Lighthearted - is there anything that you did as a child that you feel guilty about to this day?

[redflowerbluethorns]

Lighthearted post. Here are my things that have stuck with me:

Age 5 eating my brothers flake bar which he'd saved for days, then denying all knowledge

Age 12 (this is a bit outrageous), my best friend was coming for a sleepover. My mum told me she'd bought special snacks and rented a video because the next day my best friends mum was moving her to AUSTRALIA but she didn't know so I couldn't tell her. I didn't. We had a great sleepover but the whole time I was sad because I wouldn't see her again. She was telling me how her mum had booked for them to go to legoland the next day and she couldn't wait...the next day comes, she left, I got a phone call a few hours later saying her mum had lied about legoland and that they were at the airport to move to Australia :( she was sobbing and I had to act shocked.
I think about it all the time and wonder if I should have told her.

Walked past a stuck lift that had people in it. The lift floor was just under the window, and there was an elderly couple on their hands and knees banging the window and yelling. I just walked past. I told my parents about it about a week later.

I spoilt my Tiny Tears Doll by cutting off its hair and eyelashes - my friend helped me & her little sister got the blame.

Sometime in infant school we were told to bring in pebbles to paint. My mum clearly tried to find one last minute and couldnt, so I had a lumpy, craggy bit of rock I had to try and paint as a volcano. I wasn’t at all satisfied with this so I stole another child’s smooth pebble and painted it with a flower, then kept silent when the teacher was helping the pebbleless child search for theirs :(

I think I'd be scared of you, if I met you in real life!

I was around 4 or 5 and I was spinning around the room and accidently knocked over a large plant and the soil went everywhere. My mum had a short fuse so I blamed my sister who was about 18 months old and couldn’t yet talk.

I was about 7. I may have changed since then!

I snuck out the house to meet guys. My mum was worried sick.

I remember cutting my best friends hair with scissors when we were about 7. We were playing hairdressers and I didn't actually realise they would cut through (was those child scissors used for crafting that did in fact have a blade!!). She had amazing long blonde hair and I cut right in the middle near her shoulders so not even salvageable. I remembering running home and hiding in the bath behind the shower curtain awaiting my telling off. Felt so guilty even though it wasn't on purpose!

Went to school without breakfast and spent lunch money on fags. From age 12. DP’s worked incredibly hard and always made sure we had food even during their most hard up times.

Probably outing if she's on here, but I had been ill in hospital and needed quite a few needles be stuck in. When I was back in school I was trying my friends about it and one told me to stop as she hated needles. I carried on regaling them with the gory details and she fainted. Even worse we were on a science classroom so she fell off a high stool 🫣

When I was about 6/7 I phoned childline and told them I’d run away from home and needed picking up. My older cousins got me to do it and I went along with it even though I knew it was wrong. I do feel appropriately guilty 😔

Stealing a baby frog from the tadpole tank (year 4) in my classroom. I put the poor little thing in the bathroom sink and he was dead by morning. I have no idea how I got him home or what excuse I gave my Mum for having him. Still feel guilty almost 60 years later!

We had chickens.My parents thought they never laid eggs but I remember there always being lots of eggs which I used to play cook mud pies with in the garden.I'd stir them up with mud and ash.Thing is we were not rich and my parents were trying and failing to be self sufficient in the 1970s.I feel terrible now although I did admit to it to my Dad as an adult and he thought it was hilarious.Still feel bad though-all those lovely fresh eggs. I was about 6.

I dropped a playing card and it went down a crack in the floorboards. I still feel so guilty that the whole pack of cards was unusable because I’d dropped one.

A cousin I'd never met before came to stay with us over new year when I was 10, she was 9. She was an annoying whiney thing and ruined our fireworks as she was scared if the loud ones. One night I hid her Teddy that she "couldn't sleep without". Everyone was looking for it, including me 🤭

She eventually went to sleep without it and I "found" it the next day.

Actually, I don't feel guilty at all 😂😂

@Lovelycupofcoffee omg are you me?!?? I did exactly this too! Mum sent me in with 2 huge heavy wholemeal rolls with waxy slabs of cheese. I'd eat them sectrly as was so embarrassed. My uniform had homemade bits too, usually the skirt but also sometimes the summer dress. I felt like such an odd one out. In my case the uniform was homemade because I was big and normal sizes didn't fit. Hated school. A lifetime of issues just from lunchtime.

😂😂😂

I once stole 50p from a church collection plate. I used to go to choir practise so there were times when we were running riot around the church. Used the money to buy sweets. Only felt ashamed when I was much older.

Don’t worry it was everyone stealing the free pick and mix that did it 😂

I remember when our cat had kittens I was sat cuddling them one day and squeezed one a bit too hard! It squeaked! I don't think I'd intended to hurt it, just went a bit far with the cuddles- I'd have been about 7 years old!

I stuck chewing gum under the desk of the lord mayor of Birmingham.

stole my best friend’s birthday money when i was 7, at a sleepover she invited me to (wasn’t friends after that)

stole dust caps off all the cars on my street, with the other street kids when i was about 9. caught by off duty police officer who called his police mates to pick us up and take us home. obviously to teach us a lesson.

threw a rock (with same street kids) through a window down a back alley. we thought it was derelict but looking back, it was probably a garage window or back porch window we smashed. derelict or not - what were we thinking??!! age 9/10.

with my foot, pushed a skateboard from under a child who was stood on it. they broke their arm. age 7/8

I still remember the feelings associated with each event - i knew stealing was wrong but i didn’t care or feel guilty then (!!), until after i was caught. I didn't think at all with the skateboard- just pushed it and had no idea of consequences.

i can’t believe i did all that now!!

Once took a neighbours key that you got with Clarks shoes as mine was broken and felt so bad I buried it in the garden.

I broke a pen open to see what was inside and got ink all over my bedroom carpet. Felt panicky and awful.
Then did it to another one to see if it was the same?!
Hid it under my rug.

Also put on my mum’s makeup in the bathroom, including a brand new one that she then knew had been used. Feigned ignorance.

Several - luckily all pretty harmless.

I was visiting a beautiful historic house (not NT - privately owned and full of the personal effects of the owners). In one bedroom there was a very glamorously laid out dressing table with a case full of those pastel-coloured cocktail cigarettes (pale pink blue, green and yellow). I thought they were beautiful and just reached out and took a pink one. Hardly a hanging offence, but stealing nonetheless. None of my family smoked and I kept it for years - it just seemed the essence of glamour to me as a 9 year old. This was in the days when smoking was much more socially acceptable! It would have been difficult to explain to my mum how I'd come by such a thing!