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Original poster

Anything your parents have let slip now you are an adult that you were oblivious to as a child?

316 replies

twentypence · 06/09/2008 10:39

My dad said on the phone "oh, there's that mountain we climbed on the telly. You remember when I took you and your brother away for a holiday and mum stayed at home."

I didn't catch all of what mum said - but it was something to the effect that she wasn't best pleased to be reminded of the time they split up.

I had no idea - I just thought dad got more leave.

OP posts:
Butkin · 07/04/2009 15:43

I've only worked out in middle age that a chap I've known all my life as somebody who "worked" for my grandparents is actually the son of one of my aunties. Apparently she was packed off to Wales for the birth (wasn't married at the time) and then the lad was brought up by my grandparents.

What I find strange is how he didn't want to go and live with his mum when things settled down and everything became more permissive.

AlistairSimnelcake · 07/04/2009 15:46

I remember always wondering why my parent's only took us on camping/cottage holidays when all my friend's went abroad and we never seemed to have much money, despite my father having a very well-paid job.

Found out as a teenager that it was because my parent's paid my mum's best friend's rent, as otherwise her and her children would have been homeless.

Very proud of my parents.

JackBauerKilledTheEasterBunny · 07/04/2009 15:48

That the photos of the very cute children on the shelves weren't family or friends but my mum's foster children.
She stopped fostering after one boy my age (2 or 3) was given back to his junkie mother after 9 months and she then moved him out of the county to escape SS.

SalBySea · 07/04/2009 15:50

I really did think till an embarrasing age that my dog who we couldnt control anymore didnt actually go to live in that lovely farm that we passed once

was watching the friend's episode where Ross tells that story and I turned to my house mate to say that my dog really DID go to live on a farm. Then I heard myself!

Lillabet · 07/04/2009 16:58

I found out at a big family do that I was conceived on a sheepskin rug. My darling dad (a little tipsy on champagne) announced this across the restaurant table I was sitting at with my mum, DH and darling PILs ! My mum was mortified. What was worse was that I realised my parents have a photo of me at about 2 months old on same rug . The DH thinks it is hilarious and keeps finding great offers on sheepskin rugs!

Clement · 07/04/2009 17:01

I didn't realise that I was a complete accident (despite the enormous age gap between me and my sibs) til i was about 30!

misschatterbox · 07/04/2009 20:55

I was always told that my uncle died in a motorbike accident, but when I was older my mum told me that he had killed himself.
Something I have always known, but don't think my family know i know is, I remember my parents arguing once, I looked out of my bedroom door up the passage towards the lounge and saw my dad standing over my seated mum and screaming at her, she had blood on her mouth and I remember him marching her to the bathroom to clean her up. They didn't see me, but the next day there was a bloody hand smear on the wall of the passage. Always makes me feel angry and confused when I think of it. My dad used to drink heavily then, but he sorted himself out when I was about 5/6.

Concordia · 07/04/2009 23:35

My mum had a stillbirth under 9 months before I was born (i was a bit early). It was a boy which is why they only had boys names for me. I feel a bit weird about this, if that baby hadn't died, i wouldn't exist.

My mum went out with a famous person off the telly for a bit before she married my dad.

and a nice one, I never knew my childminder was a childminder (not until I was 33 and looking for a childminder for DS !!!) i just thought i went to play with her kids as they lived down our street. Even when other kids turned up i just thought they were a welcoming kind of family. The innocence

The suicide, abortions and undsicovered half siblings are all in DH's family

Weeteeny · 08/04/2009 00:18

My mum's cousin has died recently, and she confided in me that he was actually her half brother.
She found out when she was six, when she caught her mother and her "cousin's" father together. He told her as a way of keeping her quiet, threatening if you like that it would detroy families. The little soul never told anyone. Until now. Appears her mother had a long standing affair with her sister's husband.
The man who brought her up believing her to be his own was lost at sea when she was eight, she cried when she told me that he would always be her "real" dad to her. She is 73 now. Very sad.
Has given me a very differnt view of my grandmother now.
The only positive is that my mum and her cousin developed a very special bond.

What an amazing thread

thell · 08/04/2009 00:40

Lillabet - my younger sister was also conceived on a sheepskin rug, and yes, it was the 'baby' rug - bought for me when I was a baby and we were all three photographed on it at various points!!

My Mum also had her rabbit eaten when her parents were particularly hard up.

Wow, there are some really sad stories on here - I hope everyone has managed to deal with these issues in RL.

My only real secret, confided to me by my Mum, is that I have a cousin whose father is not her real father, and no-one else in my family knows this. It's pretty sad, as she is an only child and her 'parents' divorced when she was very small. She had no relationship with him really until she was a teenager, then they both tried hard to make a bond. He doesn't know she was the result of an affair.

notsoteenagemum · 08/04/2009 09:15

It's good to know my family aren't the only ones with skeletons, there are some sad ones on here though.
I've found out all of the following over th past 10 years,
4 of my Grandpa's 14 siblings weren't blood relatives, they were neighbours and their Dad was killed in the war and their Mum commited suicide, I never thought it was strange he had two brothers called Peter

My mum's sister is actually her half sister. My Grandma got pg by an American soldier who then went back home to his wife, after dropping her off at a home for unmarried mothers.

