Several things:
1. I was petrified of losing teeth so I would let them go naturally...literally waiting till they were hanging by a visible root. So gross. Anyway, my mom was cleverer than I and told me she was going to help me brush my teeth one night. She brushed so vigorously that she knocked out one of my loose teeth.

2. I wrote secret love letters to Peter Pan and left them on my window sill. I got replies...in my Mom's handwriting.

5. I had a bad habit of sucking on chunks of my hair. My mom put tabasco sauce on it to get me to stop.

4. When I was too young to um...take care of wiping myself after my number two's, I had this system of alerting my mom when I was ready for her to help me. After doing my business, I would open the door (within arm's reach) and clap loudly till she heard me. One time, a guest arrived while I was busy in the bathroom. I didn't know, so when I got to clapping...my mom never came. I had to take care of things myself that time. :(
And that's when I finally gained a sense of independence (while pooping).
(juliajuliajulia, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 5:45, Reply)

thanks dad
here in the US, a lot of colleges require that applicants take the SAT, which is basically just a general intelligence test, with math and verbal parts (and now a writing part, apparently).

anyway, i was pretty nervous about the whole thing. i was a pretty decent student, but the college i wanted to get into had fairly high requirements, and i was taking this test on about 4 hours of sleep at 7:30 AM.

my dad drives me down to the testing place, i take the test, and wait for my dad to pick me up.

while he's driving me back, i'm talking about how nervious i was and also how i thought they were going to give us two bathroom breaks but only gave us one and i had to take a piss for the entire second half of the exam and oh God what if i didn't do well i'm not going to get into my dream school my life will be over oh God oh God

so my dad, being the master at comfort that he is, turns to me and offers this sage advice to calm my worried nerves and boost my confidence:



"y'know frogservo, college isn't for everybody. maybe it just isn't for you."



THANKS DAD. now tell me the one about how i was an accident, that always cheers me up.


ps, i kicked that test right in the balls, got into the college that i wanted, and i'm in grad school right now working on my master's. screw you old man

pps, naw my dad's alright. thick as a brick though.
(deilbfe6ogcshnbcryjh, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 4:44, Reply)

super whore
I was once going out with a girl who lived with her mum, sister and brother in the middle of a horrible council estate in South London.

This woman (who very closely resembled a massive white sow) thought it would be a good idea for her 7 and 8 year old daughters to raise their baby brother while she went out and fucked her way around Suttons kebab shops.
She once came home and drunkely miscarried on the toilet, then fell asleep on it and was found by one of the kids many hours later.

This continued until they were about 17 and 18, when I came into the scene. One night quite early on into the relationship I stayed over at her house. I woke up in the morning and me and the girlfriend went downstairs for a cup of tea. The baby brother was now 9 years old and was sitting on the floor playing on his super nintendo.

The mum walks into the lounge with the most fucking sinister looking Borat type Kebab shop worker behind her. She turns to him and says "go on, you can give it to him now" Borat rummages around and pulls out a new computer game which is flung at the kid. Even though he was only 9, he was bright enough and I knew what he was thinking "my mum fucks guys from kebab shops and like a common whore, he bought her for a computer game"

To be fair the girls did a great job bringing him up and I think they all escaped pretty unharmed.
(drshipman iz in yr shower killing yr nan, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 3:58, Reply)

the kids aren't alright
about 10 years ago I ran a soundsystem with my mates, it basically involved breaking into warehouses or pulling up to traveller sites, rigging up our equipment which we had mostly stolen from B and Q and pubs and playing music to total fuck ups on smack. For some reason we did this for no money, Not that any of these land pirates would have given us any.


