To ask for your cringeworthy childhood memories?

[Forwardthinkinglobster]

The sort of ones that pop into your mind decades later and you still stop dead and think “Oh god!”

Mine was when me and my sister were aged about 10 and 8. We were young, innocent and firmly into toilet humour/funny body parts. Evidently, we thought it would be hilarious to make our (pretty straight-laced) grandma a hand made card which harked “HAPPY WILLY DAY” emblazoned on the front surrounded by some pretty terrible drawings… you get the idea. I still remember the initial smile on her face when we handed it to her in a cute envelope, which immediately sunk to a stern frown when she pulled the card out of the envelope!

Argh!

OMFG this is hilarious 🤣🤣🤣

@Dominik 🤣🤣🤣 “playing on the beaches of Kingston”. I’m dying!!

I'd completely forgotten that I'd shared this story and I'd managed to repress that awful memory of my foray into a Jamaican identity for a few weeks. But now you've reminded me and now sat here cringing. So thanks @MrsO3 and @MummaMummaJumma 😬

Oh I think I’m going to come back to this thread yearly and comment, just to remind you this happened 😂. If it helps, I had a massive crush on a boy with an overbite when I was 8. I thought it was the coolest look ever.

And so, as if by magic, I too ‘developed’ an overbite. My Mum used to go absolutely mad at me because it looked like I was taking the piss with my front teeth just hanging over my bottom lip.

But I genuinely loved the look.

The boy with the overbite is now my Husband.

Just joking, I don’t even remember his name 🤣

This has me howling 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@MummaMummaJumma this has me cracking up too. This thread is brilliant 👏🏼

@MummaMummaJumma Dis u?

🤣🤣🤣🤣 I’m literally crying!!! Yassss!!! That’s me!!

I was cycling to the shop alone aged about 7, and an old ladies dog ran in front of my bike and knocked me off. I was really scraped up and my knees and elbows were pouring with blood.

The old lady stood over me whilst I was on the floor and shouted at me about how I nearly hit her dog, I was so scared I wet myself 😭😭😭 she just turned around and left me there alone. I had to hobble home!

Not a week goes by that I don't remember that incident

Oh my luv, what a bloody horrible woman! xx

Playing rounders at school, I batted a ball HARD and it hit the pe teacher square in the face.

My friend and I used to stand with our backs in front of her mirrored wardrobe doors and peel back our bum cheeks to show each other. Back then, PANTS wasn't on the curriculum...

I just thought of another. I don’t know why I did this! I was approaching the end of YR7 and we were heading into the summer holidays. My group of friends were all talking about their plans over the holidays, some were going to Spain, some were staying with family, some were just hanging around and meeting up with peers. I guess I wanted to sound cool because I told everyone my cousin was coming over from Portugal for the entire 6 weeks! I regretted this instantly.

So, for 3 whole weeks, I stayed inside pretending I was with my Portuguese cousin. When my friends would ring me, I’d act like he was shouting up from downstairs and I’d even have a convo with him (from what I remember, all I’d say to ‘him’ was “Uh huh.. ahh okay”). I even used some dodgy translations from the internet to pretend I was the cousin texting from my own phone. Eventually I really wanted to meet up with my friends so I told them he had to leave earlier than planned.

To this day, I still have no clue what came over me to actually commit to this and it was also so obvious my friends did not believe me. Although they never said, but I think they were possibly not wanting to embarrass me. I CRINGE when I think about the conversations they had about this. I’ve never mentioned it and neither have they 😂

I was in Brownies as a child and we were going to have an fund raising evening with stalls selling home baking and such. They had told me to "bring a bottle or two" for the raffle so I went home and insisted to my mum that I was to bring a couple of empty bottles for this raffle the next week. My mum was mortified when I walked over with my 2 empty bottles as prizes to be won!

I was about 12 and had to take my 3 younger brothers to the church fete. My then 6 year old DB1 decided he was going to pull down my tracksuit bottoms but put his hand in the wrong waist band - what felt like the entire place saw my bare bum and my hairy fanny! I still cringe at the memory and have never got over the humiliation!!!!!!

I was 9 and queueing for a donkey ride on Southport beach. Sunday School day trip. The queue was long and I was on my own and listening to the Scottish man in front of me talking to his daughter, who was about 5. He turned to me and asked, "Do you have the right time?", to which I replied, "Aye, it's a quarter to three" in an accent as broad and Scottish as his own.
I am not a Scot and normally have a nondescript but clearly English accent. I have no idea why I suddenly adopted the man's accent but apparently "unintentional mirroring" is a thing.

