People Explain What Their Parents Could Have Done Better When Raising Them
Parents make mistakes. We want to believe that parents are doing there very best to raise their kids, but sometimes they do more harm than good.
Research into childhood trauma didn't actually begin until the 1970s, so we don't have as much knowledge about our mental health as adults as we might like.
However, a study that followed 1,420 from 1992 to 2015 found conclusive results about childhood trauma:
"'It is a myth to believe that childhood trauma is a rare experience that only affects few,' the researchers say."
"Rather, their population sample suggests, 'it is a normative experience—it affects the majority of children at some point.'"
"A surprising 60 percent of those in the study were exposed to at least one trauma by age 16. Over 30 percent were exposed to multiple traumatic events."
Not all of the things our parents do that were not so helpful technically classify as trauma, but it definitely has an effect on us as we get older.
Redditor Gooncookies asked:
"What could your parents have done better when raising you?"
Here's some of the ways that these Redditor's parents could have done better.
Rules to maintain purity.
"Would've been nice if my dad hadn't convinced me I had to behave in certain ways to maintain my innocence and purity."
"Catholic? I can relate."
"Nope. He's an atheist. He's actually extremely upset that I practice my (non Christian) religion. He just has some really weird ideas about having female children. Like, if I wore spaghetti straps when I was a child he'd say it was like he was living in a brothel."
"It's funny, the experience made me personally sex repulsed but extremely sex positive. The idea of me personally as a sexual being freaks me out, but I fully support others experimenting and not waiting for marriage or whatever."
"I'll never stop working on it. Healing our trauma is the best way to stop the cycle."
"I once had a Popsicle that stained my lips red when I was around 11. My dad wouldn't let me out of the house until it came off because he said it looked like I had lipstick on. When I caught the bouquet at my sister's wedding at age 28, he tried to take it away from me. It's been a weird and uncomfortable existence in this family."
Becoming afraid of failure.
"Encourage me to do more. I was never pushed to do anything. I mean, I get why some athletes are like 'my parents pushed me too hard where I hated it.' But I was never encouraged to go out for it try anything new. I played little league baseball and decided I thought it was a good idea to try and be a pitcher. I told my mom, but got the response along the lines of 'That's a hard position, and the whole game kind of rides on you, and if you mess up, everyone is going to blame you.' As a 37 year old I now see how that kind of stuff screwed my self esteem up and why I'm so afraid of failure as an adult."
"Same here. Also when I wanted to try anything new my mom was like 'But that's too hard for you, are you really sure you wanna do this? I don't think that you want nor can.' What's even worse than just forbidding, in this way the kid won't 'protest doing it' and get too low self esteem to do it."
"I'm really happy now that I overcame this after I moved out. I started doing all those things I wanted to do as a kid and I freaking love it (but kinda hate the fact that I haven't started earlier)."
"But even if I have a good relationship to my mom I hide a lot of things I do from her, since she still does the same and tries to convince me that I actually don't wanna do what ever I planned."
"But dear mom, sometimes you just need to try new things. if it wont work out who cares!? Even got a tattoo with 'What if I fall? Honey what if you fly?' to remind me if I should ever forget. (And no, my mum doesn't know about it)."
We're allowed to feel our emotions.
"Allow me to express my emotions, treat me like an actually person, actually interact with me instead of just ignoring me and them just telling me to kill myself."
"Wow. I'm so sorry. I think a lot of parents forget that their children are actually human beings."
"Its okay. I'm trying to work through some of that trauma, its easier said than done."
Kids have to be taught to express their emotions, not bottle them up.
"Allowing and even teaching me how to express myself emotionally."
"I've only recently started reaching out for help with my anxiety and panic attacks. But it's gonna take 7 months before I can get ongoing therapy."
Interest is nice.
"They could have shown more of an interest in my mental health and education."
"I didn't get help for my anxiety until after college and it's so frustrating to hear my parents acknowledge I was an anxious child yet nothing was done. I can look back and see how many things could have gone better for me."
"I had diagnosed ADHD and my mom thought that the meds made my brother and I zombies and decided she wanted us to just be kids. My parents never looked into any kind of non-medication help for my ADHD."
"I'll always wonder what school would've been like if I had the tools to properly manage it."
"I got an MFA, but I feel my entire life has been a whole lot of masking."
I also have comorbid sleep/circadian rhythm disorder which they also never did anything about. Going to the doctor for anything, physical or mental, was not prioritized. But, my parents definitely weren't well off financially, so I imagine that that was the biggest contributor."
- hey_sjay
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...Kids deserve autonomy.
"Taught me to question adults and trust myself."
"They thought they were doing the best thing by teaching my sister and I 'All adults are always right and you obey them no matter what,' but it made me a dysfunctional employee and vulnerable to abusive relationships."