So on one day we pull up to this traveller site down near Brighton to find most of the adults out of their minds on whatever crap they could find. The kids were running around with little or no clothes on, and throwing stuff around. One child about 10 years old walks out into view looking particularly dishevelled and generally not all there and starts shouting "I WANT MORE ACIIIIID"

I'll put money on it that this kid is either dead or dribbling into a hat outside a tube station somewhere.
(drshipman iz in yr shower killing yr nan, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 3:28, Reply)

Terrible Parenting
An ex-friend of mine had this father who was as rough as hell ie bare knuckle fighting champion etc etc. He never did like either of his sons and this was highlighted when he put my ex-friend (his eldest son) in the fireplace when he was about 15 months old - while it was blazing a fire. The quick actions of his mother hearing his screams were the only thing that saved him.
(Kathleen, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 1:55, Reply)

I'm guessing they hadn't thought it through
I would have added this to funny name corner, but as I have absolutely no proof, I thought I'd put it here.

A couple of years ago, I'm looking through my local newspaper (Cambridge Evening News) when I come across quite possibly the strangest name I've ever seen.

In a section called something like "In Your Community" where they talk about WI meetings and village fetes, there is a picture of a young girl, maybe about 10 or 11 years old, who had become "May Queen" in her particular town or village.

For starters, her surname was Crotch. You'd think with a family name like that her parents would be aware the kid was due for some amount of teasing in school. So what do they decide to call her? Something sensible to deflect from the unfortunate surname? Did they fuck.

They decided they'd plump for something which, to this day, I still can't comprehend.

Gypsy. There is a girl somewhere in the Cambridge area with the name Gypsy Crotch.

The mind boggles.
(genghis26, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 1:53, Reply)

Another Pub related one
When I was a young child my Mum used to be a bar lady, in a bit of a rough pub,It was in the black country so guaranteed rough.

My Sister and I spent three summer holidays in their shitty beer garden, which consisted of three broken tables, a bit of brick wall, concrete flooring and the worlds rustiest swing. To even glance at the swing gave you tetanus, and screeched like the gates of hell when used.

My Mum (who I love to death) occasionally through some ready salted crisps and draft coke at us when the manager, who had a strong resemblance to Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, went to scratch his arse and read Viz. This has also given me an aversion to draft coke for the rest of my life, which in my opinion tastes slightly worse than the cats piss which is SodaStream.

Anyway,whilst my mates were all riding their bikes, going swimming and doing generally fun stuff, my sister and I were bored shitless in some forgotten shithole of a pub trying to think of more inventive tortures for each other, usually involving the hideous swing. I remember the one day when we took a ball until Mr Bastard bar owner took it away for disturbing his customers.

Occasionally some of the decrepit nicotine stained, filthy smelling and decrepit customers came and sat outside then we had to be extra quiet and sit on one of the broken benches until they went back inside. I've seen happier people in an Ingmar Bergman film.

Happy Days! :)
(Unicross was brought to you today by the letters M, E and H, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 1:22, Reply)

This is true
My whole family and I were watching a documentry about nasa and the launches at cape canaveral, and I said out loud "I would love to be launched into space"
Then my dad said out loud "you would have been if I wasnt drunk"


ba-dum-tish
(Monoball, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 1:21, Reply)

Hahah, my mum on the other hand
She was truly brilliant, I have a lot of respect for the lady, but I have my suspicions about some of her techniques...

Like the really fond memory I have of asking with my brother for Calpol, and her telling us we could have it if we were good. Infact we had kiddie Calpol most nights for a good few years, it was a treat...and so, so tasty :D funny how it was always near bedtime though...

*zonks out to sleep*
( Jessie © needs pirate name suggestions, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:48, Reply)

My stepdad was a fucking psycho
There are many, many stories I could tell that wouldn't be even remotely funny, and frankly I'm probably best off not even trying to remember.

The time he tried to teach me to swim by throwing me into a pool, the deep end, may come close though.

Or when he found it so 'cute' that I'd tried to make my mum feel better by warming some orange squash for her, otherwise at a loss for what I could do and somewhat limited by being 6 years old and banned from using most kitchen stuff/accessing hard paracetamol, that he proceeded to RIP THE EVER LIVING PISS for about 2 years afterwards, putting me down at every opportunity and 'affectionately' calling me 'little Florence without a clue'.
Though when he was ill I had to lay with him while he fell asleep feeling sorry for himself, and then got grounded when he woke up to find I'd snuck out to do other stuff while he slept.

