25 Secrets People Still Feel Uncomfortable Sharing With Their Parents

For some people, keeping secrets from their parents is just part of life. For most others, there comes a point in adulthood where you give up on keeping secrets and expect your parents to accept your choices as they are. However, some folk have struck a fine balance between the two where they reveal most things to their parents but there are some secrets they will take to their graves. Folks online got candid on an ‘Ask Reddit’ community thread about the things they wouldn’t want their parents to ever find out about them. Scroll below to read some rather petty candid confessions while others are more deeply emotional.

#1 When you guys went to Hawaii I put Milo (cat) down. He was sick, in incredible pain, couldn't eat or drink, couldn't even move to get to the litterbox. When you left on vacation he was too weak to even yowl in pain anymore. I couldn't stand to see that cat in so much pain and so afraid so I did the only thing I could do to help him- end his life humanely. My parents were 100% against putting down a pet regardless of how much it is suffering so they'd be beyond mad if they knew this.

Image source: anon, Louis Droege / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#2 Well, im a 20 years old son of a muslim family living in a western country. I am gay. The only reason I moved out into my own appartment was because I have a boyfriend. My mother knows I'm gay but says its a sin and doesnt wanna talk with me anymore until I go "straight" again, my father does not know, he would probably k*ll me If he knew :/ But I enjoy every minute with my boyfriend and I dont give a f**k about my parents.

Image source: doesntreallymatteryo, Honey Fangs / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#3 One time a dropped an entire roll of toilet paper into the bowl when trying to change it. I didn't want them to know I ruined an entire roll so I hid it in my closet and over a course of a few weeks I would rip away pieces and throw them away.

Image source: SamePotato, Clay Banks / unsplash (not the actual photo) Edit: Since some people seem to be assuming my parents were horrible and I was frightened, that's definitely not the case. I was just a dumb kid that was embarrassed about dropping a whole roll in the toilet.

#4 I was brought up in a pretty religious home... My family had me in theatre, choir, youth group, and all kinds of other extra-curricular activities to "keep me out of trouble", so they trusted me pretty well.

One night (I was about 15) my boyfriend at the time had come over to watch movies. The stipulation was that we could lay in the bed and watch the movie, but the door had to be open. After a while, my mom came in to check on us and everything was fine, so she thanked my boyfriend for being a gentleman and shut the door on her way out. Immediately, as if the door shut had triggered some teenage hormone overload, we started making out and fooling around. He slid his hand up my shirt for a bit, but finally having some privacy, I soon directed his hand to my netherbits. Yay first (not self stimulated) orgasm! We never got caught, which was considered a major triumph, and we found ways after that to hook up without my parents knowing. It wasn't until a few months later at my youth's "Purity Ball"...yes, we signed pledges and wore rings to signify our abstinence for God and marriage...that my dad delivered this humiliating speech. He told the congregation he was proud of the strong lady I had become. That regardless of having a boyfriend, I stood up to teen peer pressure and hormones, and that he witnessed me deflect an attempt at immoral behavior while watching movies with my boyfriend one night... Apparently, the blinds had been open and my bed faced them from in the house. He happened to be walking in from the garage and caught a peek at me removing my boyfriend's hand from my boob. I was mortified. The secret he must never know? The night I got my first orgasm, he thought I deflected my boyfriend from touching my boobs, when in reality I was actually directing him much much further south. **TLDR: Dad thought I was sitting on the bench for God, when I was really rounding second with David.**. Image source: StopItJeca

#5 I was 10-ish and my dad had just painted the boiler room door orange in our basement. My younger brother and I were pushing each other around on a skatebaord in basement and my dad warned us, don't you dare hit this door with your skateboard. 15 minutes later I'm picking my brother up from the ground and looking at a hole in my dad's orange door caused by said skateboard. Definitely not telling dad. Instead I grab a piece of orange construction paper and a glue stick to "patch" the hole. It matched surprisingly well. 27 years later that construction paper is still holding strong and I have never heard a word about it from my pop.