"The good news is it can be unlearned. But I hope this new generation will teach our kids to assert themselves respectfully instead of blind obedience."
"Stop f*cking yelling at me and explain me why should I do whatever they want that moment instead of 'because I said so.' Explain me how do to do stuff and perhaps even help me. Or, hell, if it is so important, do it yourself, so you don't have to blame me if I did something wrong."
"Just because I am a kid, doesn't mean my opinions and arguments are automatically bullsh*t. Explain me why am I wrong, if I am wrong."
"And what the hell is up with this 'don't talk when older people are talking!" I want to ask a genuine question, like where the fuck is the bathroom when we are visiting someone or something like that, but no - f*ck you, kid, you dont get to talk."
"Mind you I am like 10 or more when the above happened, not 4 years old."
"I can't stand when parents act like us trying to explain ourselves or ask questions is 'rude and disrespectful.' My mom is a control freak, and any time I so much as asked why she was mad at me growing up (the scapegoat), she would get even madder."
"I'm 22 and my dad still acts like this."
- abou_51
"I had very similar experiences to this. It resulted in not trusting anyone. I discovered earlier than most, that I needed to be independent and an autodidact, or I wouldn't learn anything. I don't think I was disciplined correctly, later in life I had to teach my self self-discipline just so I could get things done. Even now I don't take people's opinions on things seriously, unless it's been peer reviewed."
Why keep up the charade?
"My parents are great people who did a good job raising me, but there was one weird thing they did that still kind of annoys to this day (and I'm 44.)"
"Once I got old enough to figure out that things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny weren't real they still wouldn't admit it for some reason; I think it was more my mom and my dad just went along with her. But even when I became a teenager and all my siblings were teenagers it's like they still thought it was funny and cute to keep pretending that Santa Claus was real. I don't know why."
"They missed the point of that sort of thing. It's a rite of passage for children to eventually get old enough to figure out that this sort of thing isn't real and for the parents to let them in on it. I was denied that and it still bugs me for some reason."
"I could imagine that being infuriating at 14-15 years old. At that age you're wanting to be seen as more of an adult and I can imagine them not acknowledging Santa as a way of not welcoming me into adulthood/making me feel like a little kid."
- 895501
Yea that's weird. When I got older and looked back I realized that my folks never flat out said Santa was real. My mom would say something like, 'He's only real if you believe in him,' so she never technically lied to me. Maybe it stems from that, they don't want to admit they lied to you?"
"That could be, but I think it was more a matter of my parents (again, my mom especially) thinking that doing the whole Santa Claus thing on Christmas morning, and Easter Bunny thing on Easter was fun and something that she just didn't want to let go of when my sisters and I got older."
Healthy criticism is necessary sometimes.
"They lacked discipline and parental authority which led us to treat them like our friends, disrespect them. We also couldn't be academically successful because they didn't help us develop a healthy studying habit."
"Kids like it when a parent tells them what to do (I mean, parenting is about teaching a kid what to do, if you just leave it like that, it won't learn anything), help them when they can't get through it, never give negative criticism, but constructive criticism when they fail and appreciate them when they succeed."
"Negative criticism: this type only tells them what is wrong. e.g. 'you can't do this,' 'you are doing this badly.'"
"Constructive criticism: this type gives them an insight into what should they do, you can add what is lacking if necessary. e.g. '[...] is not good behaviour, please do [...] next time, then you would succeed,' 'it looks ok (if it is badly done, then don't say this), but if you do [...] it'd be better / [...] is the correct way.'"
Share your opinions on the world.
"Being more open with me."
"If they had really expressed their views more on topics such as the LGBTQ+ community, coming to terms with my sexuality would probably have been easier. I'm still building up the courage to tell them. They also should've been more with open a lot of other things too, I wouldn't have known that I am autistic had my mom not randomly mentioned it in passing."
"Basically, to any new parents reading this, please make the effort to be as open as possible with your children without making them uncomfortable."
"This can be just sitting them down and having a conversation, or just mentioning it casually. You would be surprised at how helpful for their development it can be if they know beyond the shadow of a doubt your opinion on something."
"When I (F) was about 14, my mom gave me a 'talk' expressing her support if I ever brought home a girlfriend, which was nice (just an awkward convo to have). But I guess because I didn't bring home girlfriend all throughout high school or show any interest in girls then, my parents thought it was okay to start expressing their homophobic thoughts. It wasn't a lot but when you start questioning your sexuality you internalize every little bit of judgement from your family and peers. Every little less-than-supportive comment here and there about a gay actor or a family friend coming out was mentally filed in my brain."
"I didn't realize I was bi until late-college, still haven't told my parents. That earlier experience told me they're only supportive if they have to be, but they'll default to being bigoted if they can. I know they'd be accepting but I can't help but feel they'd only be suppressing how they really feel about it."