Doctors thought I was being sexually abused as a toddler because of recurrent cystitus[sp], ss were involved and I had to live at my gp's for a month, it was only when it carried on they beleived my parents were inoccent.

My Grandma used to grow weed in the 60's ad 70's explaining why my parents weren't bothered when I smoked it as a teenager.

BeatrixRotter · 08/04/2009 09:32

Apparently my grandad (mum's dad) was married and had a child, then had an affair with my gran, got her pregnant and luckily for my gran (not so much for the first family) got a divorce and married her.

I knew my mom was pregnant when she got married and asked my dad about it once. He told me she had basically 'let' him sleep with her a number of times as it was her aim to get pregnant. She had such a terrible home life this was her way of escaping. I didn't really like finding that out but had to accept that if you ask questions you may not like the answers.

I would like to trace my mum's half-sibling, not sure whether I can or should.

lilacclaire · 08/04/2009 10:41

My great gran (who did not die until my mid twenties) had schizophrenia but we didnt find out until I was around 20 as it wasnt spoken about (explains some of her behaviour), her brother also died in an asylum and schizophrenia was listed as the first cause of death (only found out years after my grans death as we went through some documents).

My mums dad left my gran and my mum after having an affair with a woman who also left her children and husband and they set up home together, having more children. They lived a few streets away from where I grew up, but I didn't even know they existed as my mums dad did not acknowledge her, she never met her half brothers or sisters.

My dads dad was one of many brothers who were farmed out to different families and therefore took on the surnames of the families they went to. Have no idea what my dads proper surname should have been or what happened to the other brothers.

As far as my own parents, well no direct skeletons with them that I know of

heather1980 · 08/04/2009 11:38

not as serious as some but i found out when i was about 12/13 that my aunt has a different name than the one she was known by.
we were at her house and my mum shouted downstairs her real name. me and my cousins were a bit puzzled until she admitted that she had changed her name.

turned out that when she was born my gran wanted to name her after my greatgrandmother. but grandad got confused and named her after my grans mother and not his. she should have been called catherine but was instead named fanny. my gran was not immpressed!

i found out that my parents divorced when i was about 5. i never knew because he died a year later from cancer and it was never mentioned again.

mumof2teenboys · 08/04/2009 12:17

My cousin was adopted by my uncle and aunt when he was a baby.
When I was about 12, my mum told me that he was actually born to my uncles sister (my aunt) and then my uncle and aunt adopted him as they couldn't have children of their own.

They then moved to Australia (10 pound thing in the 60's) so that they could bring him up where no-one knew them.

They came back to the UK in the 80's and my cousin still doesn't know, he's in his 40's now. He has got brothers and sisters but he thinks that they are his cousins.

It is all so sad, he sees his birth mum regularly but knows her as his aunt.

Notquitegrownup · 08/04/2009 12:17

A happy one from me. Found out that my beloved cat, who had died when I was tiny - well disappeared from house assumed dead - had in fact been given away by my parents as it kept getting worms and they were worried about 3 year old catching them. Apparently they thought it kinder for me to think that she had died than been given away [hmmm] though 30 years later had forgotten all about it, so the truth slipped out! I was hugely relieved and happy

lilacclaire · 08/04/2009 12:45

Hmm, my cat ran away from home as well when I was little

scouserabroad · 08/04/2009 13:17

Not really a skeleton in the closet, more a nice story. My great grandmother had a very premature baby way back in about 1910. Premature babies usually died within a few days, so the doctor & priest said it was better to take the baby away so « the mother doesn't get upset ». My great grandmother refused, and managed to express breastmilk and fed the baby by filling a fountain pen with milk, and dripping it into it's mouth. The baby had to be fed like this every half an hour, night and day for about two months, but she survived and lived well into her eighties.

Notquitegrownup · 08/04/2009 13:30

Scouser!

JJsandcat · 08/04/2009 13:35

scouser: what a great story.

fuzzypeach · 08/04/2009 19:57

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

walkinthewoods · 08/04/2009 20:26

I didn't find out til I was 30 that my mum was a 'result of the war'. I knew that she did not know her father and that her Mum was pg at the age of 16. What I didn't know (but evryone in my family did and presumed I knew) was that my Nan had a fling (if this is the word if you're aged 16) with a GI. He buggered back off to America. I was so shocked and a bit pissed off that everyone knew but me.

Mum was never a one to sit down and tell us the truth when we were younger. There were a few other choice things I found out over the years.

Pwsimerimew · 09/04/2009 18:09

Keep going - don't stop! I love reading these true stories!

Liskey · 09/04/2009 21:48

Everyone in the family was shocked a few years ago when my dear Gran had a few drinks and told everyone that my great uncle was in fact her son not her brother. She'd had him at 16 and her financee had been killed in the war.

My Grandad came along later and wanted to adopt him but her parents wouldn't let him. Really impressed when I heard, as my Grandad was very staid and set in his ways, but he wanted to accept him as his son.

EvaLongoria · 10/04/2009 11:08

These are really amazing stuff and to think that parents can keep such important things away.

Well I found out at the age of 8 that the parents and brother and sisters I lived with wasnt really my mom and dad and siblings but my aunt (dads sister) and husband and their kids, Then I was introduced to my family and had to stay with them. Found out I had 7 siblings.

Only last year when I went to visit my parents in South Africa to show them the baby did my sister probe a little more as to why I was sent to live with my aunt