Have you ever found something belonging to your parents that made you see them in a different light?

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When I was a teen I found a sex toy in my mum’s drawer. I shouldn’t have been snooping.

It made me think of her differently, and I felt a bit weird about it for a bit.

I’m over it now, I think 🤔

Not parents but grandparents. I found a letter from my grandma to my grandad when he was away in the army in North Africa during WW2, telling him that his son (my dad) who he had only met once, had started to walk. We sometimes forget our parents and grandparents were young spouses and parents once.
I also found a nazi belt in the same grandad’s possessions after he died And I don’t know what to think. He was a driver in the Desert Rats (troops to the front line, supplies, kit etc) so could have asked a pal for a souvenir, or taken it himself, or actually killed someone. He was very placid and calm, and I guess I will never know where it came from.

I have much more of my 1st child's stuff than 3rd child's.
Nothing to do with love or favouritism - all to do with my waning interest in (and time/space for) keeping everything.
It's not a reflection of my relationship with my children, more that I just had more time on my hands with my first.

I found some diaries when my mum died, about 7 years worth, they started when I still lived at home so some stuff stuff I remember, there was so much in there, rows with my dad and then details about an ‘affair’ she was having with a man at work, it was all very ‘Brief Encounter’ but the last entry was when he retired & he phoned to say he was going to concentrate on his relationship with his wife & she’d written it’s over and then never wrote another thing in it.
it made me really sad for her!

No sex toys in my house. Totally unnecessary if you have hands and a brain.

I also found a sex toy, and some lacy lingerie, but in my dad’s cupboard. I also found some of his porn and he wasn’t very good at deleting his internet searches (some really quite kinky, unpleasant porn). I also have an inkling that he was having an affair (found a long blonde hair, heard the downstairs phone click when he was upstairs) and was later proved right.

My mum had also found some of his porn in his coat pocket and I had to act surprised when she told me. He had a serious breakdown when his affair partner broke things off, but our relationship has been somewhat strained ever since, not least because I have had to carry all that knowledge alone. This is the first time I’ve ever said this in public, as it were. All quite dark really.

I was thinking this. It’s first child syndrome. By the time people get to child number 2 or 3 there’s no photos of them!

Blimey - sex toys? Ugh. I saw a packet of durex in my dad’s suitcase when we were going on holiday and I could not look at either of them in the eye for months!

This was in the context of finding a stash of my school friend’s dad’s 70s porn when I was 8. And another primary school friend told me she knew when her parents had sex because they shut her bedroom door. I just went around at primary school disgusted, thinking everyone’s parents were sexual deviants.

Seeing that durex was crushing.

That would be true if it was baby stuff.

Which you honestly have time to keep everything of one child from baby hood to adulthood, but nothing of the other children's? Didn't think so.

Oh I’m sorry that’s a hard thing to face. Sending big hugs that must hurt.

A couple of years ago my parents got a new alarm clock. My mother frequently (accidently) switched the alarm on when fumbling about for the night light button in the dark. They don't use the alarm and it was randomly set for 1.30 ish.

When I stayed there I was woken several nights by the alarm. It can take hours to fall back to sleep. It's awful but it's how my body is. They are hard of hearing and sleep through it. I mentioned it a few times and they just kept saying 'well we don't hear it''.

I asked if she could set the alarm for 8.00 or 9.00. If it goes off at that time it doesn't disturb anyone's sleep. They also sleep with the door open, I asked if maybe they could close the door so I can't hear it. For some reason she couldn't see the sense in either and put it in a drawer till I went home.

Next visit, she said she'd thrown it out. Except it went off again that night. I didn't say anything but sneaked into their room the next day and of course, the clock was still there.

Why wouldn't you fix this instead of lying? One of the biggest WTF moments in my life where I realised someone really just didn't give a fuck.

I also found a packet of condoms in my dad's washbag on holiday. He came in, snatched them from me and gave me such a hot arse I could hardly sit down. I was 14.

Before that, my sister and I had found dad's birth certificate which showed his parents had only been married 6 months before he was born. No big deal nowadays but in our 60s village it was scandalous.

Is it possible that in the Christmas panic one year you mistook it for a boxed gift set of Yardley and wrapped it and sent it to your great aunt Maud by mistake?

Going back about 40 years, accidentally finding my father's copy of The Joy of Sex in a drawer when he sent me to look for something and I opened the wrong drawer.
Or more recently, helping my mum tidy up and coming across copies of Fifty Shades. Asked her where she would like them stored and ended up with a lecture about my father's lack of abilities in later years, that I really did not need to hear. She was 81 and him 88 and clearly it had been a recent thing.

Nothing harmful and much more innocent than many, but I don't think anyone wants to picture their octogenarian parents still getting it on!

One of my Auntie/Uncle's had a 'premature' baby as well in the 60s. Born six months after they got married.

Not parents but an old neighbours glass eye when I was helping put some Heinz tomato soup cans (I remember it vividly) away when I was little. Scared the hell out of me and I never look at her the same way again

I discovered my dad’s love letters to his mistress and hers to him. It was so pathetic that 11 year old me thought he was the saddest bastard on the planet. My mum left him that day and moved us hundreds of miles away which fucked me up and I spent many years wishing I’d never seen the letters or let her know. I have no time for mills & Boone style romance in adulthood

This has really hit me, I’m sure I’ve got half of DSs school stuff in the garage that moved with us from an old house. I’ve never been back to look at it, but I’m much better at not hoarding stuff now so tend to chuck DDs school stuff.
I do have her baby items, but she doesn’t have a whole baby book like DS.
Maybe I need to sort through the stuff sooner rather than later.
I can 100% say that does not reflect my feelings on them though. Just a biggish age gap and me dealing with my clutter / hoarding stuff.

I found a topless photo of my mum and I really did NOT need to see that 🤣

My father had affairs all his married life.
I guess the first one I knew about I'd have been around 9.
When I was 29 he was having an affair with someone younger than me 😮
My dm wouldn't leave him and when he did leave, she begged him to come back.
When he died my DM asked me to clear his interest browsing history but not before I told her what he'd been looking at.

The day he passed away, he was searching for Thai prostitute's, which baffled me somewhat as he was quite racist.
Dm will not have a word said against him.

What is a specialist sex toy?!

You’re boring then!

I found what I thought was a stone in my dad’s cupboard… I now know it was cannabis (solid)!

I also shared a bedroom with my older sister (7 years older) and used to look at her stuff and found a picture of her boyfriend with his trousers down!! They're still together now 25 years later! (I can see why!!)

That’s a really uneducated way of thinking about it.

I found a birth certificate in my mum's jewellery box. The baby was born 5 years before I was and my mum had been sent away and made to have the child adopted.

When was about 12 I found some rubber Jonnies on top of my parents wardrobe. I knew what they were because we had done sex education at school. A few months later my parents announced that we were going to have a new sibling. Clearly they forgot where the Jonnies were 🤣🤣🤣