People Are Sharing The Shocking Secrets Their Parents Waited Until They Were Adults To Tell Them, And These Are Wild
Not too long ago, we rounded up a Reddit thread where user u/skadarski asked people to share the secrets their parents didn't tell them until they were adults, and they were seriously shocking:
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Here are some of the most memorable responses from the original thread, along with some new comments from our BuzzFeed Community readers:
1."My mother waited until I was 24 years old to tell me she won $20 MILLION in the lottery when I was 3 years old — she said I had told her the winning numbers in a dream! But she didn't save any of the money for college or a car for me. She just mentioned it casually one day, and it blew my mind!"
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2."When I was 19, I started dating a guy I went to high school with who I'd had a crush on since 9th grade. When I told my mom his name, she went totally white in the face! She asked me his mom's name, so I told her, and she freaked out. Apparently, before I was born, my dad had cheated on my mom, and the woman claimed to be pregnant. They never had a DNA test done, but I'm pretty sure I dated my brother."
3."When I was growing up, there was a story going around about how a local prince wanted to marry me and offered things like cows for my hand in marriage. Well, when my father passed away, I went back to my home country and discovered that the prince was the president's son, and it wasn't an offer, it was a demand. The company my dad worked for had to smuggle us out of the country because he was going to make me his wife! I was a toddler, and this was going to be an arranged marriage for when I came of age."
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4."My sister Bridget and I and our next door neighbor Sarah were basically raised as siblings. We called her parents 'Uncle Ron' and 'Aunt Cathy,' and she called our parents 'Uncle Paul' and 'Aunt Gloria.' Well, in our mid-20s, our parents came clean that the two couples had a several decades-long polyamorous relationship, and that I was most likely 'Uncle Ron's' biological son. On top of that, Ancestry DNA confirmed that my dad was Sarah's biological father! The most surprising thing was that none of us kids caught on until they told us!"
5."That the reason my parents finally divorced after years of dad's infidelity was that he had gotten my sister's teacher pregnant."
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6."My house was burned down when I was a kid, and when I was an adult, my dad told me that my mom was actually the one who burned it down!
"He was away a lot, and she wanted attention. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder later."
7."When I was a kid, I was friends with the woman who lived next door. She would read to me, play with me, and take me on walks, and she was like my best friend. One morning, her dad was at my house when I woke up, and he gave me a painting she had made. My parents told me my friend had to move to another city for work, and she had left the painting so that I'd always remember her.
"Sometime later, we ended up moving to another city, but we returned years later after my dad died, and I found out the woman's dad and sister were still living there. That's when they told me the truth, that she had actually died in a car accident back then."
8."Growing up in Mexico, we lived in a middle class neighborhood. There was this one house across the street that had high walls and a huge gate; to me it always seemed empty. Well, once we were playing soccer in the street, and the ball went over the fence. We were trying to jump over the fence to recover the ball when my dad came running and yelling at us. From then on, we were never allowed to be anywhere near the house across the street. Fast forward 20 years later, my family was chatting about the Narcos: Mexico series, when my dad says, 'You know we lived across the street from Felix Gallardos' safe house, right?' That house with the big fence — yup, that one."
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9."When I turned 18, I got a letter from a distant aunt and uncle whom I hadn't seen since I was a baby. There were hundreds of pictures of me and them together when I was a baby — they used to babysit me a lot and take me on vacations with them. Well, my mom revealed that they used me to smuggle things and that at one point, they literally smuggled cocaine in my diaper!"
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10."One Christmas after my dad died, my aunt casually mentioned that once he went missing for TWO YEARS when he was 20 years old, and nobody ever knew where he went! He just reappeared one day 'looking like Jesus,' and he never explained where we went or what happened. He just continued living his life, and literally no one ever mentioned it again!"
11."When I was in college, my parents got divorced, and my dad gave me all of the information on what to do if he dies. He told me where things are, and he had me go to his bank to sign a document that would give me access to his account. While we were leaving the bank, he said, 'Your mother is not who you think she is. Everything you need to know is in my deposit box.'
"I have no clue what he could be talking about, and he didn't elaborate. But I did ask my mom about it, and she laughed it off. I guess I'll find out one day!"
