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 🤔

That doesn't mean I want to come face to face with something that's been inserted into one - or both - of my parents 😅

We need the laugh emoji back in the reactions.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

😂😂😂 it certainly does

@Fizzlepopper the great diary project would love to have your diaries and you can specify that they’re no read for a particular period after your death

https://thegreatdiaryproject.co.uk

Ooh, we need to know more!

Yes. My mam was never a sentimental, emotional type of person, she could even have been described as cold, but after she died we discovered that she had carefully kept every school report, every certificate, every record of us dc, which might not sound remarkable except that there was 14 of us, the eldest of whom had moved out some 50 years earlier, and we lived in a tiny council house with very little storage. She also left us a beautiful letter, telling us how much she loved all of us, and thanking us for caring for her in her old age.

Name changed because feel weird to admit this. When my DF died 3 years after DM died my DSis and I were clearing out some stuff from their house. My DF had been a very keen amateur photographer and had loads of old camera equipment plus old slides etc. I found a bag of slides tied up in about 4 old carrier bags. They were exceedingly intimate pictures of my DM, and also some of my DF which obviously my DM had taken. My parents had been really strict Catholics, and were quite prudish about sex or so I thought. I was so embarrassed I hid them from my DS, then destroyed them later.

This thread makes my contribution of teenage me hunting for xmas presents but finding 2 bog standard (not weird fetish) scuddy mags on top of my Dads wardrobe pretty insignificant.

I was rather disgusted at the time though 😆.

I'm so sorry, but this made me giggle a lot! 🤣

Basically had a whole other family, girlfriend, kids while still married, the other woman knew about us, we did not know about them. He lived with them when he “worked away” away it turns out was about 5 miles away. They had everything nicer, they got the fun Disney dad type man, which I didn’t even know existed. I laugh looking back now, as it’s so ridiculous, but I always think what a spineless man, pick a lane, get a divorce if you want another family.

A text exchange that revealed my mum had had some sort of sexual interaction with my very first boyfriend. And then rekindled it!!

I made my Mum a handmade gift for Christmas one year, I was a young adult living away from home at the time. My mum told me a few weeks later how much she loved it and used it all the time. She died suddenly and I found it later totally unopened and untouched. It really made me sad. Sad that she hadn't liked the gift that I believed to be so thoughtful, but really really sad that she knew I wanted her to like it so made a point of lying just to make me happy.

This is so unfair. And I completely identify. My sister was my mum’s favourite but when my mum was dying she did sweet fa to help her out. And ugly old reject me was the one who gave her all the love and support she needed.

Sex toys (giant golden vibrator like an extra out of star wars) and a copy of the Karma Sutra in my mothers bedroom drawer after finding her dead. Upsetting as the whole ghastly episode was, I am smiling about that to this day. After all, we all arrive at this planet from the sexual antics of our parents that we choose to not think about during their lifetime.

Most people don't.

My mum’s contraception. It made me sad because I hadn’t imagined that she was sleeping with the man she was seeing, but I knew that for him it was probably just sex while she was in love with him.

We had a volatile relationship. I was a nightnare teen but I was adopted at 6 weeks and in my teens had a lot of issues with this. She wasn't a person to give hugs or be affectionate at all. As I've got older I can look back and see what a narcissist she was. I had a great relationship with my dad and was definitely a daddy's girl. She was extremely jealous. She admitted this when I was much older.

They couldn't have biological children because of cancer treatment my dad had that had left him infertile which I believe is also related to why she was often cold towards me.

My basic needs were met but she didn't have a motherly instinct at all. She wanted the perfect child and I most certainly wasn't that.

I found the joy of sex book in mum's room can't imagine them having sex haha I think I was 8 or 9 I even opened the book 🤣

Not found anything physical, but when my grandad was alive I was a proper grandads girl. He did a lot of my care as my mum was a single working parent and as he aged he needed a lot of care so as a teenager I became a child carer for him as his COPD progressed.

He was a radar technician in the RAF and I used to love listening to his wacky tales. If a story started with "back in my day" I was sat. Absolutely captured.

He told me this one tale about aliens. I was absolutely gripped. He said he and the lads had just been out to the pub, and they were walking past the airfield when all of a sudden this UFO crash landed, and from the wreckage came an alien. They were all terrified, shaking, but brave, they all ran off to tell their superiors of this absolutely phenomenal discovery, but when they all got back to the airfield there was no trace of a crash or alien.

I used to love staying up late cuddling up to him watching those science docuseries with the crazy aliens guy, and it really spurred this curiosity in me that there must be life in the universe that isn't just us. It also must have given him so much comfort that he could tell someone who, however absurd it sounded, believed him and loved hearing his stories.

He died 12 years ago, not long after my 18th birthday.

After his funeral, we were all talking about our memories with him and I retold this story in the presence of my nan who turned a shade of white I didn't know someone could go. I asked her what was wrong and she said that grandad did go to the pub, and did walk back past the airfield, and there was a crash but it wasn't aliens it was one of his best friends and they all tried to save him but somebody had to run off to get help, which grandad did, but he was dead on impact. This really messed my grandad up, he had a mental breakdown, doused the house in petrol while my nan and the kids were asleep, and tried to kill everybody.

She said she never thought of him the same after that but only stayed with him as he was so unwell, but he became so angry and violent afterwards, he only really changed once us grandchildren came along.

I couldn't imagine my kind, wonderful grandad going through something so horrible but it makes more sense than aliens, but then to become so horribly abusive too.

Growing up I remember my nannan being cold and snappy with him a few times and often thinking that she was being a bit short and out of order with him, but now I see him in a completely different light and understand my nan feels like she wasted so much life on him and became a carer to someone she didn't really care for, and only had a limited amount of empathy.

But their job was to kill people. My grandfather was an airplane mechanic overseas in WWII, so not frontline so to speak, but still had to kill.

I found out in my early twenties that my dad was actually gay and kept getting sacked from a very male dominated job due to his behaviour causing all the many periods of unemployment, much tension, fighting and violence within the home. This was coupled with both parents alcoholism and general unhappiness. I feel now, very very sorry for them both but my God, it was a tough, tough time for me and my sibling and it affects our relationship even now.

1. My Dad's Conservative party membership card.
2. A small b&w photo in my Mum's purse, of a man in uniform. My aunt thought it was someone who left to fight in WW2 and didn't return. Mum never mentioned him, but had kept the photo for over 50 years (I didn't mention it to my Dad).

I want to know what this is 😆 🤣 😂

Charity donation bag? OMG who would want that second hand?

We found a lot of Polaroids in my Dad's flat when we were clearing it out. Him and his second wife 😳

And they were in such random places too. Some were in old DVD cases. It actually became quite funny- four of us were doing the clearing and every now and then there'd be a small shriek of 'MY EYES!' or 'BLOODY HELL' and another sibling would rush in with the bin bag...