By Heather Jones of hmjoneswriter.com
When I was a kid, I asked my parents what bestiality was. At 37, I still have not quite recovered from the mortification. I’d heard the term on Oprah (before she was a potential presidential candidate and high ruler of the world) and I was curious what it meant. I was not prepared for the answer I got, and I’m amazed I can still look my parents in the eye.
But with everything our children do to embarrass us on the regular (hello, pointing out how the lady in the public washroom is so old she should be dead), it’s only fair that we start stockpiling the things they do in childhood that can be used against them at a later date. Like, perhaps, letting everyone at their wedding know that you once caught them dancing naked in front of a full-length mirror at four, singing, “Don’t You Want Me Baby.”
[adsanity id=”35664″ align=”aligncenter”/]I asked a group of moms to share some of the things in their Bank of Future Embarrassment, and the responses I got were golden.
“My kids love numbers as preschoolers. My daughter’s is 49. Everything is 49. Not terrible. My son’s was 69. All the time. Needed 69 of everything. Was so embarrassing out in public.”
-Melanie
“My kid stripped all his clothes off at preschool and refused to put them back on. They had to remove the other kids.”
-Shawna
“My daughter told her daycare provider that ‘Mommy and Daddy like to play horsey. Daddy is always the horsey.’ In case you’re wondering, she has never walked in on us. If she did, she wouldn’t see that!”
-Kristin
[adsanity id=”35667″ align=”aligncenter”/](Responding to Kristin) “My toddler did walk in on us and I quickly said, ‘Daddy is cracking my back!’ Best I could come up with. I said, ‘Want me to crack your back?’ and she said, ‘No, I want Daddy to!’ He just about died.”
-Melanie
“My daughter wanted a camp out in the basement. With tents and all. My husband told her that, if she behaved all week, they could have a camp out. Fast forward to me picking her up from daycare. One of the providers pulls me aside and says, ‘I’m sure there’s a good explanation, but I wanted to let you know that she told us that, if she’s a good girl, she can sleep with Daddy in the basement.’ How we didn’t have CPS called on us, I’ll never know.”
-Leslie
“My son loves to vacation – just for the hotel stay. His daycare provider’s teenage son had just started dating a girl and he asked my son what he should get his girlfriend for Christmas. My son’s answer – ‘Take her to the hotel!’”
-Wanda
[adsanity id=”35665″ align=”aligncenter”/]“My son loved the Lilo and Stitch movie, and had a couple of little Stitch toys. Problem was, he could not say ‘Stitch’, he would say ‘Tits’. Imagine my initial surprise when he told me he had been watching the tits movie with Daddy!”
-Genie
“My daughter called sticks ‘dicks’ so she said to someone, ‘Me and Mommy saw so many dicks today!’”
-Kristin
Pamela, seasoned mom of four, had a tough time narrowing it down to just one thing.
“One cried because I wouldn’t let him have puberty. He was three. We were at Walmart. Or the time my oldest son put the fact that I was pregnant together with his knowledge of the birds and the bees and came out with, ‘My mom is pregnant because she had sex’ at a friend’s house at dinner. Or when my two year old offered my boob to a crying baby at Canadian Tire.”
[adsanity id=”35666″ align=”aligncenter”/]So let them embarrass you at the grocery store, the doctor’s office, or in parent-teacher conferences. Simply start your list, and keep reworking that wedding speech.
This post was originally published on Urban Moms.
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About the Author
I am a freelance writer and mother of two young boys. I am a regular contributor to online parenting publications such as Yummy Mummy Club and the Savvymom group of sites. I’ve been a featured writer on the CBC, HuffPost, Ravishly, and others.