Image source: FerDaLuvaGawd, FerDaLuvaGawd

#6 My "husband " is actually a woman.

Image source: Theonethatgotherway, Alexander Grey / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#7 I am a swinger.

A funny thing is, a lot of non-swingers who know this about me ask, "how did you come out to your parents?". WHY THE HELL WOULD I EVER COME OUT TO MY PARENTS. It's not like being gay, where I would eventually introduce them to my significant other, so they would have to know. This would be more comparable to telling your parents that you're into a**l. They really don't need to know. Image source: i_am_sexbot

#8 That I'm planning on eloping in Disney in just a few months. My fiancé and I don't want to deal with the stress of a big wedding or my family.

Image source: breakyourwings

#9 (creating a throwaway since this is a little personal) That my little brother's car accident was a s*icide.

Image source: _thisismythrowaway__, Eli Solitas / unsplash (not the actual photo) My teenage brother had been struggling with OCD and social anxiety for awhile. It was something all of our siblings had dealt with growing up, but it was especially hard on him since the rest of us had moved away from our hometown years ago. Everyone wondered how it could have happened, and they just assumed that he was skipping class since he hated going to school. But I was the one who found the letter after his funeral, and instead of showing it to anyone I just got rid of it and covered up all the evidence (think search history of "fatal car crashes") The reason I didn't show them is because my dad used to be an alcoholic when we were much younger. The only reason he stopped drinking is because my mother threatened to divorce him and take us away, and he's been sober for almost 15 years now because of it. Also, at the time my mother was fighting stage II breast cancer, and was bedridden and ill with chemo during everything. My father was very attached to our youngest sibling, and they were devastated enough that I had to stay with them for several weeks after to make sure they would be fine. The possibility that my father could have been driven back to drinking, and potentially destroy my family further made my choice for me. No one knows but me and my therapist, and no one else will ever know. I made this decision for them, and I've accepted that its something I will have to carry for the rest of my life. It still hurts sometimes though.

#10 That I'm gay as f**k, family's homophobic. I'm only 16 at the time and plan to come out when I turn 18.

Image source: lolipop69, Alexander Grey / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#11 After my sis died I locked myself in her room and went through everything alone before her friends or my parents went through her stuff to pack it away or give it to her friends. I found naked pics, empty bottles of alcohol and a letter she had wrote, but I guess never gave, to her then boyfriend telling him the story of how she was r*ped as a younger teenager. I threw everything like that out but kept that letter. It's been 12 years and I just found the letter again as I was packing up to make room for baby. I can't bring myself to throw it away.

Image source: hotsy__totsy, Jonathan Borba / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#12 I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations are up on this one, so why not.

Image source: FunkyFireStarter, Matt Mech / unsplash (not the actual photo) I was a Jr. in High School, and had some friends into LAN parties who were seniors. But I couldn't really join them because my family was pretty poor and neither them or I could afford a computer for me to use at that time. So one day my older friends gave me one of their older PCs (Pentium 3) with a couple parts missing (RAM, HDD) that I could build out for myself. Now about 15 years later its turned out to be a great jumping off point because now I'm a successful System Administrator and love working in the IT field. And I owe it in many ways to that first computer I learned to build back up from scratch and make my own. Only they didn't give me that computer. We stole it from the high school. Sorry not sorry.

#13 That I eat meat. Both of my parents are devout Hindus so if that got leaked it would be really f*****g bad. Specifically that I f*****g love steak and burgers. I'm pretty sure they would cut me off socially and financially.

Image source: cptsexpanther, José Ignacio Pompé / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#14 I searched Craigslist for "free kittens" and drove 1.5hrs to some podunk trailer home in the sticks to adopt a 5 week old kitten. I told my parents that my sister and I had found him outside of Burger King's trash bins. Three years later and he's still my boy, but my parents would flip out if they knew the truth.

