Every parent does it, telling little "gray lies" in attempts to protect their children from the harsh or hard to explain. Yet sometimes things are even more shocking when the truth is finally revealed, as was just the case for these people who learned the stunning truth behind their parent's fibs.
Pocahontas Lives Forever.
“My mum replaced my Russian dwarf hamster Pocahontas about 5 times before finally she got fed up with it. I didn’t find out she’d been replacing my hamster until a couple of years ago when some asked me how long hamster’s live for and I said about 10 years and she laughed and then told me” (Source).
The Layers Of Lies.
“I was allergic to ice cream when I was little, and to keep me from being unhappy, my mom told me that the ice cream truck was a music truck–just drove around the neighborhood playing music for kids. Being a smart 3 or 4 year old, I found out it had ice cream. The cover up lie? Ah, yes, it has ice cream, but plays music when it’s out of ice cream so the children aren’t sad” (Source).
Happily Ever After.
“One of those grey lies that take 24 years to find out. There’s a picture of me as a 1 year old with my mum and dad together and we’re all laughing and having fun. This is placed prominently in the home. I used to ask what the occasion was and grew up being told that was taken at your auntie’s wedding. Little strange as no other pictures from other weddings on display. Well turns out that it was my parent’s wedding, after me and my dad had a long drive just the two of us and thought it’s time to come clean. Apparently my mother was married before to some guy and not everything was going well, so she had a break away from him and met my dad, But back in the day you couldn’t get divorced without the consent of both parties so after pleading to divorce the guy so she can marry my dad they decide to force the guys hand by having me. All happily ending though. Don’t know what happened to the guy. I was born to a cheating wife and was present at my own parent’s wedding. Every time I see that picture now when I visit I think how different my life may of been and the smiles and laughs we were having in picture take on a new meaning of relief and joy. I couldn’t wish for better parents” (Source).
Don’t Mess With Brutus.
“Mine involves a cat and he was my first pet so there was so much feels involved. I had Brutus since I was one, but we were going on vacation for the first time, and we dropped my cat Brutus off at my aunts farm that was about 20 minutes out of town. Someone to babysit him while we were away on vacation. He ran away, and I was heartbroken. Four months later, Brutus showed up at the end of our street. He had a very specific birthmark on him so it was definitely the same cat. My dad saw him and his jaw dropped. He was with us until I was 18. Found out later, at the age of 22, my Aunt was not babysitting and in fact they were trying to get rid of him. Brutus did not let that happen, my parents got owned” (Source).
Don’t Hold It In.
“I had a fear of pooping at school when I was younger so I would often hold it in all day until I got home. Unfortunately, this resulted in a pants-pooping accident in the fourth grade when I was unable to hold it. As a result, my mom started telling me about a ‘lady she knew at work’ who would hold in her poop so much that one time, it came out of her mouth. I was horrified and proceeded to tell everyone at school mama said to not hold your poop in for too long or it’ll come out of your mouth” (Source).
That’s Messed Up.
“My brother and I had a pair of rabbits when we were younger, and them being rabbits and of the opposite gender, got it on a lot. As is generally the way, this resulted in many baby rabbits, many of whom would mysteriously go missing. My parents explained it to us as neighborhood cats getting into the cage and taking them, which seemed plausible to 4 year old me. As it turns out, my grandma that lived with us was not only killing, gutting, and skinning the baby rabbits, but also making stew out of them and feeding it to us. I’ve never to this day had better stew though” (Source).
Is That Really Better Than The Truth?
“When I was younger, my parents got my siblings and I a golden retriever. He was the best dog in the world, in my 8 year old eyes. One day he just started pooping all over the house, and a few days later he ‘ran away’ according to my parents. I stood outside in freezing cold weather for hours, crying and yelling his name and for him to come home. Of course, he never returned. A few years ago, on a hunch, I asked my mom if that’s what really happened, and she told me, “No, Marshall ate a thermometer (the glass ones filled with mercury) off of the counter and went crazy (hence the pooping everywhere) so we had to put him down.” At that point I was old enough to understand that they did what they had to do, but they could’ve at least made me come inside and stop calling for him” (Source).
That’s Clever.
“I have a roommate who for 6 years, didn’t know that debit card could be used to purchase items at all stores. He thought he could only use it at banks. Guess who’s parents told him that” (Source).
Keep Calm And Carry On.
“When I was a little kid, I was sitting in a car at a store parking lot, waiting for my dad. So I see my dad coming back, and 2 guys approach him, they talk for a second, and he gives them his money clip, and they just walk away. Now, my dad is very cheap, and never gave money to anyone, and I always had off-brand everything cause it was cheaper, and he just gave some 2 random dudes a bunch of money. So, I was like ‘WTF dad?!’ He just said that they needed it more than he did. Only years later when this incident came up, did he reveal that they had a weapon, and he got robbed. But it was so casual, it didn’t really look like a robbery, they didn’t pull out a weapon or anything. They just showed it to him in a waistband” (Source).
Wait… Gooey??
