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.

In primary school art class we made people out of empty toilet roll tubes. At the end of the day when we were clearing up, my friend picked up my little toilet roll person and announced to the group that it was the ugliest one, not realising it was mine. I pretended to agree with her and suggested that she should put it in the bin, which she did. Then I told on her to the teacher for putting my person in the bin so she got into trouble. I still feel both guilty and proud of myself!

My nan had a jewellery box and it had a mirror inside, I was only young at the time, and I assumed she had 2 sets of everything because of the reflection in the mirror. She used to show me her jewellery all the time as I was fascinated, and thought she must have been rich or like the queen haha. In reality I didn’t really understand that most adults have a jewellery box when they grow up. I took something from it, I think it was a ring. I did get caught out by a different family member, and she called me a thief, I think I was around 6 at the time. They searched my bags and found it and returned it and luckily didn’t tell my mum! Or she would have killed me. I genuinely didn’t see why she needed two of everything and I thought it was okay for me to take an item. 🤦🏻‍♀️ So stupid and naive, I felt so guilty after, my mum still doesn’t know 30 years later. At least I don’t think she does. Thinking back I know I was only little, but perhaps I didn’t understand that stealing was wrong yet, being so young. It’s mad to think back now about it, I still feel really bad, remembering how angry they were.

Eating the entire top layer of the Nuns Xmas biscuits , that were on the spare bed waiting to be wrapped when I was about 8 or 9… it was never mentioned bless them..

I couldn't bear my younger brother....

So I crept into his room at night when he was fast asleep and spat into his ear.

My mum was absolutely terrified of spiders. I acquired a very realistic plastic spider. When I was saying goodnight to her I went and gave her a hug and placed it on her chest. I remember her looking surprised and happy at a surprise hug from a child who normally just disappears upstairs. A couple of minutes later there was the most hysterical screaming. I went back in the lounge and she was sat on my dads lap, crying and shaking.
I still feel dreadful about it 35 years later.

Every so often opening my parents china cabinet and digging my nail in around the edge of a sugar craft flower ornament. Little half moons of sugary goodness. I must have been about 6 or so.

Oooof two things. First I drew on my dolly’s face with marker pen and blamed my brother. Mum believed me and really went to town on my brother, he got smacked and everything. I was too terrified to fess up. Another time I was being made to eat a day old sandwich and put half in the bin when I thought I’d eaten enough. My mum found it and started shouting about wasting food, I blamed it on my friend’s little brother who was about three. My friend came round to play that day and my mum insisted she fetch the little boy round to be told off. She gave him a sternish ticking off about food wastage. I feel terrible to this day but I was only about seven or eight and again too scared to fess up.

As a result I’ve made sure to tell my children if they tell me the truth I won’t be angry.

You've just reminded me of the time I collected some tadpoles from a pond and dropped them on the kitchen floor!

It was a terrible moment, my mum screaming the place down and all these poor little mites on the floor.

I still feel guilty 35 years later.

My grandparents lived in a very large old leaking Georgian house. It was in the days when the original toilet had been outside and in the early 1960's a bathroom was added.

But with one toilet it was a challenge with a household of up to 9 when we stayed over.

My aunt was still living at home, in her twenties and would shut herself in the bathroom to get ready for nights out. She'd be in there for hours and the 7 year old me really needed to pee. I'd knock and knock and knock but she'd just shout for me to go away. The toilet across the yard was not functional.

In the end I couldn't hold it anymore and squatted down in the corner of her walk in cupboards.

Another time she was being really unpleasant to me. She made a nasty comment and went out of the house.

I still don't know what her issue was with me. She really didn't like me staying.
The naughty 7 year old me decided to use her nail polish but not on my nails. I discovered that nail polish painted onto polystyrene hat stands eats into it rapidly. I spent the afternoon painting them....

Is it bad that some of these are really making me laugh?

The lift one 🙈 what an image

I lived in a village until I was 8- it felt idyllic, dad was the vicar. Looking back it was commuter belt near High Wycombe but life felt happy and shiny and safe, still lots of little shops. I must have been about 5 and we stopped off at the newsagents and I stole a packet of hola hoops (about 8p then). Mum sussed me out straight away and I think I was made to march back in with them. Nearly 50 years later and that was the end of my crime spree. Either I learnt my lesson or I am not currently out for crime.