Moving has a huge impact on kids.
"My family moved two days after I turned 13. I understand now, as an adult, that big decisions like that are made by the parents, but they made me feel so unimportant throughout that move. I think it would've been easier to deal with if they had made me feel like my feelings mattered - that though my voice wasn't authoritative, it was heard."
"I hear you. My Dad moved us to a different country when I was 13 and 15. It was tough, leaving friends behind again and again."
Stop the 'clean plate' mentality.
"My parents discouraged me from doing sports because I might hurt myself; they would freak out if I had any scars and bruises on my skin. I also developed a 'clean your plate' mentality and they encouraged me to eat even when I'm not really hungry."
"Obviously, I became an overweight kid. I was physically weak and walking up and down the stairs made me breathless. When I was a teen, I developed an unhealthy relationship with food while trying to lose weight. Basically, I traded my disordered eating habit of overeating from when I was a kid for another disordered eating habit of undereating."
"Growing up, if only my parents talked to me about my feelings instead of letting me eat unhealthy food to comfort myself. It would've been nice if I was allowed to do sports, too."
Kids deserve apologies too.
"Apologize when they were wrong and not laugh when I expressed seriousness about a subject."
Whatever the situation was with your parents or caretakers, there are ways to heal from this trauma.
Psychology Today says we need to process our emotions, especially if we were taught not to when we were children.
It's important that we break these generational curses.
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People Explain How They Discovered Their Significant Other Was Cheating On Them
Reddit user Ok-Still2345 asked: 'How did you find out your SO was cheating on you?'
Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
According to the General Social Survey, 20% of married men and 13% of married women reported having sex with someone other than their spouse.
In the United States, 17% of all divorces cited adultery on the part of either or both parties.
But 70% of married women and 54% of married men reported they didn't know of their spouses’ extramarital affair until their spouse confessed.
And how did the other 30%-46% figure it out?
Reddit user Ok-Still2345 asked:
"How did you find out your significant other (SO) was cheating on you?"
Out of the Mouths of Babes
"Hell, my 5-year-old grandson told me!
"He said 'you ain't my favorite pop pop...Rodney is!' I said who the f*ck is Rodney?'."
"The rest is history."
~ Able-Acanthisitta681
STI Was a Big Clue
"My best friend had chlamydia she got from a hook up. And then weirdly enough my fiancé at the time started having symptoms of, coincidentally, chlamydia!"
"This was the 2nd partner she had done this to me with."
"I had just gotten out of the hospital for a spine surgery, so thankfully I didn’t contract it."
"I gave him a ride to the Walk-In clinic (he couldn’t drive) and left him there."
~ brokenbackgirl
Keep It Down Over There
"Neighbor called me asking if we could be a little more quiet with the sex."
"I was in another state."
~ gooberhack
"This is how my neighbor found out her newborn child's father was cheating on her."
"She was working an overnight shift and their other neighbor (I was away) called in a noise complaint for a woman screaming."
"Dude was having sex his ex while he was supposed to be watching his newborn."
~ kaloonzu
Friendly Exes
"Oddly enough my ex-girlfriend (call her A) at the time told me."
"She messaged me asking if me and my girlfriend (call her L) were still together.
"I said yeah."
"A sent me a picture of L grinding on some dude's lap at a party."
~ CystandDiseaseLetter
Making a New Friend
"I caught an ex in my 20s in a similar way. My friend called me and he was like 'hey man are you still with her?'."
"'Yea why?'."
"'I'm going to send you a picture, I'm here right now, sorry man.' It was a picture of her on some dude's lap at a house party making out."
"I drove to the house, parked outside, texted her the picture, then walked inside. Walked up to her, told her we were done, looked at the dude, said 'congrats she's all yours now' to which he responded completely clueless that she had a boyfriend, and yelled at her."
"She left. He and I proceeded to get sh*t faced together at that house party and became really good friends for about 5 years before he moved to the other side of the country."
~ burkechrs1
Her Friends
"Her best friend called me and told me. She was very gentle about it, knew it would hurt a lot."
"Eased me into it, provided evidence, wished me a good evening."
"When that friend and I ended our convo, I called my then girlfriend and informed her about what happened. It felt good to have a counter to every excuse or lie she tried to retort with."
"Going in prepared spared me from just going back to her, probably."
~ danielstover
"My ex girlfriend's best friend did this for me as well."
"It was my birthday and I invited them all to a hotel in socal to celebrate. The friend pulled me away and said my gf had slept with like 5 people during our relationship."
"She saved me possibly years of heartache."
"Funny thing is, she hated me. She only told me cause my ex pissed her off."
~ Pawn_captures_Queen
"My ex's friend all summer kept referring to me as 'Scotty' and I kept asking why and my ex would get mad and 'sshhh' them."