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12."My father always insisted that he was honorably discharged from the military during World War II. I never understood why, though, until last year, long after his death. Our family is Jewish, and as it turns out, when my father was serving in the war, he and his comrades came across a camp. My father took one of the German soldiers and made him get on his knees and beg for his life. His fellow soldiers didn't think he would go through with it, but he shot and killed the German soldier, execution style. The military had to cover this up, and my father was demoted. Of course, they created a different story, but he was definitely demoted and given an administrative discharge, not an honorable one. It's so hard to believe my father did this!"
13."When I was a kid, my dad accidentally hit a raccoon with his car. It had a baby raccoon with it that wasn't hurt, so we adopted it. We adored it, but we were not equipped to care for it. There was no lock or cage that could stop it, and it got into cupboards, ate our food and trash, and we'd find its shit in the most random places. Well, one day, my dad sat me down and told me that my raccoon had 'gone to live on a farm.' I was old enough to know what that meant, and I was heartbroken.
"But then, a few years ago, I was telling the story to my husband, and my dad interrupted me and said that, no, he actually, literally gave my raccoon away to a work acquaintance of his who had a farm! The raccoon had gotten so accustomed to humans that it constantly broke into the man's house, ate his food, and got enormously fat!"
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14."I thought my parents were renewing their vows at court on Valentine's Day. I wasn't told until 20 years later that they had actually divorced earlier on, and were getting remarried that day. I found that out in the midst of their second divorce!"
15."My parents revealed I had a much older half sister I didn't know about. Apparently, my father had got some girl knocked up in high school, and her parents didn't like him and thought they were too young to raise a kid, so they just packed up and moved. He knew she existed, but he never tried to locate her. Well, after I was in college, my sister had contacted him. Nobody bothered to mention this to me until I came home from college for Thanksgiving and a strange woman was sitting at the table. That's when my dad said, 'Meet your sister.'"
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16."My sister and I used to play with a doll we named and talked to and everything, and then one day, it just disappeared. Years later, when I was a teenager, my mother told me that back then, she had seen Child's Play, and our doll was the same size as Chucky and looked really realistic. She completely freaked out and couldn't sleep, so she secretly threw my beloved sweetheart away. I still miss it."
17."My grandma owned a bar when I was growing up, but I didn't know until after she passed away that she also ran a huge bookie gambling service from that bar. Then it all made sense — the random police visits, the robberies..."
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18."My sister took a DNA test to get some insight into her ancestry. When she got her results back, they said 0% Italian, even though our dad is 100% Italian. So she waited for me to take the test and get my results before confronting my parents. And four weeks later, I got them, and sure enough, I also had 0% Italian! The test identified that my dad isn't my biological father, and when we asked my mom about it, she told us that she and my dad had fertility issues, so they went to a sperm bank."
19."My parents told me that my great-uncle had left me a large sum of money in a trust for me to receive either at age 25, when I graduated from college, or when I was honorably discharged from military service, whichever came first. I joined the military right after high school, and when I had my DD 214 in hand, my parents took me to a lawyer who laid it all out! And because of the enhanced GI Bill, I didn't have to touch a cent of it for tuition — I bought a house instead!
"I miss my great-uncle as much for his wisdom as for his company."
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20."As an adult, I found out my mother tried to sell me to a distant family member for $1,500 when I was little. I remembered spending a lot of time at this family member's house, but never really knowing why. The only reason she wasn't successful in selling me is because my grandma stopped her."
21."When I turned 18, my dad told me that he'd spent 10 years as a drug smuggler, smuggling cocaine and weed he would get in South America, put on small planes that landed in the Caribbean, and then move to Florida on super-fast boats that only ran at night. He even told me about being stuck in a bar in Colombia for an entire day during an attempted coup, and that more than once, he traded guns he stole to the FARC for cocaine!
"This was all crazy to me because to me he was pretty much the most straitlaced dude alive!"
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22."When I was about 7, we went to stay with my dad at his place in a Latin American country, and he died while at his office. Family members traveled late at night to take us home, and we didn't understand why. Well, when we arrived home, my mom and a lady from the school sat us down at the kitchen table and told us that he died for medical reasons. But it wasn't until years later, when I was about 21, that a distant stepbrother suddenly came back into my life and told me that my dad had been shot and killed at work. In the country where he lived, the police were very corrupt and could be bribed, and from what my stepbrother told me, they reported that he killed himself and closed the case.
"But why would a father pay for flights for both of his young children to visit him for the holidays and then kill himself in his office? My father had money and a comfortable lifestyle, and I think that's why he was killed, but I'll never have any certainty of what happened that day."
And finally:
23."I was an adult when I found out that my mom was on the cover of Playboy."
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Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.
