It's a fact of life---kids will say and do just about anything that pops into their mind. They have no filters and a limited understanding of social norms. This deadly combination often leads to some very funny but very embarrassing situations for their parents to suffer through.
(Content edited for clarity.)
Burqas And Bedsheets
“My husband and I were walking through IKEA with my then 4-year-old daughter. Suddenly, she screams out excitedly, ‘Look Daddy, look at all the ninjas!’ It was a group of Muslim women wearing burqas.”
I Found The Baby!
“OH gosh. So, I’m (technically) Catholic, and every year my mom gets a King Cake, which is basically a loaf of sweet bread with a plastic baby Jesus baked in. I forget the logistics, but whoever finds the baby wins somehow. I was determined to find that stupid baby and ate the entire cake in the process. When the cake was gone, no one had found a baby. A few days later, my whole extended family was over for dinner, and I had to go to the bathroom. I flushed and all, but I guess the plastic baby that I had apparently eaten in the process of trying to find it had floated back to the top. My younger sister, probably 3 or 4 at the time, went to the bathroom after me, and came back to the table telling everyone that I had ‘pooped out a baby.’ I will never as long as I live forget the horrified look on my granddad’s face.”
Find A Tree
“Kid here. My parents had always taught me to go outside and pee if I couldn’t find a washroom. Like find a tree and pee behind it.
Anyways, so we are at my uncle’s wedding and we go outside for a family photo. I must have been 3 at the time. We set up for this photo, and my little brain decides that now is probably the perfect time to urinate, considering we were outside. So here I am peeing while everyone is sitting there stunned, and my uncle is just laughing uncontrollably.
Kicker is, I only heard about this last week at a family get together. And apparently, there’s a photo.”
Son, Give Daddy Your Shirt
“Me and my son (about 3 at the time) had just gotten done eating at a restaurant. On the drive home, I begin to feel my guts bubble. Quickly stop at the closest gas station. Grab my son and run to the bathroom. After emptying my bowels I realize, ‘Oh no! No toilet paper.’ There was literally nothing to wipe with. My son always wears tank tops. Why? Because Daddy does. Why does Daddy? Who knows. But I digress. As you can guess, I have my son take it off and I use that to wipe my butt. Not the best bonding experience, but it worked. Rightfully, he’s upset. While walking back out he’s crying. As we pass the clerk, the clerk asks, ‘What’s wrong buddy?’ My son replies whilst sobbing, ‘Daddy wipe his poop with my shirt!!!’ I exit as fast as possible. Never went back to that gas station.”
Just Going For My Morning Jog
“My brother could go from fully dressed to nothing on in 2.5 seconds. One day when I was about 10 and he was about 2, my mom wasn’t paying close enough attention to him as the school bus stopped at the end of the street to drop me off.
I was just stepping off the bus when I hear my name being called. I turn to see my stark brother with nothing on barreling towards me. I was the first stop, so everyone in my entire neighborhood between the ages of 5 to 10 was watching the scene unfold. I panicked and started running…the opposite direction from my house. A couple streets down I realized two things: my brother had a lot of stamina for a toddler, and I was running along the bus route. Eventually, I gave up, and I wrapped up my brother in my pink winter coat (did I mention this happened in January?) and walked home with as much dignity as I could muster while walking next to someone whose genitals were sticking out from underneath a bright pink coat.
I still have friends who mention that, 12 years later.”
“Mommy, I Don’t Like That Man”
“The most embarrassing? We were at the grocery store and my daughter was 3 at the time. I’m bagging my groceries and she’s sitting in the cart. Now she’s a huge girly girl, and was going through a phase where she claimed to only like things that were pink and purple, and hated any ‘boy’ colors. When we left the house to go shopping that day, she wouldn’t stop talking about how she hated my shoes because they were blue.
Anyways, I’m finishing up bagging my groceries when all of the sudden she yells, ‘Mommy, I don’t like that man.’ ‘Oh no,’ I think, as I look up to see her pointing to a black man bagging his groceries next to us. ‘I don’t like that man because he’s black. I don’t like black, I don’t like that man,’ she continues. The man was wearing a black t-shirt, black baseball hat, and black pants. She was legitimately talking about his clothes, but I pretty much died right there, mumbled at her to shut up, and left as fast as I could. We are white.”
She’s So Affectionate
“I was shopping with my sister and her kids. One of her children around 4 years old was tired of shopping and wanted to sit down. I was holding her other 2-year-old daughter. I went to purchase my items at the store, and she kept rubbing her face on mine. I thought she was being affectionate. The little monster rubbed boogers across my forehead. I didn’t notice until after the cashier rang me up.”
