As sort of the antithesis of this thread, I’m wondering what everyone did as a kid that you weren’t supposed to do…but your parents never had a clue about.
I’ll start.
My mother was one of those nutritious cereal guru’s…we never had sugared cereal, we were always resigned to the land of all manner of Chex, Cheerios, Wheaties, Raisin Bran and, if money was really tight, generic puffed wheat or rice. Ack. I was a sugar freak, so when I sat down at the table for breakfast, I would build a wall of cereal boxes around my area and retreat behind it with the sugar bowl. Nothing improves a bowl of Cheerios like 4 or 5 tablespoons of pure sugar. I mentioned this habit to my Mom once, and she was properly appalled. She never even suspected.
Well for me it’s what do I do as I live with my Grandparents… well whenever I’m not at home I usually spend my money frivolously on soda and chips… and sometimes when out with friends I smoke the occasional cigarette and have the occasional drink. And whenever their not home I usually sneak online (as they dislike me being online at all except after 9 pm as long as they aren’t expecting a call or have to make one)
Well, when I was a real young badass, I would hide a 5th of vodka behind the couch, and then everynight innocently get up from in front of the tv and pour myself some oj. “Sure like that Tropicana, hey son” dad would say, “sure do, pops” me. “gee you’re swell son” dad. “I love you daddy” me. Little did he know that I would get drunk most nights.
underage drinking is bad, but fun
peace,
JB
Hmmm, mine aren’t exactly rebellious, but I’m still glad my mom doesn’t know about this place.
My sister and I used to ride a mattress down the stairs in our house like a sleigh every chance we got. It was so much fun, many days we’d have to scramble to put the bed back together as our parents were pulling into the driveway. We also used the microwave as a timer for races with our neighborhood playmates. When my stepdad took too long in the shower, (house with one bathroom, two little girls and he had to be in there for an hour every morning when we first woke up…) we’d pee in the trashcan in our room. Sorry mom…but we really REALLY had to go, ya know?
My parents didn’t know a lot. When I was ten I started a fight at school, but cried and blamed the other person and got out of having my parents called. My parents never knew that I was sneaking my dad’s everclear to mix with juice and diluting the bottle with water. They never knew that I had a boyfriend (they still don’t know that I’ve ever had a boyfriend), and they certainly didn’t know what I did with him. My parents didn’t even know I was attempting suicide until almost a year later, and I think they’re still in denial over that.
But then, it isn’t hard to keep a secret in my house. My mother didn’t even know my father was abusing us until I got a black eye when I was eleven, and even that she passed off as an isolated incident. There’s sort of an unspoken rule in my house of “If it doesn’t involve me, I don’t want to know about it.”
So looking back, I think a better question is what did my parents know about?
I smoke cigarettes. I’m a social smoker - I refuse to waste money buying cigarettes, but my friends smoke, and I’ll share a light with them.
I drink whenever I get the chance - which isn’t often yet, but I’m going to college in a week… Whenever I’m with my sister she buys me liquor, and my friends and I regularly locate hard lemonade or vodka and down it.
I used to sneak into the woods behind my house. Mom was convinced I’d fall down and break a leg/get lost/get shot by a hunter/etc. I never did.
My parents have never met any of the guys I’ve gone on dates withs. They met the one boy I called my boyfriend, but only because we were friends for years, and they never saw him again after we decided to go out, because immediately afterwards he slept with our mutual friend, had a nervous breakdown, and disappeared. My parents never knew about our “going out” or any of the disastrous downward spiral that followed it.
My best friend from the ages of 2 thru 16 was a boy in my neighborhood, so we did LOTS of stuff our parents didn’t need to know. We used to ride our bikes miles and miles out into the country and swim in the canals—a very dangerous past time, but fun. He’d sneak his dad’s rifle and I’d watch him shoot frogs. When we were 13, he got his old junker of a car running and we’d drive around for hours. He’d tell his mom he was at my house and I’d tell Mama I was at his and we’d always be outside playing, so we’d be missing until dinner or dark, whatever came first.
