Parents would do anything to protect their children from harm, including any emotional or mental harm to their childhood. These parents share how they had to think on their feet to make sure their children didn't lose a piece of their innocence during these traumatic events.
After This Pregnancy Scare They Didn’t Know If They’d Be Able To Have Another Child
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“During the birth of our middle son, my wife’s uterus started to rupture. The placenta was in an awkward position and caused the tear during labor. She was rushed into surgery for an emergency c-section. I was convinced that she was going to die and didn’t know what to do. I ended up calling her parents after an internal debate with myself. They came up and brought my oldest son with them. They were babysitting for us and had to bring him along. My oldest was only 18-months-old at the time and had no clue what was going on. I took him into the little play area and we played around for what felt like hours for me, but he was just having a grand ole time playing with the random toys. He was unaware that his mom and little brother were in a life-threatening situation, and I couldn’t help but think about how I was going to explain it to him.
My wife did end up losing a lot of blood and needed a blood transfusion, but she made a full recovery. My son spent a little bit of time in the NICU but was good to go after a few days. Last time I shared this I took some heat because people thought I got my wife pregnant again after this whole ordeal. We are crazy but are not that crazy. We had another boy via adoption. She wasn’t going through that again.”
“I’m So Grateful The Mind Is Able To Protect You From Feeling Pain From Severe Injuries”
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“When my daughter was five years old, she ran into our glass door. I quickly checked her over and she seemed fine just had a little shock from the noise and glass going everywhere. Then I noticed a large pool of blood forming on the floor, and when I turned her around, I saw that she had a deep hole in the back of her arm. Without changing my demeanor at all I quickly put my hand on the wound and applied pressure and calmly asked my partner to grab a towel and signaled him to go into the next room and call an ambulance.
I then told my daughter that something exciting was about to happen, an ambulance was coming and she was going to get to ride in it and if she was really lucky they might put the siren on. We sat on the porch and sang songs and hugged her with the towel putting pressure on her arm. As soon as the paramedics arrived, they realized that she didn’t know yet what had happened and played along, ‘playing doctor’ bandaging her arm and didn’t let on at all that anything was wrong. I’m grateful the mind is able to protect you from feeling pain from severe injuries.”
Thank Goodness They’d Be Too Young To Remember This Nightmare
“My first and only child was about 10 months old when my wife was first diagnosed with chest cancer. Her treatment lasted for about eight months and they take in a surprising amount during these times. We had to put on a brave face while going through a living nightmare, having only recently been married and having our first child. It was tough having to finish work, then drive to the hospital so she could have her next bout of Chemo then radiotherapy. Our family and friends babysat as often as they could but there were inevitable nights where we had to take him with us to the hospital. His little face as she sat in the chair all wired up in a room full of other people all looking sick. I can only imagine what he must have thought was going on.
We tried to make light of it as best we could; when she lost her hair, we laughed and said they had the same hair, and he liked to stroke her head and it made him giggle. The nurses gave him lots of treats like stickers and pencils to keep him occupied which I was so grateful for.
I know he was young and it could have been much worse if he was five years old, for example, but I am so glad he was young and will probably remember none of that experience or remember all the tears and fear his parents had.”
Their Daughter’s Friendly Pen Pals Soon Had Dark Intentions
“During the late-80s, our teenage daughter loved reading teen magazines. One of the magazines sponsored a pen pal club. My daughter signed up. She sent in her picture, name, and address. The magazine ran her picture and information on two separate occasions.
Soon, she received letters from all over the nation and across the world. She tried keeping up with all pen pals. She even met one of them in person when she visited our city.
One day, creepy postcards began arriving in our mailbox. The words written on the postcards raised red flags within us. My husband and I decided that we’d keep the postcards from our daughter. They were disconcerting and caused us to fear for her safety.
We had an offer to move to a new city for a job that would advance my husband’s career. We decided to accept the offer and move.
My husband had our mail forwarded to his new office address. The disturbing postcards and letters kept arriving. Each was more threatening than the last.