"I finally found out that it was a reference to the song 'Scotty Doesn't Know'."
"Oof. This was in high school."
~ kikistiel
His Friends
"I had an ex whose friends were the reason I found out he was cheating on me after deep cleaning his apartment while he was in the rehab that I helped get him into."
"Real solid dudes. Wish I kept in touch with them over the years.
"They saved me so much grief."
~ tenderourghosts
In the Clouds
"Shared cloud storage photo album had backed up some damning pictures."
~ notyourregularninja
Photo Finish
"Had a picture on his phone of his side piece in our home holding our child."
"My head exploded."
~ Lady013
Gaslighters
"Found a long, maroon-dyed strand of hair in his BEARD."
"I have short blonde hair."
"Funny enough, he had constantly accused me of cheating beforehand."
~ MiniJackalope
"My ex husband was the same way."
"He swore I was cheating but it was him."
~ ddgg17
"My ex too, yeah. She blew up at me several times to accuse me of cheating while she was visiting her sister over Christmas."
"Her roommates informed me that she had a threeway with some random guy and her cousin on that same trip."
"Honestly at that point I was glad for the excuse to dump her."
~ camelCasing
Surprise Gift
"We were living a few hours apart for a few months because of work. I was driving up every weekend to see her."
"She called me and told me that she had to go see her dad or something that weekend. I knew she had been super busy and stressed at work and she loved wild flowers."
"I spent all day Sunday picking wild flowers, bought a vase, and drove up to the house she was renting, intending to drop them off on the porch so she'd see them when she got home that night."
"Her car was there. A sport bike was parked next to it."
"And she has never been quiet in bed when she didn't have to be."
~ JeevesTheRunner
Right Person for the Job
"I received an 'anonymous' email from someone who felt I 'deserved to know' that he was seeing someone else.
"The email included details about the relationship and several screenshots."
"99% sure it was sent by his side chick who wanted a promotion to main chick."
"I gracefully gave her the promotion and he found a replacement for her old position shortly thereafter."
~ apostate456
Ignorance is supposed to be bliss, but there's one thing all of these stories have in common.
Everyone was happier to end a relationship with a cheater than continue being lied to.
Things People Didn't Realize Were Expensive Until They Became An Adult
I was very fortunate that my parents were able to pay all expensive not only through adolescence but even through college. However, they made it very clear that once I graduated, I was on my own.
I made every effort to make sure I could afford to live once I graduated. I made copies of all the recipes my parents got when they bought stuff for me, and started saving my own receipts, something I didn't do through high school. I calculated monthly expenses and created a budget for the future.
When I graduated, I had accounted for all the big expenses: take-out food, the expensive skin care essentials I needed to keep my acne at bay, and utilities (heat, AC, electricity).
What I didn't realize was that small expenses are not so small. Microwavable meals went up by $2. Gas, which was pretty steady while I was in college, seemed to shoot up daily. And things that don't seem expensive at first glance, such as toilet paper, become big expenses as they add up.
I'm not the only one who had these realizations. Redditors have too, and are eager to share what items they didn't realize were expensive until they became an adult.
It all started when Redditor ForeignReviews asked:
"What item did you not realize was expensive until you became an adult?"
Yummy, Yummy
"Food is both more expensive and goes bad quicker when you're an adult."
– BriSnyScienceGuy
"I know right! I honestly love grocery shopping, so when I started driving I would go grocery shopping when I had the car and so nowadays I do maybe half of the grocery shopping. But, it's just so expensive. I often look for deals and will buy generic/store brand on most items but, still."
"My biggest tip for "goes bad quicker" is to always get from the back, because usually that's where the longer lasting stuff goes and when it's stacked, get from the bottom. When it's stuff with longer shelf life like cereal and canned stuff, I don't usually bother. But I mostly do that with bread and dairy products. My mom taught me that when I was little."
– ariana61104
"Yes! Having to feed yourself and your household is getting too expensive and so tedious. I really admire my mom for making dinner every night when I was growing up. Thankfully I don't have kids so me & my husband are okay with just eating snacks sometimes."
– WildMoonWitch
So Sweet
"My parents split up when I was a kid in the 90s, and I remember going to my dads apartment in another city, and him cooking us steak on the grill. I always loved that."
"Once I moved out I was like "wait steak is how much? Why the hell did Dad keep feeding us this?""
"Then I realised he was eating poverty meals all week to treat his kids on the weekend."
"For his 60th birthday us kids pooled our money and took him to arguably the best fine dining restaurant in my province for the full tasting menu. Seeing him light up at trying things like caviar and truffles for the first time made me realize how much he has sacrificed for us."
"So yeah, steak is expensive."
– KFBass
"You guys are awesome; what a nice story. He raised y'all right."
– Augustus58
Where Do I Sit?
"Gotta be furniture."
