Without fear or favor, kids say the darnedest things

April 30, 2013 8:29 PM

First, Art Linkletter chatted with the honest little scamps, then Bill Cosby talked with kids these days. They probably won't get a TV or radio show, but parents on Reddit shared the creepy things their kids have said or done.
posted by filthy light thief (57 comments total)

Art Linkletter, previously.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:30 PM on April 30, 2013

Some of the stories in that reddit thread are pretty amazing/terrifying. Children are scary.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:43 PM on April 30, 2013

One morning, my niece looked up at me and asked "Aunt E, what time are you going to die?"

the phrasing made it seem so...imminent.
posted by emd3737 at 8:45 PM on April 30, 2013 [5 favorites]

[–]taches_de_rousseur 1394 points 5 days ago*

This isn't scary creepy, more just uncomfortable creepy while also being the most hilarious thing to happen to me ever...it's my favorite story from my years of teaching in a daycare/preschool. It was nap time and as any preschool teacher knows, most kids don't appreciate naps as much as they should. They will do anything to get off of their cots, usually ask to go to the bathroom because they know we can't say no (if we do, they piss their pants...assholes.) I let this little boy, we will call him Chris, use the bathroom. He had been gone for awhile so I went to check on him and found him standing in front of the bathroom mirror, dick in hand, just checking out his 'manhood'. I said "Chris, what are you doing in here? Time to get back on your cot." He turns around and looks at me and while shaking his dick around in his hands says "Miss taches_de_rousseur, I'm going to put my penis on your face!" I tried really hard to walk away before I laughed because if you laugh at something a kid does those little fuckers will just do it over and over again. I would have been successful if the teacher in the other room didn't yell back (without hesitation) "you're not the first guy to tell her that, Chris!"

posted by triggerfinger at 8:49 PM on April 30, 2013 [8 favorites]

Another Reddit thread from a while back works well as a companion to this one - What does your kid do that creeps you out?

(After reading that months ago, the phrase "Do you like screams in your head?" still pops into my mind every so often.)
posted by jeudi at 8:51 PM on April 30, 2013

Oh my god, the crosses for kittens story wins.
posted by scatter gather at 8:52 PM on April 30, 2013 [8 favorites]

My five-year-old son often talks about "Tom the Ghost." He's a ghost who lives with us. One day, my wife asked my son about Tom the Ghost's origins.

Apparently, my wife gave birth to Tom the Ghost before my son was born. But don't worry, he wasn't a baby that died. My son explained that he was always a ghost because I have "ghost sperm."
posted by mokin at 8:52 PM on April 30, 2013 [10 favorites]

When I read this yesterday, I laughed so hard that I was crying and my nose was running and I could not get a grip, and my 3-year-old came over to me (thinking I was crying because I was sad), patted my arm, and whispered, in the creepiest possible way, "Hush now, don't you cry. HUSH NOW."

It was like the moment before a commercial break on a really low-rent TV thriller and of course only made me laugh harder.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:56 PM on April 30, 2013 [11 favorites]

This sort of made me remember my own oddness: my sister was born roughly six years before me. Three years before I was born, my mother had a miscarriage. At one point, I brought it up in conversation with my mother and sister, and they just froze, and asked me where I'd heard it. We talked about, and the thing is, my mother had never told me, my sister had never said a word. I'm pretty sure my mom called my dad to ask if he'd said anything, and he swore he hadn't.

In all likelihood, I'd overheard someone say something, but the thing is, I have absolutely no idea who told me, and evidently it was supposed to be a secret, and I wasn't supposed to know, but I honestly feel (and felt at the time) like it was something I've always known.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:57 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

One time when I was a little kid I told my dad I saw a monster in the heat vent in the bathroom. My dad, a strong, fearless, and powerful man, bent down to allay my fears... and he jumped and nearly hit the ceiling only to realize a bat was trapped in the vent. LESSON: BELIEVE YOUR GODDAMNED CHILDREN!
posted by banished at 8:59 PM on April 30, 2013 [8 favorites]

I was playing futbol with the 9 year old Chileno I teach ESL when he asked me if I had a best friend. I thought and said, "Well, I'm not sure but maybe my friend Brad." He kicked me the ball and asked, "Does he have a wound?"

"A what?"

"A wound."

"A wound?"

"Yes. Does he have a wound?"

Points to scab on his leg.

"Um, I have no idea. Not that I know of. Why do you ask?"

"No reason."

Shoots one right past my confused slightly terrified ass.
posted by saul wright at 9:11 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

LESSON: BELIEVE YOUR GODDAMNED CHILDREN!

Between the ages of about 18 months to about 24 months, my daughter used to claim (but now denies that she ever said it) that one of our cats had its own house, and apparently commuted to our place like it was going to work. Brie the Cat allegedly had a house and a horse farm. Ellie claimed that she used to go there to do crafts, culminating in the time that Brie made the portable stereo that we had in the bathroom. Brie's house is conveniently located across a non-existent field, just past the two lots west of us that my kid could identify at the time.

Forgive me for being skeptical: even for a cat, Brie is particularly stupid and there's no way she could keep up the mortgage payments on a horse farm. My kid is a liar.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:17 PM on April 30, 2013 [58 favorites]

This is all very hilarious, but it's a bit disconcerting how often the stories end up all, "...and that's why I, a grown person, believe in ghosts and my child's ability to commune with them."
posted by Sys Rq at 9:30 PM on April 30, 2013 [10 favorites]

also this ... because I tried it as an FPP earlier today, but it got deleted (a double).