The postcards and letters never had a return address. But they had postmarks from a city about 2,000 miles away.
We couldn’t go to the police. We didn’t want our daughter to be afraid of this man who was writing these awful things to her.
One day, the postcards and letters stopped coming. Our minds were finally at ease. Our daughter never knew of the things this disturbed individual wrote to her. We took the fear and anxiety upon ourselves. It was our job, as her parents, to protect her. When it was over, we breathed a sigh of relief.
I’ve often wondered if he ever showed up at our old address looking for my daughter. I’ve googled our previous residence, and the new owners of the house have added protective features to the house. They have bars on the windows and signs in the front yard warning that the home has alarms.”
Their Kids Slept Through The Most Terrifying Experience In Their Home
“A lifelong friend of mine since kindergarten was dealing with hard times. He was battling several addictions. I let him sleep in my garage, use the bathroom/shower, etc. One Saturday night, he, my wife, and I were chilling in the garage drinking a few. Our 4 and 6-year-old children are asleep in their beds. We’re having a blast listening to music like the old days. He’s telling me how he hasn’t touched any illegal substances for a week or so, and he’s been talking to this cashier at the gas station down the road he likes. It’s a good night. We’re all hungry, so my wife and I leave to get food. I ask him to keep an ear out for the kids, we’ll be gone 15 minutes.
We get home and every window is smashed out of the front of the house. The front door is trashed; it won’t even open. My wife and I run around back and come in. He’s on the kitchen floor covered in blood with the landline phone in his hand. My wife runs to the kid’s room. He’s delusional and the cops are pulling in the driveway. He gets hauled off in an ambulance. Cops and detectives are snapping pics of the living room/kitchen/front of the house. Apparently, gas station chick who my buddy’s been seeing is married and her thug husband just got out of jail and came to mess him up. The whole time, my kids never woke up. My wife sat in their room and rubbed their backs while the cops went through the house. They never knew about it until we told them years later.”
All She Could Do Was Look At Her Child And Say, “Isn’t It Beautiful?”
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“We were living in a rural area in Africa that gets some serious bushfires during the dry season. One night I woke up in the middle of the night and heard my mother moving around – my dad was away for work – so I went to her. She was standing at her bedroom window, fully dressed, shoes and all, looking out the window. It was black dark, no light anywhere, except a thick line of bright orange going all the way across the horizon. Massive bushfire, too close.
I asked her what we would do if it came our way, and she laughed and said ‘It won’t.’ I was young enough that I took her word for it and headed back to bed.
Later on, I found out she stayed at that window all night, trying to work out whether it was coming our way, at what point she should haul us out of bed and throw us into the car, how much petrol she had, and where she should go.
When I think about that night, what I remember is how beautiful it was, because that’s the other thing she said to me: ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ When she talks about that night, she still looks sick to her stomach.”
Even If It Wasn’t Much, This Treat Always Made Him Feel Special
“He could tell we were short on food a lot, but for some reason, it never occurred to him that was why I let him have Froot Loops for dinner. He thought it meant he’d been particularly good that day. I let him think that and tried to get some protein in him the next day.”
Once She Saw This Creepy Man She Knew She’d Have To Outsmart Him
“I was at a rest stop with my two daughters. My son and their father were in a separate vehicle a few miles behind me, so I was letting the girls stretch and run around while we waited for the boys to catch up. I noticed a guy watching us. He got closer and his hand was down the front of his jeans. I started freaking out but didn’t want to alarm the girls. I thought quickly and looked up at the restroom and said loudly ‘Oh, there’s Daddy! He’s finally done, let’s go!’ I even waved at the restroom building and said ‘I’m over here babe!’ My lie worked! The creep did a 180, and as soon as he was out of my vicinity, I ran with the girls to my car and cried until I got to the next exit. I carry pepper spray now!”