– harrisrichard
"When I bought my house I only had a bed in the master bedroom and all my friends kept saying “you make good money just buy furniture, you could have it furnished in a month.” Then they themselves bought houses and now understand why it took me a year to furnish my house."
– Stetikhasnotalent
They Don't Need To Be That Nice!
"Rugs. Why did no one tel me a ‘nice’ rug was $18,000."
– BenSadfleck
"But it really ties the room together."
– alittlec4
"Dude, you could fly to Morocco and get a hand made wool rug for that much. What the heck are you buying?"
– mofukkinbreadcrumbz
"My dog isn’t going to want to butt scoot on anything cheaper than 10k."
– iamaliberalpausenot
Car Accessories
"New tires. Most unexciting $1,000 purchases I have ever made."
– PRCraig
"Also why the hell are oil changes so expensive now!?"
– johnstonb
"Bro fr I swear they were just $20 just a second ago now it’s like $60?? I asked my dad to teach me how to do it myself as a teen and he said it was so cheap that I might as well pay someone else. That didn’t last."
– greeneggiwegs
Walk It Off
"A good pair of shoes will set you back a bit, especially if you need more specialized ones for whatever reason."
– sedition-
Part Of The Family
"Pets."
– TeacherLady3
"They have gotten a lot more expensive due to expected care changing dramatically, and how we feel about them."
"The idea that you would put a pet down because a vet treatment costs too much is horrible now, but was pretty common in the past. Outdoor cats were the norm so they pretty much fed themselves and you had far fewer litter changes - litter was just clay, and you tossed the whole thing."
"Dogs ate table scraps and whatever they hunted down, or cheap as dog feed made of whatever ended up on the slaughter house floor (bones and all)."
"While purebreds were probably still super expensive, most people had a mutt or tabby, that the found/were given, instead of buying."
– RandomChance
"All true. But I waited until I was in my 50's and had raised my kids until I could afford a pet. Like kids, I wasn't going to be a pet owner until I could provide the care they deserve."
– TeacherLady3
The Cost Of People
"Kids."
"I'm amazed how my parents could afford me."
– only_stupid_answers
"My parents had 5 of us. It amazes me to this day, that my fathers paultry salary at the time had to support it all. How the f**k could anyone do that today?"
– The_REAL_McWeasel
Vroom, Vroom
"Cars, all grown-ups had them, maybe even multiple. I still think its insane that some cars are more expensive than a 2 bedroom apartment."
– Tommer_nl
"I remember people restoring cars all the time when I was growing up. I would love to do it but even a rough condition rolling rust is super expensive now for even common things people aren’t super after."
– Pup5432
"Yeah what the hell!? I feel like everyone's dad (mine included) had a project car that they were tinkering with."
"All of my 'tinkering' is to keep my single, daily driver running!"
– disisathrowaway
Shiny Teeth And Me
"My teeth."
– Bumfuzzled_Hobgoblin
"Teeth are luxury bones, don’t ya know? Why on earth would regular health insurance cover them? Hahaha. The fact that vision and dental are separate from the rest of your body is absurd."
– Blackfoxx907
I See You!
"Glasses. I have awful eyesight and an astigmatism and got quite a shock when I had to pay for my own prescription glasses for the first time."
– Heavy_Mycologist_104
Time Flies
"Free time."
"As a kid I had loads of it and gave it away. now I can't afford even a minute !!"
– TokenFeed
"I took a toll road home today for an extra hour of free time and it was the best money I ever spent."
– squidkiosk
What I wouldn't give -- or pay -- for some extra free time!
People Share The Dirty Secrets That Made Them Stop Supporting A Company
Ben Rosett on Unsplash
In the 1987 movie Wall Street, actor Michael Douglas' antihero Gordon Gekko infamously said:
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
The quote became a perfect representation of rampant corporate greed and corruption prevalent in the era during and after Republican President Ronald Reagan's stint in the Oval Office. The Reagan administration pushed deregulation and elimination of consumer protections.
While the government may not always step in to thwart shady or harmful businesses, consumers have one way to control them—their money.
Money talks.
Reddit user Wetter42 asked:
"What's a dirty little secret you found out about a company or service that made you stop using them?"
Poor Working Conditions
"Ashley Furniture—abysmal OSHA record, repeat and willful violations."
"People are not expendable."
~ surfinwifsharks
"I assure you, it's worse."
"That's just what OSHA made public, but I live near their factory in Arcadia and know people who work there, or used to work there."
"Someone bled for your dresser."
~ Wild_Question_9272
"I used to work as the lead designer for BLUENOTES in Canada. YM Inc knowingly uses near slave and child labour and denies everything in the press, but they do know, and they don't care."
"Money is more important."