While The Parents Are Away, The Kids Will Play
“Oh, my kids are an endless source of embarrassment. Very first time I ever took my kids to my current SO’s house, we put my two girls down for a nap, and we go do the frick frack after we think they’re asleep. About ten minutes later, the older one starts yelling the younger one’s name. We ignore it, my girls usually resist naps. Ten minutes after that, my older one is still calling out the younger one’s name telling us to come to her. We go to check it out. I open the door and immediately see the problem. The younger one had taken off her diaper and pooped on my (very new at that point) SO’s carpet in his new house. Cue absolute embarrassment. This is the same child that took forever to warm up to my SO (she’s just not a very social child), but he loved me and tried his best with her. Finally, one day she goes up to him and asks to be picked up. He’s thinking, ‘Yes! She likes me!’ and proceeds to pick her up and put her on his lap. She immediately farts on him and jumps down. She still does this on a regular basis nearly a year later. Children! I’m trying to start and keep a relationship here. Thanks for the help (not). Fast forward a few months. Having survived the early relationship mishaps, me, the SO, and the kids are at the mall. The kids are walking beside us and my older one gets really excited all of a sudden. I thought it was because we were passing by a cell phone booth and I start encouraging her happy babbling. It was at that point she decides to happily and loudly squeal ‘I FART!!!’ Omg child.”
Child Kidnapper
“I used to help my sister out and pick up my then 4-year-old nephew from school. His main teacher had met me before and knew it was safe to discharge him to me, but on this particular day, only the teacher’s helper was present. I saw my nephew in the playground, and as I bent down to hug him, the little brat started screaming, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ Teachers and parents came running and grabbed my nephew, menacingly glaring at this shady-looking person in a baggy hoodie trying to steal a kid.
At first, I tried settling the situation myself calmly claiming to be his aunt, but when they asked him if that’s true he yelled, ‘I don’t know this person.’ Sigh. So I waited outside the gates while they called the teacher and my sister, describing my appearance to verify. During all this, my nephew got bored of his game and finally said, ‘Ok, let’s go.’ They did eventually let me take him, albeit reluctantly. He joyfully took my hand and skipped off to the car. I’m never having kids.”
Bearer Of Bad News
“Not me, but one of my younger brothers. He and my dad were in an automotive part store, just finishing up purchasing some items. My brother noticed the next gentleman in line had a long, white beard. He pointed up at the man’s face and very seriously said, ‘You’re going to die soon.’
The man apparently laughed and agreed that his time was coming.”
Venus Fly Trap Madness
“So, one day my mom brought me to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, which is basically a huge collection of plants (Exciting, right?). I was bored out of my mind, and saw a sign for a ‘Venus Fly Trap.’ I think, ‘That sounds cool (relatively)!’ But my mom is stuck over in the perennials section and won’t budge. So I run off as 4-year-olds do, and see the Fly Traps.
Not understanding the ‘Trap’ part, I put my finger in one’s ‘mouth.’ It tickles, meh. I go around and find the biggest one. It is a huge one, it’s mouth is a foot in diameter (to a 4-year-old, that’s like at least a yard). I stick my entire forearm in, and it hurts a little bit. But I can’t take my arm out, this guy is strong. Fortunately, he lets go after a minute. I think, ‘How can I get rid of this public menace, so no one else suffers my fate?’
I look around, alas there are no weapons, not even a stray stick in the Venus Fly Trap section. I realize my only weapon is my poop, given how this thing has a huge mouth and my mom told me never to eat my poop or I will get very sick. I carefully lower my pants, step on the rim of the vase (couldn’t dump from ground level), and get in dumping position. I wait ten seconds for his mouth to fully open and release. Right on target. I quickly put my pants back on and admire my work. He closes his mouth on the thing, and I go back to my mom. When we finally get back to the Fly Trap exhibition, the big one is a sickly brown color, mouth closed… My work is done.
I still feel bad for that plant today.”
Monkey See, Monkey Do
“My daughter is only 1 year old but can already say some words. Sometimes, her dad and I grab each other’s tummies and say ‘fat’ or ‘fatty’ in an affectionate way, and she looks. So the other day, some friends of my mom came over to visit and we went to a park. My daughter was playing, but then came over and started saying ‘hello’ to all the women. I guess one of them used the word ‘fat’ (I didn’t hear it, but I can’t think of what else could have prompted my daughter to do this), so she walked over to her (coincidentally, she was the biggest one), pinched her on the leg, and said, ‘Fatty.’ I was so embarrassed, but everybody laughed, so obviously she kept doing it… Well, I picked her up so she would stop doing that, but she started crying ‘FAT, FATTYYY!’ while pointing at my mom’s friend.”
