What's the most embarassing thing your parents used to do when you were a kid that you swore you wouldn't do to your kids?

[paddyclamp]

My mum used to correct my speech ALL the time, like "it's GOING TO, not GONNA" or "RUNNINGGGG not RUNNIN". It used to really piss me off esp as we were northerners but when she did it in front of my mates was doubly annoying.

My kids have freedom of speech!

I would totally do what mamadocs dad did.... Now when my dd is particularily whingy on the way to school, i threaten to sing loudly. She shuts right up!!
Where, I ask...where has the pride gone?

My parents ran their own company and made me and my lil bro wear t shirts with the company name splashed all over the front.

As I recall, I didn't mind at the time, but thinking back

Maybe I should send them a bill for all the blardy free adverstising they got

Would never do that to my DD

naturalblonde

Wiping my mouth with spit and shirt sleeve..........but I have done it

When I was 13 we were at a family get together and I was really cheeky to my mum. My dad pulled down my pants and smacked my bare bum in front of all my relatives

omg no Emily. That's terrible.

And you were 13 Emily

Shopping at asda for my first bra... mum took me down the bra aisle and left dad looking elsewhere...
whilst mum and i were looking for one dad came over picked up a massive bra, held it up and shouted out CATAPULT!!! AMY HOW ABOUT THIS ONE!!!!

Emily that's awful. Hey wasn't there a story in the news about some bloke who did that to his daughter at the dentists and he got in trouble with the law!

My dad walked into the road once and stepped in front of a nun on a bike. Both of them ended up on the deck ...... and all i was bothered about was .... did anyone see it dad!

We went to the Lake District and my parents bought identical woollen fair isle pullovers. And they had similar coats and both usually wore jeans, so for the rest of the holiday they wandered around in matching outfits like Tweedledum and Tweedledee ..... the horror, the horror.

Funny, I wouldn't even notice if they did that nowadays - at the time it was HUGELY traumatic.

Only a matter of time before DH and I unwittingly inflict this on the dds....

My dad is pretty cool now I look back on it but he always took great delight in embarrassing the hell out of his teenage daughter. He had lots of opportunity as he was a teacher at my school. Even worse he was the biology teacher and had the joy of doing the facts of life class for a bunch of 13 yr olds. We had to watch some video with a beardy man and a woman having sex and then later on there were some scenes of a woman giving birth. To lighten the mood a bit my dad pipes up, 'yes, this is a home video'
He had the whole class believing he had actually shown a graphic video of my birth......apart from one girl who said to me afterwards, 'I never knew you had a baby!' FFS I was 13.

my mother used to kick up a HUGE fuss whenever service was unacceptable (e.g. in a restaurant, shop etc) or if she perceived something or someone to be wrong...... how many times did I wish the floor would open up and swallow me. Sigh.

So I swore that I would be utterly passive and wallflower-like as a parent and never embarass my kids in public. ...Didn't happen! I'm not as bad as her but I won't stand for crap either.

mamdoc at your dad machine gunning you
welliemum - the matching walking jackets is something my parents would do as well

My mother gets involved. She was a school governer and brown owl and then a guider when I got was a child, she made my dad run the scouts. She was also a social worker and thus absolutely hated by the parents she had met professionally whose children then took it out on me. She made me deliver the village newsletter and visit sick older people as she felt we should have a social concience.

I am currently refusing to so much as run a stall at the school fete.

The most embarassing thing ever was being collected at the end of the disco.My mother was under strict instructions not to come in and collect me( oh the mortification) but i clearly remember her coming in and extracting me from a teenage snog- worse the lights had come on in the hall so everyone saw her.
Last Saturday after waiting for 20 minutes in the car I went into the bowling alley to get dd( also under her strict instruction NOT to come in)
She is still not speaking to me.
Double shame all round.

keeping me like a little girl - not taking my need for trendy clothes/ bras/hair cosmetics seriously. Being offish with my friends she thought were inappropriate for no reason at all (i.e one was dressed far too glam and made-up during the day) when her being welcoming and nice would have made things easier for me socially. Not wearing a bra ever, never letting me go on a sleepover, taking in a lodger and not telling me until the night before. Never giving me a sense of privacy.

OOh I've just remembered another one....I was obviously trying to deny this but they really did used to do it....

My dad would take a swig of red wine and then sort of french kiss my mum to share it with her - utterly revolting a. as you just don't want to see your parents snogging and b. well it's just revolting

And they made such a big deal of it as if they were so blardy clever and romantic. YUK YUK YUK

I can't think of one. They were lovely.

Oh dear boo, DH and I do that one. Only when we're drinking wine in private mind.

arguing, continually adn at full volume in public

GOt sick of people (shop staff normally) coming up to me and my sister going 'cor this must be embarrassing, are they always like this'.

They were the same at home, still are the same home/out/whereever.

ME and dp rarely argue, I cannot stand full volume arguing and am very non-confrontational.

I found it mortifying.

Sorry Mrs Tittle to be dissing your wine sharing strategy ....thank goodness you don't do it in front of others. With my parents it was the whole smugness of it all- yuk!!

And the fact that they are so love that with each other that like Armadillo's parents, they'd be screaming at each other in public afterwards

No problem, I can't imagine that DD would be too happy to see us either! Although she's only 11 months at the moment, so hopefully it'll be a while before she's cringing over us.

ROFL.
Same here for:
Correct speech (and Brummie accent - we lived in B'ham, what did she expect?)

Talk in posh (no Brum) voice.

Talk to other adults about me WHEN I WAS THERE!! I absolutely never do that.

My list is actually endless like Naturalblonde. My Dad would pretend to hold a trumpet with his hands and make a fanfare noise very loudly every Saturday in town and shout "Fizzy fanfare - just to let them know we are coming"

He sang loudly and out of tune next to my school choir who were preforming in the town centre at christmas and when I was too embarrassed to stay with him and started to walk off he shouted "Gertrude, Gertrude (obviously not my real name) she's with me" and pointing at me.

When we were packing shopping in the supermarket he would tell my Mum that if she didn't behave that he would send her back to her husband (cue check-out woman to look horrified) my parents have been married over 40 odd years!!!

If I tried to be private in a changing room my Mum would whip the curtain back and exclaim in a loud voice "my god girl, I used to wipe your bum"

We were the first people to always have our christmas tree up so I would have loads of complaints directed at me from other kids and their parents like somehow I had a say in when it went up

Hand-me-down clothing from a really popular girl at primary school and everyone recognised that I had her clothes (her name was also written in the label) mortified.

Oh and no bra shopping, my mum was in denial that I had breasts. Had to have my friends "training bra" as a hand me down