Nice guy. I hope his insides are slowly eating themselves out* :)

*You should probably take it for a given that there is more to his story than these silly examples
( Jessie © needs pirate name suggestions, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:40, Reply)

Some people.....
.....should simply not be allowed to have kids. When my mother was pregnant with me she met the man who would eventually become my father.

I was 2 years old when my mum and 'dad' got married. They decided that he would legally become my father, owing to the fact that biological daddy was a shit and wanted nothing to do with me. After some minor legal wrangling I was no his 'son'.

Daddy dearest was a paranoid wreck of a human being. This first manifested itself after she went to a New Year's party at my aunt's house. He called shortly before the bells to wish her and her kin all well for the year ahead. He heard laughing in the background and took this as a direct assualt. When she returned home the next day he beat her so badly that she couldn't walk for about a week. He also held me under the water, for I was in the bath at the time, until I stopped moving. Did I mention he was a paramedic??

Over the coming 10 years they had another 3 kids, 'daddy's' paranoia grew worse. He would stop by the house in his ambulance 2 or 3 times a day to catch her cheating on him, which she never did.

I knew what it meant to walk on eggshells before I even knew the phrase. The slightest infraction by me would result in hideous beatings. I remember leaving a book under my bed, something that I did when reading late at night, and he beat me with big heavy fists. Always to the stomach, ribs, back and legs. His favourite thing was to heat the botton of an old bottle on the stove and burn me with it.

My brothers would be chastised regularly, but never to the same extent. It was only recently after reading the 'Child Called It' series that I found out that this singling out of a child is a well known phenomenon.

To date I have about 30 or so scars that I can attribute to him. I still have issues with trust, intimacy and sleeping.

My mother had a far worse time of it than me. I'm terrified at the thought of having kids of my own, what if I turn out like him. Oh, I know I would do my damndest, but what if that isn't enough.

Thanks for reading.
(charliesays, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:40, Reply)

THERALENE ™ baby and the small whip
i was a THERALENE kid.(i think it's called VALLERGAN ™ in UK, NEDELTRAN ™ in Dutch and TEMARIL ™ in USA) pretty close to opiates

back in the seventies it was very common for doctors to prescribe it to hyperactive childs (i was just a little turbulent)

my mum found it great and told the doc:" since i give him a table spoon of THERALENE ™ everynight he sleeps like a marmot..she didn't mention that i also frequently pissed my bed =/

also my parents had this little whip, it was made of a wooden handle and had 10 or 12 strips of leather about 20 cms long..they mostly used it to threaten me =) i don't remember being beaten so much but i had a few whipping on my butt (probably deserved)

one day we were moving from our house to a city flat and while helping unpacking things with mum i saw the whip in a cardboard full of other items she hadn't yet gone through. i hid it under my pullover, went to the kitchen window at the back of the flat, there was this cool bushy private garden, perfect!!

i proceeded and threw it away as far as i could , unfortunately i hadn't noticed this huge weeping willow and the small whip got entangled
in the branches and stayed there forever, just in front of the kitchen window..

i could see it everyday during breakfasts, lunches and dinners for years...that was even more traumatizing.
parents never noticed it.

length? 20 cms long leather strips
( olivier8 (euroloon), Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:28, Reply)

Haha, I've just thought of another one.
A friend of mine was telling me a few weeks ago how his Dad was really good with animals, but in an old-school no-nonsense way, none of this soppy business with the ickle bunnie-wabbits.

One day when my friend was about 10 he found a bird in the street with a broken wing. He carefully picked it up and cradled it in his hands, telling the friends with him how his Dad would know what to do.

Getting home, he said he showed his Dad the bird and said "I thought you'd know what to do with it Dad"

"Yep, I know what to do with it" his Dad said, taking the injured bird out of his hand and throwing it full pelt against the nearest wall, killing it instantly.

Of course, like the post at the bottom of the page, this was the most humane thing to do, but my friend said there was a row of utterly shocked 10-year-old faces looking at the feathery mark on the wall, all on the verge of tears.