Flight Delays
“Long before 9/11, we were mistakenly seated in an exit row on a puddle jumper going from some little airport in Florida to Miami.
We were boarding and my kid unsealed the plane. Yes, we were still on the ground. Thankfully.
I pretended I didn’t know him. The stewardess grabbed him by the arm and sat him back with someone else in the plane; she just whisked him away to the back of the plane without consulting me – no ‘are you this young man’s mother?’
I just went with it.
Someone from the maintenance division came and verified the door was closed before we could take off. Many people griped about possibly missing their connections.
He later complained that the person he’d been sat next to snored and fell asleep on him.
In his defense, he was 8, restless and had been in an airport all day.
When I asked him why he thought that was a good idea, he explained he felt that the icon depicting someone opening the door of the plane was a personal call to action.
And really, the stewardess’ intervention probably saved him from the impact of me losing my temper entirely and at a level totally unreasonable to the situation in a really small plane. I had been trapped in an airport trying to keep him entertained and occupied all day. If they can have smoking rooms, they should have play areas in the airport.
He is a functional adult these days and has never done anything quite that dumb again.
Except for the time he rode his bicycle into the side of an elderly man’s slowly moving car. That was fun. Especially when he was convinced the press was going to feature him on the evening news…
I do love my son.”
Please Don’t Say Anything…
“When my son was a baby, I was holding him (facing out on my hip, he liked to see the world) in line at the grocery store. Suddenly, the lady behind me let out a yelp. She had leaned over to get some gum or candy from across the belt thing, and he’d grabbed her top. I tried prying his fingers off, but he had a really good grip. She had quite an ample bosom and low cut top. It was a bit embarrassing.
The other time was with my daughter when she was about 5 (again at the store), and the cashier was talking to her but had a mole with hair coming out of it. I had seen it and thought in my head, ‘Please don’t say anything…please don’t say anything.’ Too late. She just went, ‘Did you know there’s whiskers coming out of that booger on your face?'”
An Unhappy Meal In Canada
“My family took a trip to Canada and got there at about midnight. At the time, I was 4, and I was never up anywhere near that late. We hadn’t eaten the entire day, so we went to a random mall’s food court. I ended up getting a happy meal, but changed my mind and got chicken nuggets. While I ate the nuggets, my dad ate the happy meal. When we were about to leave I noticed that my dad had eaten the happy meal. I immediately began screaming, ‘Daddy ate my happy meal.’ Cue everyone looking at my dad like he was a monster.
I still remember what I was thinking. I wasn’t mad he ate it; I was mad he didn’t ask me first. I wasn’t going to eat it, but gosh darn it, that was my happy meal.”
You Brought The Wrong One!
“When I was about 3 years old, we used to have a maid. The maid had three daughters, one was about 6 months old, the other one was my age, and the oldest one was like 7.
Anyway, one day the maid says she’s going to bring her daughter over so we can play. I was so excited for her to bring over someone my age so I could have a new friend!
The next day comes, and the maid shows up with her 6-month-old daughter. I look at her and her daughter in disappointment and run off yelling, ‘You brought the wrong one! You brought the wrong one!'”
Doors Are Hard
“When I was about 10, I was at a hotel with my parents, and a lot of my parents’ friends were there. I thought it would be a good idea to get into the same compartment of one of those rotating doors as a morbidly obese man. Well, while in the door, I stepped on the back of his foot, knocking him over. The door kept going, and I then stepped on him to avoid being hit by the moving door. The door then made a horrible grinding sound and stopped as it couldn’t push him any farther. I then sat in this glass door for 20 minutes while someone from service came to fix it while my parents and their friends watched, horrified. The whole time the man I stepped on said nothing to me.”
What’s Under Here?
“I was a nanny for a while. At a family party, little kid in my charge (about 3, from what I remember) walks up to a teenage girl sitting down, lifts up her dress and shoves his head underneath. It’s always difficult to know how/if you should discipline kids as a nanny in any family situation, especially a big one—but his dad just laughed and said, ‘You have to ask her out for dinner first.'”
Mom’s New Van
“My parents told me when I was around 4ish that they decided to buy a new van. I was apparently elated at the thought of a new vehicle and had to tell everyone I met. At the grocery store, I promptly informed the cashier that my mom ‘is getting a new man!!’
On another note, last year I was in a crowded elevator with my sister and father, with my sister standing between my father and I. It’s fun to mess with her because she gets super embarrassed very easily, so I started softly meowing at her and started doing it louder and louder. She starts getting flustered and as an attempt to escape, nudges my dad and says ‘Oh boy, looks like she didn’t take her meds today huh?’ To which my dad stares her dead in the eye and after about 3 seconds, begins to bark loudly in her face. There was no escape for her.”