What did you keep hidden from your parents as a teenager?

[BeckyRac]

What did you keep hidden from your parents?

I bought a pony with my student loan.

How unhappy I was at my boarding school.
It never crossed my mind I had a choice, it was what it was.

I actually genuinely think that if I had told them they would have moved me.

I also hid when I started my periods and told my friends and her older sisters instead. DM realised when she found the soiled knickers that I tried to hide from her.

Going on the pill, sexual assaults (plural), getting a tattoo, travelling to other cities alone, alcohol and occasional drug dabbling, boyfriends.

Risky stuff, looking back, but my parents would have victim blamed me for the bad stuff and gone crazy about the other (self medicating?) things, they were so strict and controlling.

That I wasn't staying at a friends house every Friday night but instead going out drinking and sleeping with whatever man I managed to pull. (Aged 15+)
That I came home on a Friday lunchtime from school as I couldn't be bothered with P.E. I did this for 2years and the school never seemed to notice and certainly didn't question me or contact my mother.
An abortion (Aged 15)
Drinking and drugs
Hiding clothes/perfume etc or saying I'd borrowed them from a friend when really I'd stolen them ( Aged 14+)
Being arrested and put in a cell for 4hours as a 15yr old for stealing alcoholic lemonade in Tesco.

I was a horror

For those that might have kids now, do you consciously parent completely differently so you have a better relationship with your kids?
As a teen I hid very little as I was so boring and my mum was so open there didn't seem to be any need. Did hide usual teenage drinking but she probably knew.
I hide stuff now as my life is a source of gossip to be discussed with everyone she meets. It's annoying when I've asked her to not to say anything and I hear it back from a different source so stopped sharing.

Everything, was one abusive and the other was fuck all use, being me would have been dangerous. I stole my Dads taxi takings when I was 17 and left home as my final fuck you.

Horrendous bulimia and an addiction to exercise. Hid it well for a long time until it was blindingly obvious.

Sex, drugs and smoking.

Unwanted pregnancy with a man who was 10 years older than me and in a position of trust - I booked an abortion but had a miscarriage which I also hid.

That my ‘nice, friendly and fun’ boyfriend was actually not very nice at all. Close to abusive I’d say.

That my sister’s boyfriend was a bit ‘questionable’ and did a couple of things that weren’t quite ok but would probably have been easily written off by him to my sister and parents.

@Sugarcube84

I bought a pony with my student loan.

This really made me laugh as amidst the sea of very sad admissions.

@Sugarcube84

I bought a pony with my student loan.

Random purchase

My mum boasted to the neighbour that I told her everything when the neighbour was lamenting the fact that her teenager wouldn’t talk to her. No, no mother dearest I told you what you wanted and needed to hear, I even shagged my boyfriend several times in your bed while you and dad were on holiday. You said‘I was pure until my wedding night and expect you to be the same!’ Ha ha ha ok then!

@TerryOrange not when you’ve wanted one since you were 9

@mermaidsariel I only told her when I was married with kids she’d had no idea, my friends (older) were in on it as I kept him at their stables. I used to help out with their ponies so my mum thought nothing of me going up there.

From my Mum I hid various piercings, the fact I hated living with them and their controlling rules and so many chores and couldnt wait to leave. The feeling was mutual and they made me leave just after my 16th birthday because she didnt want me to go to sixth form.

Buying pokemon cards with lunch money smoking and going to a nightclub.

Nothing, initially. Then when I realised that literally every little thing I did, no matter how under the radar, was wrong or bad, I stopped telling them anything.

For context, I told them a boy at school had asked me to the Comic Relief disco. I was so thrilled because I was a bit of an outsider and didn't have any proper mates and it was quite exciting for me to think a lad fancied me. My mums immediate response was to start saying things like 'why would he want to take you?' And 'do you think he has an agenda? And 'what if he rapes you?' Which put her so on edge and wrecked the whole idea of it for me. And then they decided I wasn't allowed to go and wouldn't give me the fiver ticket money.

It never improved. So I stopped telling them things.

I know it doesn't seem like much but at 14/15 my self esteem and confidence were through the floor, and the sad fact is my parents KNEW that, and they fully used it to their advantage to keep me in line.

Sexual abuse.

Where I was most weekend, who I was with and what i was doing.

Smoking, drinking, drugs, nothing mind blowingly different from PP

Everything

Shaving legs
Using immac for moustache
Drinking
Smoking
Cannabis
Starting period
Tampons
Pill
Sexual assault
Rape
Places I went
What I spent my money on
Boyfriends
Friends
Being unfairly sacked from PT job (harassment)
Salary/bank balance
Anything medical including abnormal smear and a colposcopy
Probably lots more

She was just critical and negative of everything - everything I did was either a waste of money, I shouldnt be doing it or was somehow my fault and I should have known better.

That when I was 14-16 I stayed at my older friend's house from after school Friday until Sunday night looking after her 2 dc while she went off with her new bf.. We didn't even have a house phone so I could check in. And she wondered why I left home at 17.

It took me a while to admit I’d started my periods.
That I was lonely at secondary school for the first couple of years as I didn’t have any close friends and was picked on by the ‘cool’ kids.
Later teens - drinking, drug use, casual sex - all of course the natural progression from having my self esteem destroyed by not fitting in at school and living with a stepfather who alternated between hating me and covertly manipulating me and trying to turn me against my mum. I did actually tell my mum about my stepdad but she didn’t believe me.

My DD is only little but I can never imagine justifying ruining her childhood for a man.

All sorts. Told my Mum I was going to a friend’s house many times when I was actually going to a boy’s house or sometimes to a gig (I’d say I was sleeping at their house but actually I’d be at a gig). Skipping school, smoking, drinking quite a lot, loads of piercings including my nipple.

Dreading my DC being teens.

Went through a shoplifting phase at 15, I’d tell my mum my Dad had bought me the things and she believed me because he did constantly buy me stuff. Got caught eventually and put in a cell for a few hours on a Saturday night which scared me to death, never stole a thing again. She still doesn’t know about this and I doubt I’d ever tell her, she’d be horrified.