How I laughed when he told me =)
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:24, Reply)

I am german, my wife is german and our kids are german...
... so only natural that we have little germany footie kits for them, right?

only we live in england.

ps: looking forward to wednesday...
( bierbelly, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:17, Reply)

When I worked in London, a few years ago...
...looking out the window one day, I saw a little girl of about 6 wandering along apparently alone.

Just as I was thinking "Cor, she's a bit young to be out on her own" her Mum appeared, bellowing at the top of her lungs:

"Come on, keep up will you you fucking cunt?!"

Wow, she's going to learn to be so respectful... O_o


EDIT: And I'd just like to second what KennyBumFish said too =)
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:16, Reply)

..............
I know my last post was fickle but...............

As far as I can see, a lot of the people compelled to write in this thingy have had really really shit childhoods. Worryingly, some of them seem almost suicidal ,.............. excuse the melodramatic tone :)

If this is the case, then you are in the right place. Just read the other comments. A lot of these fuckers have had really shite lives o far, but have good jobs, lives, families and also have turned out cool enuff to be total b3tards.
Like myself..............

Peaceings outings my brothers from anotherings mothers.
(L.T. Smash Humungous fail since, Sun 19 Aug 2007, 0:06, Reply)

LOOK AT ME, LOOK LOOK LOOK !!!!!
When I were a lad, my parents were both teachers and essentaily looked after me and my two brothers, and my f£$%^&G swine alcoholic, bigoted, wife-beating, thieving uncles 9 children, he used catholicism as an excuse for no contraception(... yes fucking nine ....not counting the 'also ran' children i.e. still births, cot death ) .........long story short.
I once dropped an orange outside the house. Sneakily thought no one had seen, so jumped on it so it was fucked up and then took it home to show my mum that I had dropped it and it was 'goosed' so was fit for the bin.
Little did I know she saw me squash the 'bejesus' out of it so i wouldnt have to eat it, so her punishment was for me to eat it.

I think it worked, cos even though I am not the most empathetic person in the world, I hate seeing food go to waste , ( but i wont eat road kill, or vomit )

ramble over,

Moi
(L.T. Smash Humungous fail since, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 23:57, Reply)

Not so much bad parenting at the moment...
But a girl I work with has recently announced that she is expecting a baby with her boyfriend of about six weeks. She told him she was on the pill and he had no intention of starting a family as he is only in his early 20's. Her family are said to be very excited about the pregnancy (apparently) because his family are quite well off and hers dont have that much money. So its not really bad parenting now but having a child just as an attempt to keep your rich boyfriend is a pretty terrible idea.
(suckout, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 23:07, Reply)

Saint John of Parenthood
Is how my father likes to think of himself. When my school was having regular meetings about me, due to Social Services, my dad would sit and nod as they discussed my future. Never mind the fact I was spied on by fellow pupils (schools idea), made to feel like a leper, had my friends told by teachers all about my mother and what she had done, and was once told by my form tutor 'You'll end up just like your mum', he did nothing. I had a shit time and even tried to kill myself, and all the time he knew, but did nothing as he was a GREAT parent in his own eyes. I wore the same clothes for years as he refused to ackknoledge I needed new ones, even wore the same school trousers I had from Primary until the school complained. He would hit me when I cried and told me to 'grow up', trashed my room, and threw me out so many times and I can't walk past a bench without remebering all the times I've slept on it. I ended up sleeping with horrible lads just so I could have somewhere to live for a while.

All the while, the male child, my brother, is treated like a Prince among men. When my brother took drugs, nothing. When my brother was found comatose from drink, nothing.

My dad sucks ass

EDIT: I forget to mention one of my favouries. I had a very violent boyfriend who, on one occasion, proceeded to beat the living shit out of me in my kitchen, throttling me and throwing me across the room. All the time I was screaming and crying, until my BROTHER, my tiny 15 year old brother, came to rescue me. My dad was upstairs the whole time, and didn't come down until he was sure my boyfriend had left. Thanks for that Dad.
(missc, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 22:13, Reply)

not going to diss my folks...
but I am a bad dad. In fact it's a conspiracy between me and my ex-wife. While we may be separated, divorced and have now an 11-year old daughter, we do agree on certain core issues, surrounding education, religion, but especially music.