This Home Invasion Went Right Over Her Little Ones’ Heads
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“We were living in southern California, just north of the border, for a few years while my husband was active duty in the Navy. He was away a lot. At the time, we had a 4-year-old son and our daughter was just a few months old. This particular morning I got up with our son and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. We had a sliding glass door in the kitchen that leads out to the backyard. I noticed our gate was open. That was odd. When I opened the blinds at the glass door, there was a guy bent down trying to move the door open.
I froze. Our son was in the living room unaware of what was happening. Our daughter was still sleeping. I formulated this plan to have my son go out the front door over to our neighbor’s house (they were a nice older couple with dogs he liked), then I would go get my daughter and hide upstairs with my phone if I needed to. The guy stopped what he was doing, saw the look on my face, and started pleading with me to let him use my phone and not call the cops. I backed away from the door, motioned that I’d be right back, and kept backing up into the living room. I got the phone and called 911. He had left by the time I came back. When I spoke with the operator, she said the police were already on their way because he had gone into other people’s yards to try the same thing. Five minutes later, I heard him and the cops yelling at each other on the next road over in our complex. He got arrested. My kids never had any idea what was going on.”
This Batgirl Would Have To Fly Another Day
“I was once on vacation with my wife and 3-year-old daughter (who’s obsessed with Batman). I took her to movie world and got her a Batman mask and cape, and she stayed in character the whole time. We were serving dinner that night back in the apartment we were staying in, and my little girl went to the toilet. The next thing she’s dragging a chair over to the balcony window in the bedroom. We were on the 55th floor.
She was going to fly like Batman with her cape on. Luckily I could see her reflection through the kitchen window. I ran and grabbed her and yelled at her; I shouldn’t have but it probably scared her in the right way. I’m her dad and I’m not a big crier, but Jesus I balled my eyes out. She was too young to understand but if the balcony wasn’t enclosed and the window wasn’t so difficult to open she’d have just jumped straight out expecting to fly just like Batman goes through all the big buildings.”
This “Fun” Slumber Party Wasn’t So Fun After All
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“I live on the East Coast. A few years ago, there was a derecho (high-speed straight-line winds) that came through our area. I’ve lived on the East Coast my entire life and never heard of anything like this.
At the time, the kids were five and seven years old.
I woke up in the middle of the night to hear our roof rattling and the wind howling outside. The electricity was out. So, outside, nothing but darkness and wind that sounded like it was about to pick up the house. I woke up my wife, and we listened for a little while before we decided to go downstairs.
So, I told the kids we were going to have a fun slumber party downstairs. They didn’t think about why I was getting them up at one or two in the morning to have a slumber party, but I got out their sleeping bags and lit some candles.
After about 20 minutes, they had drifted off again, and the wind seemed to be getting even worse. A few trees audibly split in half in our neighborhood.
So, I got the kids up again, and we are going to have a fun slumber party in the basement. They went downstairs, got into the sleeping bags, and drifted off again, while I stared out the half-window wondering if there was a tornado or something out there.
Eventually, around 4 or 5 a.m., the slumber party was canceled, and they went back upstairs to sleep. Neither of them remembered any of it, although numerous trees had been destroyed, and more than few houses had lost portions of their roofs.”
Driving The Wrong Way Could’ve Been The Death Of Her Family
“We were driving out to the East Coast, and since it’s easier to drive when kids are sleeping, it was a rainy, dark night on a rural Pennsylvania freeway. The highway was divided by a steep hill and dense woods. We were in the left lane, and up ahead, I saw headlights coming toward us. It took a few seconds to register that someone was driving the wrong way on the highway and that they were in our lane. I quickly got over to the right lane because there wasn’t time to stop. They passed me safely in the left lane, but my heart was beating so fast I thought I was having a panic attack. I pulled over and called 911, giving the best description I could.
Fortunately, there was an officer nearby, and I found out later that they caught him and that he didn’t hit anyone. My kid slept through the whole thing, but it took a while for me to calm down. I found a hotel shortly after, and gave up on the night driving for the rest of the trip.”
Seeing This Mean Cow Made This Mother’s Heart Stop
“We live on a farm and had a cow appropriately named Mean Cow.