I have another one. When I was 5 or 6 we went on holiday to a hotel. It was the 1970s and it wasn't unusual for hotel bathrooms to be shared by numerous guests as ensuites weren't really a thing. My parents had primed me to always be polite to other guests and to say, "Good morning" or "Good evening" if I encountered someone in the corridor. I was also too young to reliably work a lock or bolt so at home I never locked the bathroom door. You can see where this is going.
On Day 2 of the holiday I was sitting on the toilet happily doing a poo and singing to myself when in walked a young teenage boy. He stood, aghast, in the doorway and I thought, "Aha, I know what to do here" so I beamed at him and said, "Good morning!". I was wearing my red sunhat for some reason, so I gave an added flourish and raised my hat to him. Poor kid couldn't run away fast enough but I was very proud of myself when I told my parents what had happened and couldn't work out why they thought it was so funny.
My Mum accompanied me on all bathroom trips after that and I believe the poor, traumatised boy had a few ice creams sent his way at teatime.

When I was 11, as part of a public speaking project, I gave a talk to the whole class about the Guy Fawkes plot.

I told them all about the hostilities between Catholics and Prostitutes. 🤦‍♀️

I was with my family in Spain. It was my birthday. We went into a shop and my dad, who had a grip of the language, was telling the owner that it was my birthday and she offered me a fan, an item I'd covet today, and I said "no thank you, that's not what I want". My parents were mortified as she was simply offering a gift. I thought they had to pay for it. Awful all round. I was only 8 or 9 years old. I'm in my mid 50's now and I still cringe about it. The lady must have thought I was so rude!

I went to a Catholic school. When we were making our confirmations we had to write a profile about ourselves, including what we wanted to do when we grew up, to get put up in the local church. On the day that we were writing the profiles, the teacher went round the class asking everyone what they were putting down as their desired career, another girl in the class, let's call her Ann, said to the teacher that when she grew up she wanted to be a nun. The teacher was so pleased with this that she called in other teachers from neighbouring classes to tell them and the girl even got a sweet as a reward for having such a noble ambition. I, on the other hand, had just spent half the morning standing out in the corridor because I'd gotten into trouble for something so when the teacher got round to asking me what I was putting down as my future career, I also said that I wanted to be a nun, thinking that it would get me back onside. But instead my teacher saw straight through my attempt to garner favour and just said, "very good" and moved onto the next child. I was furious that Ann got so much praise and that the teacher barely even acknowledged that I had said I wanted to be a nun. And so I told her again, which she ignored. I then went home and told my parents that I wanted to be a nun, with pretty much the same response so I started telling almost anyone who would listen that I wanted to be a nun. Everyone either brushed it off or didn't seem to believe me and this made me want to prove that I wasn't just saying it and that I really did want to become a nun! I even started going to church every single morning before school! At the end of the year because it was our final year at primary school, we had yearbooks made up and had to write what we wanted to be when we grew up in them. Of course, I said I wanted to be a nun for that too because I wasn't going to give up now and let my teacher know that I'd just said it to get a sweet and fawned over like Ann had so now I have it in writing, as does everyone else who was in my class, that my life's goal as an 11 year old girl was to become a nun...

Had to suffer for that one slightly at high school.

P.S. I'm now 37 and not a nun...

I love this 🤣

As a convent educated girl, I feel this 🤣

I got a bicycle one year at Christmas, aged 8 or 9 ish. Rode it proudly. Until the original owner of the bike (an older, local girl) asked me how I liked her old bike. I was mortified/humiliated/embarrassed that everyone in the neighbourhood knew my bike was second hand. I knew my parents weren't loaded, but I never, ever rode that bike again. Being one of the "poorer kids" whose parents relied on hand me downs & second hand items wasn't fun. Now I realise I shouldn't have let it get to me. As an adult, I regret that I let it get to me.

We'd gone to stay at my grandma's for a few days. I remember lying on the living room floor, reading the latest copy of Jackie magazine. I was absorbed in the problem page but didn't understand all of the problems.

I turned to my Mum and, in a very loud voice, asked her what pubic hair was.

My poor Mum was mortified at having to explain in front of my rather straight laced, old fashioned grandma.

@cariadlet that's made me laugh so much 😂

I remember loudly asking my parents what 'Buggery' was when he had a house full of friends and relatives. I thought it was something similar to burglary 🤦‍♀️