When i was 13/14 I set fireworks off Inside a old abandoned cattle mart. It's a pure wonder we didn't kill ourselves. Anyways we left while one of the fountain type ones was going on and went past a hour later on the way home and there was 2 fire engines having to put out the fire.

Still feel guilty and so stupid for that.
Ended up with a fire fighter OH many years later 😅

My little sister was a really slow eater and it used to annoy me because we couldn’t leave the table unless everyone was finished so I used to stare at her to put her off her food. Poor kid!

Aged 13, in summer, I saved my bus fare home and spent it on sweets. To do this I walked along quiet country lanes on my own because the main road was too busy and I didn’t want to be spotted by neighbours, we were in rural Devon. I remember feeling scared but I wanted the money.
I’ve never told my dm. It was such a stupid thing to do.

As a very young dc, probably 4, I pulled the dress of my older dsis’s new doll and traded it in for a balloon of the rag and bone man. Dsis, 7, was furious when she got in from school. I think I got in trouble from dm.

I can still picture it. Old couple yelling help and banging on this tiny little window. The lift was in a small block of flats, so they could have been there a long time before someone else saw them.

Excellent work, I wholeheartedly approve of pissing on a bully's chips

I remember as a child hating the thick rind on bacon. It wasn't cut off in those days like it is now. With wobbly teeth it was hard to chew but we weren't allowed to leave anything on our plates.

So my sisters and I would hang the rinds over the runners of the pull out drawer on the 1970's Formica kitchen table. My poor mother must have discovered them all at some point, either that or the dog ate them.

I once wrote ‘poop’ on a neighbours car windscreen in dairylea when I was about 7… my best friend and I did it together and absolutely cackled at our own hilarity at the time…. I still cringe at how bloody awful and naughty it was… my eldest son thinks it’s the funniest thing I have ever done though 🙈

Can you imagine trying to scrape off sun dried dairylea from a glass windscreen……?

Still really awful of her mum not to tell her.

Not me but when we were kids my brother (5 years older than me) one Christmas wanted to make / colour an orange gold. We didn't have any paint or paper so he stuck thumb tacks all over/into one. When my mum saw it she hit the roof, asked who did it, he pointed to me and I got bollocked. Now in our 40's and he's apologised to me for it for the past 3 Christmases running bless him. I'd forgotten all about it until he mentioned it!

I've never told anyone else this, and feel guilty every time I think of it.

I was on holiday with a friend, aged around 8/9 at the time. We were doing a guided walk along a river where we came across thousands of tiny frogs hopping towards something, as if they were migrating. No idea why I thought it, but I wondered what it would happen if I stood on one, would it sink into the mud or squish like a fly. I was so shocked by my action I didn't look back to see what happened.

In hindsight, there were so many of them on this tour that the likelihood is I possibly stood on a couple, but that one was done intentionally which makes it worse.

Broke one of my own toys by being careless, then hid it in the bottom of the toy drawer. My younger cousin who came round with my aunt to visit when I was at school a few days later got the blame for breaking it, after being sent upstairs to play with my stuff so the mums could have a cuppa and natter in peace.

When I was about 10, from a 4th floor balcony I called a cousin over to talk to him, he was on the ground floor and when he looked up I dropped a water balloon and it splat straight on his face. Gosh I thought I blinded him, thankfully he was ok, screaming but ok.

1. I stole someone’s tracker bar school snack from their bag when I was about 6. We were too poor to afford them and I thought it was so delicious and I really want one. Felt so bad about it then and still do now
2. pretended to someone I had tickets to something and would give to them. I don’t really know how this happened it just escalated and the day came and they were so excited and I had to come clean. I just wanted them to like me - everyone was SO angry (understandably)

there are actually quite a few I can’t bear to write down - I had quite a terrible childhood in many ways and did so many things I’m ashamed of now

There was a total thug hard man bully boy in my first year juniors class. One day I'd totally had enough of him and I kicked him in the back of the knee when we were queuing up for lunch, really hard, and he was rolling on the floor crying. He said it was me, the teacher told him of course it wasn't as I was such a good girl I wouldn't do such a thing and he should stop lying. She admitted later to my mum that she'd seen the whole thing. No one told me though, so I felt really guilty until the guy died of a heart attack in his thirties and my mum said "was that the one you kicked?"