~ Pkactus
"I used to work for Goodwill and in the back I saw one of my coworkers who has a physical and mental handicap come out of the office of our store manager crying. I really liked this coworker, I remember her as one of the nicest people I've ever known."
"I asked her what was wrong and she said that her wages were going to be cut substantially. She stated the store manager was told by corporate that it was since she was not able to work as fast as others in the back doing pricing.
"I asked if she would mind if I asked what they had cut it to and she said $3.30 an hour."
"WTF!"
"It turns out that Goodwill has a policy to pay disabled workers the legal subminimum wage."
"Sec 14 (c) allows corporations to pay people with disabilities a subminimum wage. According to Labor Department records, Goodwill pays some of its disabled workers as low as $0.22, $0.38 and $0.41 per hour depending on the state laws."
"Goodwill does not show much goodwill towards their workers."
~ Red_Beard_of_Tucson
Questionable Spending
"Susan G. Komen for the Cure."
"The pink ribbon is a scam!"
~ worldsokayestmomx3
"Most people also don't realize it just because something is pink, has a ribbon on it, says breast cancer on the front or is sold in October it doesn't necessarily benefit anything other than the company that made it!"
"There are no patents or trademarks on pink ribbons that mean that anytime it's used it has to benefit breast cancer research or awareness. Literally anybody can sell something pink with a ribbon and it doesn't mean a damn thing for actual cancer patients."
~ Crystal_crone
Shady Business Practices
"H&R Block used to do something like this with their tax preparation service. Not sure if they still do."
"Their slogan was something like, 'Come on in and we'll tell you if there's mistakes in your self-prepared return, for free!'."
"So you go in, they spend 5 minutes looking at your self-prepared return, and they tell you, 'Yes, indeed, there are mistakes here'."
"And then you ask them to tell you what the mistakes are. And that's when they tell you it'll cost $75 for them to tell you."
~ whomp1970
"Intuit lobbied the government to keep taxes complex."
"F*ck TurboTax."
~ lifesavingsgoboom
"Angie’s List (aka Angi). Did work for a person and they left a good review on Angie’s List.
"Next thing I know I’ve got a guy from their call center blowing up my phone. He wanted me to pay them to put more good reviews under my company’s name and to steer potential customers towards my business for an additional fee."
"Basically everything they say they don’t do on their ads. I’m sure it was a trustworthy company when Angie still owned it, but it’s scammy as hell now."
~ Tangboy50000
"My mother is terminally ill and closing her business. Angie’s List called about promotion and she kept saying no."
"Finally had to tell them she was dying."
"They offered her a cheaper promotion. They suck."
~ StitchingKitty897
"The sheer amount of people who still use uTorrent, even among my friends boggles my mind."
"It's basically an adware at this point. They even used to bundle a cryptominer at one point that secretly used your computer to mine bitcoin (or some other crypto)."
"ALWAYS use open-source Torrent clients."
~ vpsj
"There is a vintage toy store chain near me called the Toy Vault. The owner, Dan, has been ripping people off for years, offering them very little money for their toy collections."
"He treats his employees terribly. Many toy collectors in the area have their own Dan story."
"One time a couple of years ago I was setting up a pop-up shop to sell a massive collection of toys that my friend's parents had hoarded."
"We had been advertising for a couple weeks and were excited to make some people happy offering great deals on a lot of cool toys."
"The Thursday prior to opening Dan messaged me asking if there was a price we'd sell the whole collection for, saying that he could bring a truck that night and rid us of the burden."
"I said no because neither of us had the time and told him he could come Saturday with the rest of the buyers."
"He replied angrily calling me an 'amature' and said that if we were 'serious about selling' we would make the time, and that he knows we shop at his stores."
"Well I don't anymore, Dan."
~ ancient_scully
"There used to be a comics and collectibles store near me that was run by the same type of people. They would take the current month's comics and bag them and mark them up by at least 50%, so you would have to pay a premium for even the most recent issues."
"If they thought the comics were going to be hot, the marked them up even more). They were pretty much the only comics store in the area, and they were one of the few that sold a lot of independent comics, so it sucked that I had to boycott them."
"What's worse was their policy towards collectibles and action figures—the owner would buy case upon case of whatever the latest fad toy was and pull out the rarest figures and charge $100+ for them."
"Then he would drive his pre-teen son to the local Toys R Us with the rest of the figures, and have the kid walk in and claim that he had gotten all of them for his birthday, but he didn't want them, so could he trade them in for store credit.
"At the time, Toys R Us had a pretty loose policy towards returns—if you brought in something still sealed in its original box and it was an item they sold, you could get store credit for it. This worked for a while, but eventually this guy was banned from every Toys R Us within like an hour's drive."
"Eventually, the comics and action figures craze died down and this guy went out of business shortly thereafter."
~ WaldoJeffers65
"Companies like BetterHelp (mental health platform) exploit clients data/info and breached privacy."