My then-2-year-old was helping me finish chores, far away from Mean Cow, when I turned around and saw a 1,700-pound cow with an attitude problem about five feet away from my toddler who was playing with his toy truck and had slipped through the fence.
I calmly told him that he needed to come back right away. I guess I was too calm because he turned around and swatted Mean Cow on the nose. She walked off like she had no idea what had just happened, my kid turned around to play with his truck and I dragged him through the fence crying.”
This Child’s Expedition Could’ve Been Their Very Last
“I used to work for a crappy preschool; all the best supplies and activities but a bunch of lazy teachers who seemed to dislike children.
At this preschool, we had forest day. Every Friday, we would take the kids into the woods and just hang out for about four hours. The group would divide into two. One part of the group would stay in the clearing that was our unofficial basecamp and the other part would go for a walk.
Since the majority of my coworkers were lazy, I was often the person that took the kids who wanted to go for a walk on a walk. I had to cap the number of kids that went with me at ten because I didn’t want to be responsible for more than that.
I had 10 out of 25 kids on my own and the other four teachers had the remaining 15 students. I would walk the kids about a mile to a farm to look at the horses and back again.
One day, when I was walking back with my group of kids, I was about half a mile from our basecamp in the woods when I saw a small figure on the path ahead of me about to enter the woods in the direction of the nearby train tracks.
I thought it was odd that whoever was walking in the woods with their child wouldn’t be in sight. Then I realized that it was one of the 3-year-olds from our school. I ran and grabbed her before she could walk to the tracks and went back to the clearing with the eleven kids I now had.
At the clearing, it was evident that the four teachers who were responsible for 15 children were all too busy playing on their phones and gossiping with each other to realize that one of the kids had disappeared for a while. She must have been gone for at least 20 minutes. If I hadn’t come across her on that path at that time, I wouldn’t have noticed her in the woods, walking towards the train tracks. We are lucky we didn’t end up with a dead kid that day.
I quit several years ago, and I still get mad about that.”
This Mother Would Do Anything To Protect Her Kids Time And Time Again
“We live in tornado alley, so sometimes it’s ‘Random Board Games in the Closet Night! Grab the dogs, the bottled water, and some blankets! Board games are so fun!’
Another was when I could hear shots up and down the street behind us. We don’t live in a dangerous area, but everyone has a neighborhood crazy. We had a fun evening of ‘slumber party on the living room floor.’
And when my husband was deployed, we kept the kids oblivious of any danger he was in while overseas. Sometimes when communication was sparse, my husband was camping and didn’t have a cell reception It wasn’t that a mortar took out some essential piece of equipment, or that he had to leave the wire for a few days.
I also had a major pulmonary embolism in March and nearly died. The kids were so oblivious during my stay in the ICU that they told my sister they didn’t load their dishes into the dishwasher because ‘mom will just do it when she gets back from the doctor.’
Not my proudest parenting moment, but I was glad they weren’t freaking out and didn’t realize how close they were to being mom-less.”
Their Family Narrowly Escaped Death On This Cold, Icy Night
“One winter, four years ago, I was driving across Snoqualmie Pass to my parents’ house for Christmas and I managed to slip through just as the road opened after plowing. There was one car in front of me who vanished ahead leaving faint tracks in the still falling snow. Within a few minutes, the tracks had vanished along with any light source against the driving snow that had gotten thicker as we climbed the pass. About 10 minutes in, I can’t see anything but white on the ground and snow-covered pines to my right, with a 100-foot drop between the two. The car begins to slide to the right as we round a curve in the road and it took 20 years of Canadian winter driving skill to massage the gas pedal enough to keep the car from going over the edge.
My kids were in the back seat screaming ‘Wheeee!’ as we slid sideways across three lanes. As we pulled straight and I shifted to second gear, I laughed out loud and said that was the only time we were doing that.
I’ll never drive that pass at night again in winter, I’ve seen all the final destination movies and am pretty sure that’s the best plan.”