When I was 15 and a half, I had my friends teach me to drive. I practiced every day and my parents were surprised I passed on my first try because they had not taken me to practice very much—they had both gotten promotions at their jobs and worked a lot of overtime. I understood, but a California kid who doesn’t get a Driver’s on their 16th?! Pul-leeze, that’s like SO heinous,I mean,like be real.
Between the ages of 14 till 17, I was a very good B&E man. Very good meaning I never got caught at it. Every thing I did I learned from TV cop shows. Quit at 17. Broke into a house with an unlocked gun safe. I had the sudden thought that if someone was home I could have been shot. Walked away, never looked back.
I think in my case it might be closer to ‘what did my parents know?’ I did all the various standard-issue youthful vices - sex, drugs, bad movies, minor theft, life-threatening games, and being the victim of various violent crimes.
I also did a few things that weren’t, as far as I know, standard. Example: I ditched four out of five days (literally; I attended only on Mondays) for a year and a half of high school and did not get caught. I eventually told them that I’d been ditching, though. I don’t what horrified them more: the fact that I was doing it, the realization that I’d been doing it for most of my high school career without them finding out, or my justification for doing it. (The Horrifying Justification: I figured that if I attended classes on Monday, understood the lectures, and completed the week’s homework without trouble, there was no point in going the rest of the week. True, too - teachers move high school classes along at the pace of a glacier, ferchrissakes - a week later and they’re still running the same material into the ground. Drove me nuts when I was a teenager.)
Lord, I am not looking forward to the teenage years with my own (hypothetical) children. Is there any way to know what your kid does?
I was a disgustingly non-rebellious kid. I drove home mildly drunk one night, no problems at any point, got home and thought, well that was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, let’s not do it ever again, and didn’t, and they didn’t know about that. But otherwise, not so much. Therefore, I will apply a minor, tangentially-related hijack that’s a more interesting anecdote.
Ye gods and little fishes, yes. One of my fonder memories was of a high school stats class. It’s been what felt like eighteen years on the same chapter, third day on the same section at least. The teacher, bless her heart, is trying so hard to make everyone understand these basic things. She goes over something for the dozenth time using yet another example. I’m staring emptily at my current doodle project, a huge-ass ninja battle in flipbook animation through all the margins of my notebook.
And I can tell just from the peculiar tension of the silence all around that all but the three or four classmates who are similarly currently in that special circle of Hell that bright teenagers are consigned to for their forefathers’ sins, are staring at her. With utter bovine blankness. And then, with that special tone that only an addled cheerleader can muster, one of the dimmest bulbs in class says, “what? But…I don’t understand how…” Similar moos of incomprehension are beginning to spread into the dull cacophany of the damned. Teacher looks so…beaten and weary.
I nod to myself, clearing my desk, and as hard as I can, slam my forehead into it. It was a small room, the sound echoed quite impressively, the impact itself caused a dazzling lightburst in my vision but strangely little pain.
Silence as I straighten and sit back up as if nothing had happened. “Ummm…Drastic? Are you okay?” the teacher asks, with the kind of stunned expression you wish you had a camera handy for. I wasn’t exactly the kind of student a teacher is prepared for this kind of activity from.
I nod and smile cheerfully back at her, affecting a sort of surprised tone–whatever would be the problem? “I’m perfectly fine. Go on.”
I had minor headaches for about the next twenty four hours that simply didn’t go away. Well worth it; however, I can’t in good conscience recommend it to Dopers who face current similar afflictions. My skull just might be unusually thick, or have that Homeresque liquid shock protection layer in it.
Oh, Drastic, I am that teacher. I think I’ve spent more than three hours with my summer school English 9 kids drilling into them the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs (not because I like grammar, but because they don’t understand how to use the new vocabulary words). I am still getting those blank, cowlike stares.
And there’s one or two students in there who get it, have gotten it, long ago fossilized it in their brain matter, and will probably start ramming their heads into their desks at any given moment.