"Yet they still advertise everywhere. Somewhere like 3 lawsuits about it."
~ Friendly-Jump-5307
"Therapist here. BretterHelp is total garbage."
"I feel bad for the clients who go through several green therapists to find someone who's actually a good fit and then the therapist leaves (understandably) because BetterHelp treats and pays them so poorly."
~ SpuddyBud
"The Weather Channel app collected and sold user location data without disclosing it would it be shared with advertisers."
~ KawIsTheLaw
"I will never buy anything from LG."
"Sometime around 2008ish, they (like many other hardware/software companies) were messing around with what was essentially adware, seeing how far they could push things to get borderline-malicious advertising onto your home computer."
"Stuff like the pile of CDs that came with your new Gateway, the 'do you also want to install X, Y and Z? We're going to imply it's necessary' when installing messaging apps, or the huge unnecessary printer 'software suite' when all you needed was the driver."
"LG went a step further."
"LG embedded adware in the firmware of their CD/DVD drives."
"Every time you opened or closed the drive, you'd get a little popup from your system tray that served you an ad—pretty much indistinguishable from the legions of adware/spyware your aunt would get from clicking 'yes' to all her popup ads."
"Except nobody clicked yes on anything, and it couldn't be removed. It was embedded in the drive itself, essentially performing an AutoPlay exploit on a virtual drive to show you the ads, then disappear again."
"They eventually were threatened with legal action and had to post a firmware update/removal tool on their website.
"The ad software was called BlueBirds, and LG scrubs all mentions of it from their Wikipedia article every now and then."
~ DJ33
Cruelty And Greed
"Nissan spent a decade ruining the life of the guy who owned nissan.com."
~ zonker77
"Crumbl Cookies. Their VP of HR did an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on LinkedIn that I happened to see because they are fairly local and I have a few mutual connections."
"Anyway, she went off on why they were always understaffed in an area because 'everyone one else is paying above market value for employees and [we] only want to pay market value and hire people passionate about [our] brand and making cookies'."
"It really rubbed me the wrong way, because if everyone else is paying more than you it doesn’t mean they are paying above market value, it means you are paying below market value."
"I haven’t been back since, besides they also sued another company for also selling cookies in square boxes… and honestly the other companies cookies taste better."
~ Luckyfinger7
While we as consumers and customers can't directly dictate anyone else's morals or ethics, we can choose who we will and won't give our money to.
Use your buying power wisely.
When we hear the term "class clown," we inevitably can think of a specific person who filled that role when we were growing up.
And in some cases, we can recall a time when they took their role much too far.
Curious about jokes gone wrong, Redditor Sharp_Emu6639 asked:
"When did the class clown go too far?"
Cancer Isn't Funny
"Kept making ‘Yo Mama’ jokes to my friend who’d just lost his Mom to cancer. My friend snapped and broke his nose."
- darksaber522
The Speed of a Fire
"When I was in High School, we had a Firefighter Explorer program where we could go and do shadow work at a few of the local departments."
"One all-volunteer department let some of us Juniors and Seniors respond to specific calls to do minor light work (hold stop signs, carry the ladders, fetch tools, etc.) and allowed us to have a code to their cipher lock. They gave the code to the four local kids so we could get there, unlock the doors, and open the bays and get trucks started and ready to roll."
"One night, the class id**t decided to go into their fire department and play 'pranks' on them. Took all their hoses off the trucks, strung them around the bays and looped them through the axles, discharged all the foam out of the main engine, and screwed with everyone’s bunker gear by swapping boots and removing the liners of structural gear among other things."
"Naturally, it ended very badly when a call came in for a structure fire and when the actual firefighters showed up the entire house was in such disarray that no truck could even leave."
"They ended up calling a town 20 minutes away to respond."
"Two people passed away in the fire. Naturally, all four of us were the top suspects, and it didn’t take the police long to figure it out as the place was full of surveillance cameras. He was arrested, his parents got the bill for all the damages, and we never saw him or his family again after that. They just skipped the area and vanished overnight."
"The fire department killed almost all ties with the Explorer Program and stopped allowing us to respond to minor calls. I went on to get certified as a firefighter and spent five awesome years with them where I still seasonally volunteer (during wildfire season) with them."
- JimSpieks
A Ruined Presentation
"We had a student teacher for like six months when I was in sixth grade, and towards the end of her time with us, she had to record herself teaching a lesson to the class and then provide the video to her school (as a final exam or something)."
"We had this class clown who had to sit in the back, which happened to be near the camcorder. During the recording, he kept saying things like, 's**t, pen*s, f**k,' quiet enough for no one in class to hear but loud enough to be obvious on the recording."
"The student-teacher ended up having to redo the entire video and we had to sit through the exact same lesson a week later without the class clown present."