My daughter is not allowed free will when it comes to music. We are scared she will fall prey to so-called 'popular music' which means, Blunt, Spears, Babes, 'sis, Nelly, Akon, Ashanti, Bouncy Beyonce etc. Now, with our grown up perceptions, her mum and I agree that there is some merit to Eminem, Girls Aloud (the production, not the voices), Snow Patrol et cetera.

However this is her formative phase and we can't make mistakes here. So she is being force-fed Rush, Ozzy, Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Deep Purple. Led Zep and Rainbow are occasional side-servings.

However as we are not complete killjoys, she can listen to Green Day and Lost Prophets from the popular musical canon.

We are brain washers, her mum and me. Bad parents. But then if she grew up to listen to Oasis and Sean Paul, I'm afraid I'd have to do an honour killing. (ON MYSELF! before the spooks crash down my front door at 5am looking for sadistic kiddie murderes...)
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sat 18 Aug 2007, 21:48, Reply)

Bad parenting or honest mistake
...you decide. This past Xmas visiting the parents with the kids. My 4 year old develops some redness around his bum hole after a bout of diarrhea. The Wife grabs the tube of zinc oxide A&D ointment and slathers him up.

Moments later he's screaming bloody murder "It BURNS! IT BURNS!"

The Wife is screaming at him..."If you dont stop carrying on...NO PRESENTS FROM SANTA!!"

I'm like, "Stop being such a pussy son, its only some nappy cream...."

well actually it was mint toothpaste..

The Wife never reads lables...
(Galapagos Tortise, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 21:45, Reply)

My grandma
(again), convinced me when I was very little that my grandad was the Pope. My Grandad is none of these things: Polish, religious or benevolent. He is closer to Father Jack.

Further to the "Allah!" further down the page, a very good friend of mine once decided to teach his baby son to say "dirka dirka". For this alone, Paul, you are a legend, even if he never actually says it :)
( Maladicta, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 21:02, Reply)

I am now an alcoholic
One day my mom comes home from wherever the hell she was, having left me in the care of the father figure. The father figure, an idiot drunk not ready to care for children but somehow completely unable to fathom proper condom use, had been entertaining friends. I was one years old, my dad was nineteen or twenty. Not a mature nineteen or twenty mind you. My mom comes home, relieved to find that everything appears okay. The father figure and his idiot friends are, I dunno, probably watching porno or playing Pong or something, laughing and drinking. That's fine, as I am curled up in my crib, dead asleep, clutching my baby bottle with unusual infant strength. My mom notices that the contents of the bottle do not look like my usual milk. She manages to wrestle it away from me, unscrews the top, and sniffs it. Meanwhile, the father figure and his gang of retards are dead quiet, having lost their buzz with the arrival of my mom. My mom explodes when she realizes that I had been drugged with a bottle full of vodka and orange juice. Ah, my first screwdriver! Obviously, it was far from my last.

Since that time in history, I've had pot smoke blown in my face from my grandfather (I was two) and my mom gave me my first winecooler when I was seven. She thought my drunken antics were so funny that she allowed me another. When I started coming home from high school drunk, and had taken to removing all my school books from my backpack in order to fit a gallon bottle of grocery-brand vodka, my mom didn't have a word to say about it.
(BrainSurgerysFun, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 20:36, Reply)

Why should I be fired?
Because I'm always late.
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Sat 18 Aug 2007, 19:57, Reply)

My father was a massive wanker, to the extent that I haven't spoken to him in years - my last contact with him was a text message I sent him saying "getting married 10-05-2001, you are not invited" and that was only at the request of my sister, who didn't want to get into trouble for not telling him about my nuptials.

There were a lot of contributing factors, but the final straw was one night while my sister and I were staying with him and his new wife for a week.

They lived at the other side of the country and we hadn't wanted to go (see: wanker), but mum was concerned that if we didn't go, she would have to deal with accusations about "not letting me see my bloody kids". We were teenagers, but still living at home, still in full-time education, still at the stage where mum's word was law, so off we went.

