
I went a long time thinking girls were just shallow until I realized I never washed my face or got a personality.
Little Kids With Leukemia
I found out finances played a big role in this little girl dying of cancer in my hometown. It changed how I felt about healthcare.
I had my life repeatedly ruined by the VA and military after I got shot in Afghanistan. It made me vehemently opposed to any form of government healthcare for years. Then I watched this little girl in my home town die slowly from cancer over social media.
Her family did Gofundme's and sold T-shirts to raise money for the treatments. She died after a bitter, heart wrenching, struggle and her family was completely ruined emotionally and financially. It really shocked and scarred me. She was a beautiful, innocent, little kid going through an unimaginable horror. I felt deeply for her because of my own medical struggles and when I found out that expenses played a large contributing factor in her death it really broke my mind.
I still have the t-shirt her family sold, it's hanging up in my closet next to a bunch of my old Marine Corps shirts I'm too fat to fit in anymore. I really think we need universal healthcare. I think this kind of thing explains why the VA has been allowed to be so terrible for so long. If we don't give a f*ck about little kids with leukemia then how is anyone going to give a f*ck about a grown ass man getting shot in a war?
- Mick0331