- sloppyjoesandwich
Deflected Trouble
"Art class. Teacher leaves. Class clown says, 'Dare me to eat this paint!?'"
"My buddy and I ignored him. He got real pushy about eating paint."
"We told him to do whatever the h**l he wanted. He stood on a chair and ate two bottles of paint before the teacher walked back in."
"He got marched to the nurse. We breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone."
"Later that day, my buddy and I got called to the principal's office. We were informed he was at the hospital getting his stomach pumped and it was OUR fault."
"I had never been in trouble before. I spent one hour in isolated detention to see if I 'wanted to share more,' literally just locked in a tiny a** room."
"I got a really long lecture about if I told someone to jump off a bridge and they did it, it would be my fault. I denied any fault again. Then I got put back in isolation until the end of the day."
"My parents went nuclear when I got home and told them what happened."
"The clown showed up the next day just grinning and laughing because he heard we got in trouble."
- Remz_Gaming
Boy Cries Wolf... Or Eats Candy
"Slightly off-topic, but our class clown choked on candy. We thought it was another one of his jokes."
"The whole class laughed at him, even the teacher. Then his face started to go red, his eyes got bloodshot, and he started slamming the table violently."
"Luckily somebody gave him the Heimlich maneuver and saved his life."
"Dude nearly died while everyone sat laughing at him."
- seneca_7
Enough Said.
"A classmate thought it would be funny to light somebody's mullet on fire in the middle of class."
- DrDWilder
A Graduating Vandal
"He came back to the school after hours and put caulking in the locks, and spray-painted pot leaves everywhere."
"Of course, he didn’t know there were cameras so it didn’t take long for him to be caught."
"This was right before graduation too so needless to say, he didn’t walk at graduation and his parents had a hefty damage bill to pay."
- Ozziwulf
Senior Prank Week Gone Wrong
"In my school district, it was tradition for the exiting seniors to pull a prank. One year, a few of the class clowns decided it would be funny to cover all the tile floors with cooking oil, cover the handrails of stairs with Crisco, and put large puddles of oil at the top of each stairwell."
"A girl already on crutches broke her jaw. We had to be evacuated to the bleaches outside. It was super not cool."
- QueasyAd7509
A Ruined Graduation
"Public school, small town. The graduating class only had 54 students in it."
"The kid smeared his s**t all over the bathroom. Walls, floor, sinks, everywhere. The principal had no way of knowing who it was, so the solution... they took the bathroom doors off the hinges."
- PhatWhiteCheeks
No Future in Serving Drinks
"He spilled formic acid on another kid who ended up with some light scarring on his chest."
"To be honest, it was a terrible call from the teacher to get him to carry it around for people to smell."
- CoolioMcCool
Substitute Teaching is Already Hard Enough
"They put staples in the substitute teacher's coffee... I went to school with some real monsters."
- This-Ad-1886
A Traumatized Teacher
"In seventh grade at a public school, our class was on the second floor."
"The class clown stood up in the middle of class, said 'I can't take it anymore,' and ran to the back of the classroom, opened the window, and jumped."
"The teacher screamed, and we all laughed. There was an addition to the building and the roof was under the window where the class clown was standing with a big grin."
"The teacher quit shortly after due to this and several other incidents in her class."
- OMOAB
Targeting the Substitute Teacher
"Sophomore year biology class, we had a substitute teacher during fetal pig dissection week."
"She had stepped out of the classroom for some reason while we were working on the dissection."
"The class clown took out his shoelaces, wrapped one end around the piglet, and rigged the other end to the door so that when the door was opened, his piglet would raise to eye level."
"He scared the teacher when she came back in and he was suspended for a few days."
- Ambitious_Misgivings
Caught Butter-Handed
"We had this kid who would take the small butter packets from the cafeteria and bring them to fifth-period history class. At some point, he would scoop out a glob with his pen and flick the dairy bullet on our history teacher's a** when he walked by."
"He did this probably five or six times without getting caught."
"One day, he f**ked up and scraped the teacher's butt with his pen."
"The teacher checked his pants and found the butter smear."
"The kid's eyes got super wide like a true deer in headlights. He had no excuse for why he did this prank. He just kept apologizing like it was an accident."
"Lol (laughing out loud). Who accidentally flicks butter on an old man's a**?? I'm pretty sure he never graduated. Not surprisingly."
- CannabisaurusRex401
Fun for the Students, At Least
"He stole the English teacher's substitute plans and rewrote them, giving us all a free period instead."
"Terrance, wherever you are, you're a f**king legend."
- jeconti
We can all agree that these pranks, jokes, and even assaults went much too far, whether the class clown was of minor age or not.
Sometimes a prank can be funny, when when it scares someone, severely scares them, or even injures them, it's obviously much too far. A joke is only funny if everyone involved is genuinely laughing.