“Oh, I’ve got a good one. My family had a Cockapoo mix growing up, we called him Gooey. He was mostly my mom’s dog but me and my brother LOVED him. One weekend my mom, brother and I were leaving to go visit my grandparents. When we returned my dad was acting weird and sadly told my mom that he had found Gooey dead one morning while we were gone. My dad said that he was old and he had died in his sleep in his favorite spot, he even took us to the nice little grave he made for him so us kids could say our goodbyes. Fast forward a few months and I have gone with my dad to his job so I could play with his boss’s daughter. Me and the daughter are in the yard playing when we see the neighbor kids come outside with a dog. I stopped playing and asked to pet the dog because it looked so much like my old Gooey. I told my dad about the dog right before we left his job that day and he acted surprised and told me to show him which neighbor’s house had this dog. My dad is talking with the guy who lives there for some time and then comes back and gets into the car, it’s then that he drops the bomb. Apparently, while we were off at the grandparent’s house to visit he had taken Gooey and our two other dogs to a local swimming hole so they could get exercise by swimming because it was so hot. Unfortunately Gooey had run off during the swim and my dad went nuts trying to find him for the rest of the weekend. By Monday he had given up and decided to fake the dog’s death. Reason being because he couldn’t bare to admit to my mom and us that he lost the dog. So he built a fake little grave and covered it in big pretty rocks so no wild animals would ‘dig it up’ and told us the dog died of old age (he even threw his back out making the rock mound which had him out of commission for quite a while). At this point I’m just so happy because Gooey is alive! I’m not even mad at my dad for lying. Dad says he talked to the neighbor who said we could take Gooey back, he just wants us to wait a few days to pick him up so his kids have a chance to say goodbye to the dog. We get back home and I bound through our front door and before my dad can get a word in I shout to my mother that ‘GOOEY IS ALIVE!! WE FOUND HIM!!!’ Mom is understandably confused, looks at my dad’s guilty face and puts the whole thing together and proceeds to flip out on him for lying about the dog. I didn’t care though, because I got to get my dead dog back! He ended up living to be about 20, he was a good boy” (Source).
That Got Heavy.
“That my father’s biological father ‘got sick and died’ when my father was just a few years old. Turns out bipolar disorder and suicide might as well be stitched into the family crest. On the bright side, my generation is the first to benefit from better medicine and behavioral understanding. Go, us!” (Source).
Definitely Too Much For A Child To Understand.
“From the first until the third grade, I had an English teacher who I really adored. She was always kind and happy and a genuinely nice person, always with a smile on her face. You could see that she loved kids and teaching. She always talked about moving to London. Two months before my family moved to Germany she disappeared. I asked my mom if she knew anything about this and she said that my teacher finally managed to move to Britain. 10 years forward and the topic came up again, because I was curious why our teacher left without telling us anything. My mother told me that my teacher was on vacation on her land house and apparently two disgusting guys took advantage of her her there and killed her afterwards. I was so shocked and angry at my mother not saying it earlier. Now, being 22, I’m grateful that my mom didn’t tell me until I was old enough to understand. Still, I’d wish i had a chance to say goodbye and I hope these sick losers got what they deserve” (Source).
A Very Strange Coincidence.
“My wife and I are guilty of this. We found an all black kitten with green eyes under my old truck. We were finally able to catch and tame it and get it like us. One morning, my wife left for work and the kitten was inside the tire hub. My wife ran over it. We couldn’t stand to tell our daughter (4 years old) what happened so we told her the kitten’s mamma had came and got it. Almost a year later a full grown black cat with green eyes shows up on our porch and walks in our door as if it had lived there forever. My daughter yells Twinkles your back! She is now 8 years old and not aware Twinkles is a neutered male we have no idea where he came from” (Source).
Buckle Up.
“My mother told my sister and I when we were little that the car wouldn’t start until we had our seat belts on” (Source).
No Judgments.
“I was told my grandma couldn’t stand up for a long time because she was old. I wondered why my other grandma could stand up fine. Turns out she had bone cancer and my parents didn’t tell me because they didn’t want me to treat her differently” (Source).
Guard Your Toys.
“I used to have this huge stuffed teddy bear. I slept with it every night. My mom’s boyfriend at the time was a truck driver, and they told me he took it along for a ride with him once, to use as a pillow. He didn’t have it when he came home, and he told me that he had given it to a little homeless girl, and it had made her so happy. I had proudly told everyone at school about the story, and even had my teachers PRAY for the little girl (I was in a catholic school). My mom was just sick of the thing, and they didn’t want me to be upset she had thrown it out. She told me years later, when I happened to bring up the story” (Source).
Don’t Be So Quick To Judge.
“One day I found out that my younger sister was getting a kitten. I was kinda mad because I was a selfish 7th grader at the time, and due to my immaturity I gave her a bit of my mind about always getting what she wants, yadda yadda, it should be the family’s pet, yadda, annoying kid stuff. I found out, years later, that my sister was basically clinically depressed, had been seeing a therapist that my parents kept secret from me, and that the new cat was supposed to be therapeutic since she had, at the time, felt like she didn’t have any friends. I felt like a real brat, even if I had been just a kid” (Source).
It Stays In Vegas.
“When I was little my grandpa used to go out to Las Vegas with some of his army buddies. So one day I came home from school (we lived with my grandparents) and I said, ‘Hey, where’s grandpa?’ Mom said he went to Vegas with his friends. I didn’t remember him packing, but just kinda accepted it. A week later we drive to the hospital. I’m totally confused at this point. And there’s my grandpa in a hospital bed; he had a massive heart attack, and since I was so close to him they didn’t want to tell me. My grandmother swears this never happened and I’m imagining things, but I’ve gotten my mom to sheepishly admit to it” (Source).
Guess We Have To Go The Long Way.
“When I was a kid, any time we went out to eat, my mom would tell me and my sister that after 4pm, people aren’t allowed to cross the street we’d normally cross to go home. It confused the hell out of me because of all the stuff teachers hammered into my little brain about how to cross the street, but I bought it anyway. She pretty much tricked us into exercising by getting us to walk a much longer way home” (Source).