That night we'd gone out to dinner. We'd told dad we wouldn't get in the car with him if he got too drunk (although he was alcoholic so a little bit drunk was inevitable). But he got properly sloshed. As the meal drew to an end we reminded him that we didn't want him to drive and made repeated and increasingly unsubtle hints about taxis.

It didn't work. He paid, we left, he marched to the car and started shouting at us to get in or else. His wife was already in the car, and so he stopped shouting and threatening, and simply drove off and left us.

So that's two teenage girls, no phones, no money, unfamiliar town, two hundred miles from home, at 10pm on a Friday night.

We ended up going back to the restaurant where the manager and his wife kindly gave us the taxi fare back to dad's house and told us that if there was trouble we should come straight back to them. At the house, the door was unlocked, but every phone in the house had been disconnected and hidden so that we couldn't phone home.

The next day we were admonished for being so quiet when we were "supposed to be having fun!" Thankfully, the day after that, we were leaving anyway.

He was genuinely surprised when the next time he asked us to come stay, we refused and mum backed us up.
( Batsgirl, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 19:23, Reply)

Dull
Thankfully a rather dull upbringing in Worcestershire.
(kitescreech still here, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 18:11, Reply)

I feel a bit left out reading this question!

I'm a Dad - well, a step-Dad - and I've never done anything remotely awful to my kids!

Signed,
Woody Allen.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 17:44, Reply)

Man of the house




My maternal grandfather was an absolute cunt to his family.


He had a demented notion of grandeur and an almighty grudge against the rest of the world because "They didn't give me my due". His once prosperous family had fallen on hard times, as these things happen, but my grandfather was convinced it was all a big conspiracy aimed at him and him alone.

During the 1930's through the 1950's Ireland was very poor with work hard to come by. This didn't stop him from getting the sack on a couple of occasions because of his snobbish "I'll not take orders from the likes of you" attitude. My gran had to gather up her four children, take them down to the foreman's office and plead with him to take my grandfather back on again.

My mother remembers going hungry with nothing but bread and dripping for dinner while my grandfather would sit opposite them eating chops, potatoes and veg smothered in gravy. My gran wasn't allowed to buy cheaper cuts of meat which could have fed everybody as "I'm the man of the house and I say what goes on my plate". They never once went on holiday despite one of my grandmothers sisters owning a house on the coast as "I'll not be owing favours to her or anyone else".

He used to make them all walk for miles every Sunday afternoon while he cycled alongside. Then they'd have to go home to be lectured by him about religion - of which he was a fundamentalist, anti-Semitic, anti-Protestant Catholic bigot and politics - of which he was rightwing, rabidly anti-English and anti-Communism. As proof of this, when my gran died, I went through his collection of books. They were all of that ilk, several of which wouldn't have looked out of place on Adolf Hitler's bedside table.

He had no time at all for us, his grandchildren. The female ones were "useless" and us boys were "weaklings". He died in the early '70's, from a heart attack caused by his own impatience. He couldn't be bothered waiting for my dad and my uncle to get home from work to cut down part of an apple tree in the back garden so he went out to do it himself and dropped dead halfway through the task.
(Fanta Menace Is tall enough to see over the fence, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 17:15, Reply)

Robot Grandma
When my daughter was three or four, I told her that I had replaced her Grandma with a very lifelike robot. I told the little girl that if she asked 'Grandma' about this, it would cause 'Grandma' to become very angry. So from then on she belived that her birthday presents were being sent to her by a fully functioning robot programmed with the complete range of Grandma capabilities.

Said daughter is now nine and still has her doubts.

I accept this is very bad parenting and am ashamed. However, in my defence, I have not taught her the story about the old man with a beard who lives in the sky and watches her - that would have been really cruel.
(Juan - King of Donkeys shut the fuck up on, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 17:07, Reply)

.
Wow this QOTW is a lot more deppressing than I thought it was going to be.
(Charlietron Still can't think of anything witty to put here, Sat 18 Aug 2007, 16:31, Reply)