Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to tell my parents about all the times I lied to them as a teenager?

104 replies

Laraloodoo · 08/12/2019 22:14

I had lunch with my parents today and had to fight the urge, again, to tell them about all the stuff I got up to as a teenager that they don’t know about. It’s not anything crazy- usual teen things such as Katie not having given me about 20 items of clothing in a month but that I went through a shoplifting phase, or how I spent half my girly, pamper sleepover nights at 17 raving in a field in hot pants and chewing my face off on E. I just can’t decide whether they’d find it funny or would be upset. Have you all come clean to your parents?

OP posts:
Sciurus83 · 08/12/2019 22:38

Surely this will only hurt them and think that they failed because they didn't know. Why would you do that? And not all teenagers shoplifting and take drugs. I don't mean to sound Judy, certainly have done the latter in my time though older, but I don't think it will be the laugh you think.

Sciurus83 · 08/12/2019 22:39

*judgy, but Judy actually works really well there Grin

OpportunityKnocks · 08/12/2019 22:39

'it's not anything crazy'

My goodness, I was a dull teenager

pallisers · 08/12/2019 22:43

Why is it when middle class kids go off in fields off their head and also go shoplifting, its described as usual teenage fun but when its kids from disadvantaged families and working class backgrounds, its scummy and chavvy?

yes. or even illegal and criminalised.

The OP sounds still very young, not very tuned in to anything other than the hilarity of her own japes as a teenager, and inexplicably wants her parents of all people to hoot at the (recent) past along with her. weird.

OwlBeThere · 08/12/2019 22:44

My mother knows about most of my idiotic exploits. She isn’t phased because she was pretty wild herself in her younger years.
I also had a shoplifting phase and spent many weekends in a field on acid. I don’t think that’s massively unusual, the sniffy replies are funny on here! My friends and I all did it to a greater or lesser extent and we are all productive and educated.

OwlBeThere · 08/12/2019 22:46

And I’m certainly not middle class. My shoplifting phase was partly because I was so poor I didn’t have food so I stole it. Or I stole make up and sold it to buy things I needed like sanitary products.

Chancey1982 · 08/12/2019 22:46

I told mine everything altho they were never under any illusions and I drip fed it lol

Chancey1982 · 08/12/2019 22:47

Oh and my parents are saintly!

sobeyondthehills · 08/12/2019 22:51

My dad could outdo anything I did and I still haven't told them half the shit I got up to and we get on really well now as adults which is how I found out about the shit he got up to.

Still never telling him though

pallisers · 08/12/2019 22:51

My shoplifting phase was partly because I was so poor I didn’t have food so I stole it. Or I stole make up and sold it to buy things I needed like sanitary products.

Sorry for your teenage self but not at all what the OP described.

The sniffy replies aren't about anyone doing this shit - although the point a pp made about it being treated very differently depending on social class is very valid. The point is no parent wants to hear this shit. Maybe yours did but those of us who don't aren't being sniffy. We are saying fuck off with expecting us to be entertained with everything you ever did - we do not want to hear it. If someone's ego can't cope with that - if an adult wants to have mummy hear about their teenage raves .... seriously??? the problem isn't with sniffy mummy - it might be with self-obsessed child.

Troels · 08/12/2019 22:56

I can tell you my Mum will be 80 in a week, and when my Sis and I get together with her, she learns more and more about the shit we got up to as teens. She thinks it's hysterical. There was no theft going on though.
Just stuff she said not to do with people she banned us from, and late nights, drinking, creeping about and bringing boys home etc.

LawnsLT · 08/12/2019 23:00

I think you should tell them and then report back...I know my mum and dad would lose it if they knew half the stuff I got up to...hence the reason never to tell 😚

WoollyMummoth · 08/12/2019 23:00

I’m no prude but I wouldn’t be impressed if my dd fessed up to shoplifting and getting off her face on drugs.
It’s really not typical teenage behaviour.

EustaciaPieface · 08/12/2019 23:04

Think my parents would be devastated if they knew what I was really up to! I’d leave it OP.

BreconBeBuggered · 08/12/2019 23:05

If you're over forty, and respectable, and it comes up naturally in conversation, then fine. Otherwise, they really don't want to know. Why do you want them to know?

hiredandsqueak · 08/12/2019 23:05

Well I'm a dm whose ds decided to tell me of his exploits and tbh I felt a bit foolish that I had always believed him but also laughed at my naivety and his exploits.
It started when we were walking the dog one evening, ds is thirty btw. As we passed the bungalows that look onto the park he asked if I remembered the Sky remote control that went missing and was never found again? I asked what had made him think of that because it must have been fifteen years ago and so he confessed that he took it and him and his mates would stand in the back gardens of these bungalows and turn people's tv's to the porn channel. It was lost as they dropped it climbing over a fence when they were chased by a bloke who saw and heard them laughing.
He then felt brave enough to tell me more and more although suspect he will still have stuff that he doesn't dare tell me.

PawPawNoodle · 08/12/2019 23:06

I only used to lie to go off shagging. I don't think they'd want to know.

allthegoodusernameshavegone · 08/12/2019 23:07

My DB and I told my DM loads of stuff at a drunken bbq, she kinda knew then started regaling us with stuff she got up to as a teenager in the sixties. Same shit, different decade.

Sometimedaisy · 08/12/2019 23:07

Luckily they were never young so haven’t got a clue. Don’t tell them.

Louise91417 · 08/12/2019 23:07

Pretty cruel way to get your kicks (telling them). Y would youConfused

Mydogmylife · 08/12/2019 23:27

Op - grow up!!!

heartsonacake · 08/12/2019 23:29

Those are not the “usual teen things”. I never did anything like that and I don’t know anyone who did.

You were out of control and irresponsible. It’s not funny and it would be cruel to tell your parents; they would feel they had failed at adequately parenting you into making reasonable decisions.

redappleandaquamarinebow1987 · 08/12/2019 23:35

Those are not usual teen things none of me or my friends got up to those things. Please don't hurt them by telling them. I hope you have grown up now and know better then to find any of those things acceptable. I know if my kids grow up and told me what they did I could never look at them the same again, trust to a certain degree would be broken and I would feel I failed as a parent

MinervaSaidThat · 08/12/2019 23:37

You sound like a drug addled thief. I wouldn't want to know you.

TammyKat · 08/12/2019 23:39

Yeah I wouldn’t tell them