I just thought I should point out that I am a legal adult in this province… which means that I am not doing anything illegal. Just stuff that would drive the elders up the wall. They don’t want me drinking out of the home because they are afraid someone will slip me something (Happened to both my Aunt and Grandpa) and they don’t want me smoking for the usual reasons… I too am a social smoker… last time I bought a pack (awhile ago) I gave about half of it to my buddies because they give me smokes too…
Ah well… life will be even better once I get out on my own. Then I can wander naked and eat when and what I want and read in bed or at the dinner table…
Oh man, where to start. I snuck out all the time. Dad’s house had three bedrooms on one end of the house (Dad’s and my sisters’ rooms) and one on the other (mine:D). I could even open the garage door without waking anyone. I used to take Dad’s cars out (he changes cars alot). In those years(1984-1986) his cars included a 1982 El Dorado, 1983 Continental, 1983 Mark VI, 1984 Town Car, and a 1986 Thunderbird TC (automatic - blech!). Since I had a Cutlass coupe, I’d get one of his land barges so more friends could go along for the ride. I’d also often sneak into his room while he was sleeping and get his gas card. His loud snoring and the fact that my step-mother is deaf in one ear (talk about a match made in heaven!) made that pretty easy.
I also had sex with my girlfriend in his bed (he was out of town that night), as well as in mine, on the game room couch, on the pool table, and in the hot tub. We also once completed the deed in the back seat of the Mark VI while my little brother was driving (without a license, I might add, so I had a hedge to keep him from squealing).
I pretty much did whatever I wanted. He never noticed the mileage on his cars or the charges on his gas card.
I missed 42 days of school my senior year of high school. And of the 140 or so that I actually went, I left early at least 100 of them. I think I went to my last period class all of like 15 times that year…the teacher thought I transferred. She only got confused when I actually showed up.
I used to sneak out with my boyfriend, and then slip back in before daylight. If she was waking up as I was coming in, I’d jump on the couch and pretend I’d fallen asllep watching tv.
Jeez, all this fun stuff is being posted here, and the worst I ever kept from my parents was my boyfriend. I should have done things with him (or to him :D) that were really worth hiding…
I saw just about every “Cinemax After Dark” softcore porn movie broadcast between 1983 and 1989. God bless Laura Gemser. Plus, since I was the only one who understood how the VCR worked, I didn’t even have to sneak downstairs to watch them; I’d just tape them, then watch them when I got home from school the next day.
That was pretty much it. I never had any interest in smoking, and as for drinking, my father’s French and was of the opinion that I’ll be drinking in college anyway, so I should learn how to use alcohol socially and responsibly. As a result, wine or beer were fairly common with weekend dinners.
waded in the local creek, and parts of an old canal that links to the Illinois River in Marseilles, Illinois. Our parents did know we spent a lot of time in the creek, but not how close we got to the connecting tunnels, or some of the risks we took when pursuing frogs, crayfish and the occasional turtle.
Sadly, I believe that creek is so polluted that no one wades in it now.
Actually, I didn’t do a great deal that my parents didn’t know about (I was a real nerd) until around age 16 when I came out and started having sex and using pot. Waal, I eventually told them about the pot. But a couple of times I had sex RIGHT IN THEIR HOUSE WITH THEM AWAKE IN IT. And it’s not that big a house.
Where to begin…I spent most of my teenage years lying to my parents about where I was going, what I was doing, and with whom.
Back in the day, cigarettes were a quarter a pack and the local drugstore would sell them to you if you said they were for your dad. Most adults smoked back then. So we’d get a pack of Luckies or Camels & head for the creek to smoke up a storm. Popped a little Sen-Sen afterwords and we were convinced that our folks couldn’t tell.
Used to tale the el downtown and pick up sailors on their first leave from GreatLakes - told 'em we were 16. They’d take us to the movies. This was in the mid '50’s so things were a little different - they were usually about as naive as we were so nothing much happened.
It gets worse (or better depending on your point of view) from there.
After my own experiences you can imagine that the scariest time of my life was when my own kids were teenagers and trying life on for size. The good news is that we all survived.