Image source: mfchipley, Tran Mau Tri Tam / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#15 So, when I was 6 or 7 we had Christmas with the extended family. One of my uncle's was there, and I was always a bit afraid of him because he had done some time for a d**g charge and just gotten out within the last year or two.

Anyway, I walk into the kitchen at one point, and he is there with this giant wedge of cheese. He looks up and asks if I wanted any. I nod, because I f*****g loved cheese. He says "ok, but you cannot tell your parents because you'll ruin your dinner they will get mad at me" and he slices me a few pieces. We eat in silence and then I leave, convinced that I was an accomplice in some terrible act with my ex-con uncle. To this day, I have never told my parents. As to what would happen if they found out, well, then they would know that the reason I didn't eat that one Christmas dinner in the early 90s was because I had already filled up on expensive cheese. Image source: JaJH

#16 My address. My parents are psychotic.

Image source: anon, Mansur Omar / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#17 When I was in elementary school, I was at Target with my mom and sister. At the checkout counter I saw these cinnamon flavored tic-tacs, and I had to have them, because I hadn't fully developed the whole want/need function in my brain. I knew my mom wouldn't buy them for me, so I grabbed them (sneakily), and put them in my pocket (sneakily).

Image source: ThatGuyIsTall, the cazpian / unsplash (not the actual photo) I felt pretty guilty the whole way home, and didn't make eye contact with anyone in case they could read my mind. As soon as I was inside the safety of my home, I made my way upstairs (sneakily), and opened my hot goods. They were awful. Easily my least favorite tic-tac. I ended up throwing them in the garbage can outside (sneakily) to avoid any suspicion. This is my shame, and I carry it alone. Except now with theoretically thousands of people. TLDR: The only time I ever stole anything, the fruits of my victory turned rotten in my mouth.

#18 The fact that I had a child and gave it up for adoption.

Image source: christwhatamess, Luma Pimentel / unsplash (not the actual photo) She hates my wife. Almost had me convinced to leave her, but I couldn't do it. When I went back to my wife, the last thing my mother said to me was, "Don't get her pregnant or she has you trapped forever!" Doing the math, our child was conceived the very first day I came home. We never wanted kids. It was never in our plan. We're both irresponsible and broke as s**t, with lots of emotional baggage from growing up in broken homes with criminal parents. We agreed that we'd never put a child through that. Due to my wife's build, health conditions, and very irregular cycles, we did not discover she was pregnant until 7.5 months in, far too late to terminate. In one of the hardest moves of our lives, we placed our child for adoption with an incredible couple who wanted nothing more out of life than to raise a child. She'll never know about it. Nothing good could possibly come from it.

#19 That I was the one that blew up the toilet. To this day my stepdad thinks someone broke into my house, smashed the toilet, and left.

Image source: Melissajoanshart, Giorgio Trovato / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#20 While at work I faked an athsma attack to get out of work early. Mom took me to urgent care center after the inhaler "didnt help" . . . the docs ran an EKG and found something peculiar, after a breathing treatment they advised that I follow up with a cardiologist and sent me home. Fast forward 3 months and countless doctors and specialists and we discovered that I have a hole in my heart that requires open heart surgery. yup, a lie to skip out on work saved my life.

Image source: DIS_IS_GARBAGE, Sincerely Media / unsplash (not the actual photo)

#21 That many years ago I've found that cigarette pack in your drawer, dad.

Image source: sorrytosaythat, Ander Burdain / unsplash (not the actual photo) I'll never tell anyone that you smoke once in a while when life is too much to handle, maybe when your 38-year-old patient dies of heart attack, or when a mother of three gets a very bad skin cancer, or when your daughter is depressed and seems to have lost any will to live. You've been good enough to stop smoking 20 smokes a day after thirty years of killer habit, and I'm proud of you. I can never tell you because you always want to be perfect in our eyes. You're not perfect but you still are a great doctor and a great dad. Thank you.

#22 This will come too late to ever be seen.

Image source: anon, Ev / unsplash (not the actual photo) That I was homeless for more than two years. During the recession from 2008 to some time in 2010, I lost my job, and eventually was kicked out of my apartment. I had a 10-year old car that was paid off, so I lived out of that until I found a series of jobs cleaning houses, working in a recreational center part time. Parents lived 1,000 miles away and I managed to keep a mailing address at a friend's so they never realized. It would have killed them that I didn't want to ask for help, I wanted to do it on my own.

#23 I was molested as a child by a babysitter 10 years older than I. My parents where trying to help her out because she was having issues in her abusive home. Her father was tossed in jail. This went on from what I can remember for at least two years. I was 4-5years old. I didn't tell anyone... until I stated dating at 14. My parents do not know because.. A. They were trying to help her, and I felt sorry for her. (I realize that her hurting me voids this, but for a preschoolers mind it didn't work that way.) B. By the time I felt I could say something, so much time had passed that all I could see happening was me hurting my parents, making them blame themselves. Why do that? I see this person from time to time in passing at the supermarket, we have mutual acquaintances. People bring her up. That bothers me, I don't care what is happening in her life. I think she was going though some f****d up s**t and passed it on. I feel sorry for her. When I see her I look her in the eye and stand strong. Almost to say "You know what you did and I am not broken because of it."

Image source: curlysuethrowaway

#24 When I was like 11, I wanted to get out of school the next day, so on the way home from a superbowl party with my mom I started acting like my stomach hurt , she said she'd give me something at home for my stomachache. Knowing this wouldn't get me out of school, I started fake crying and said it really really hurts, by this time we were already in the driveway of our apartment, she looked at me and said I'm gonna take you to the hospital but if your faking ,I'm gonna beat your a*s! (mexican household ), so I stuck to my story and continued sobbing and saying it hurts, we get to the hospital and they don't know what's wrong with me so they wanna do a cat scan of me, my mom agrees and off I go, after the scan the doctor told us he thinks my appendix looked a little inflamed and that was probably the reason for the pain(I literally had no pain or discomfort anywhere ) and that they wanted to remove it which means surgery , my heart sank at the news, but I knew I couldn't confess now I was to deep. So they schedule the surgery for the next morning , the morning comes and about half my family is there for support and prayer. I'm super f*****g nervous at this point so when the nurse gave me a shot on my butt cheek I accidentally tensed up and felt one of the worst pains of my life , they take me into surgery and everything thing went fine,the surgeon even came to recovery and showed me my appendix which was awesome! I stayed in the hospital for about a day then I went home but before that the doc told my mom I couldn't go back to school for about two weeks while cuts healed which was also awesome! Even better my church royal ranger group visited me at my house and brought me this big basket filled with snacks and candy. It was the best two weeks of my life, my mom made my brother get me what I wanted cuz she didn't want me moving around ,I just played video games the entire two weeks,then I had to go back to school.

I'm 22 now and have not told a soul I was faking being sick, I like to think of it as one of my greatest achievements. The end....sorry ma. TL:DR- faked being sick and went into surgery just to get out of school. Image source: anon

#25 I can never tell them that my #1 goal as a parent is to handle relationship issues differently than they did. They went through an extremely messy divorce when I was 8 and my only memory of them together is them screaming at each other and my sister and I hiding in our rooms.

Image source: anon, Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov / unsplash (not the actual photo) Then it was 10+ years of them talking s**t about each other to us, putting us in the middle of all their arguments, and giving us a hug e guilt trip whenever they felt like we were spending more time with the other one than with them. It's been 20 years now and my mom will STILL talk s**t about my dad and stepmom every once in awhile, despite me asking her over and over to stop. I am happily married but if I were to ever get divorced I will never put my daughter in the middle of arguments, speak badly about her father to her, or make her feel guilty for having a relationship with him. It's the #1 thing I learned from my parents and I think they would be devastated to realize the true effect it has had on me.