Jonathan Hobin Recreates the World's Most Infamous Tragedies with Children
posted by philip-random at 9:35 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

Why did the butt cross the road?
Because it had a plug in it!


...and that's why I, a grown person, believe in ghosts and my child's ability to commune with them.
posted by not_on_display at 9:35 PM on April 30, 2013 [17 favorites]

My mom told me a good one after reading this. Apparently she woke me up and (much like today!) I was a little freaked out. She said "shh, Mommy's here," and I immediately stared her down with: "YOU aren't my mommy."
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:36 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

One weekend morning when I was fifteen or so I was trying to sleep in despite the fact that my eight year old brother and a friend of his were up bright and early, standing in the bathroom (which shared a wall with my bedroom) excitedly cackling at the top of their voices about the turtle they'd just captured in the bayou behind the house.

I rolled over.

I stuck my head under the pillow.

I would get back to sleep. I would.

And then, suddenly, I heard my little brother say, "I know! Tampax! We'll name him Tampax! Tampax the turtle!"

That woke me up pretty well.
posted by Sara C. at 9:45 PM on April 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

These were so fucking creepy I had to stop reading them. Otherwise, I'll have to sleep with the lights on.
posted by shoesietart at 9:48 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Not kid related but creepy what is the most mysterious/paranormal thing you've experienced.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:52 PM on April 30, 2013 [2 favorites]

Please somebody else think this is funny. I seriously laughed so hard I thought I was going to rupture something and nobody else in the past two days that I've shown it to has thought it was funny. I'm starting to worry there is something seriously wrong with me!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:57 PM on April 30, 2013 [7 favorites]

You're not alone. My dog is looking at me like I'm insane.
posted by Sara C. at 10:11 PM on April 30, 2013

I usually won’t even click a Reddit link, not because I hate, but because I usually can’t make sense of it. I’m glad I did this time.

This is some of the funniest shit I’ve read in a while. The missus and I were cackling.
posted by bongo_x at 10:14 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was 6 years old and my uncle was at the top of our steps leading into my parents house. This is how he describes this story every time he has the opportunity: "You ran up the steps with your arms out like you wanted to give me a hug. At the last possible second, you sucker punched me in the balls. You had a really deep voice for 6 years old, and as I bent over in anguish, you said in your devilish voice 'I hit you in the penis Uncle Paul'"

Giggling my penis off here.
posted by turgid dahlia 2 at 10:22 PM on April 30, 2013 [5 favorites]

Augh why did I read these so late at night? Spooky as fuck. Be sure to read the "Doodles" one, though - that shit is hilarious.
posted by naoko at 10:49 PM on April 30, 2013 [1 favorite]

Fun reddit trick:

If you have a console like Firebug on the Chrome console, run this:
$('.child').hide()

It makes it actually sort of almost readable.
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:01 PM on April 30, 2013

Carson is gone. I am Rick.
posted by carsonb at 11:22 PM on April 30, 2013 [7 favorites]

This is why I will NEVER breed (semen-stealing feminazis notwithstanding [/double royale with cheese]).

As a child I suffered from really high fevers. Like dain bramage high fevers and I would spout shit that my mom, to this day, will not tell me. Possibly in fear that it will trigger me into some sort of killing machine. Apparently the LEAST scary thing I said was when I sat up in bed, pointed my finger at her and made wide eyes and told her that I was going to put her in the piano and close the lid so the strings would cut her up like spaghetti.

Yeah, mom says she didn't leave the lid up on the piano ever again til I was around fourteen.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 11:46 PM on April 30, 2013 [7 favorites]

There are a couple ARG like mystery creepypasta subreddits /r/nequamonitus, /r/fearme , and the oddly soothing /r/seventhworldproblems. As usually, it's reddit, you may see some shit.
posted by Ad hominem at 12:33 AM on May 1, 2013

so I'm a kid and we're trying to pick up some visiting relatives at the Miami airport. My mom's driving, and lost and getting very flustered. She's been trying to get my snoozing Dad to wake up for a few miles already because she doesn't know where to go, but Dad for some reason is in this dead sleep and will not wake. Mom's calling out his name, she's got me shaking him and saying wake up, wake up... nothing's working. Which is nuts, because the noise level in the car was pretty intense. There's a moment of silence where we both take a breath, and I say in a really calm, quiet voice "Dad, your ears are turning purple" at which point he leaps up and eyes bug out. I remember thinking "wow I didn't think that would work"
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:26 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

We have the Occasionally Creepy Kid problem too, so I asked the Daily Show's Al Madrigal about it (our bit starts ~28 minutes in) and he shared his own haunted experiences.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 2:41 AM on May 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

When I was about 4 or 5, I am told, my mom got a new (used) car. I stated out the window at it for a while, and said:
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"If you die, do I get your car?"
"Um... I suppose?"

More staring out the window.

"Then... if everybody dies, I get everything."
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:30 AM on May 1, 2013 [31 favorites]

One of my friends was out for a picnic with her family a few years ago at a scenic spot near us, a riverbank by an old church. Her youngest daughter (about 4?) was racing round on the grass having a great time playing with an imaginary friend.

Mother: Okay, [kid], time to go.
Child: I'm playing with Tommy!
Mother: Well, say goodbye to Tommy, we're going home.
Child: All right! *runs over to churchyard, hugs a gravestone*

Maybe it's better not to know wtf's going on inside their creepy little minds sometimes.
posted by Catseye at 3:40 AM on May 1, 2013 [8 favorites]

"My five year old adopted little sister has a game she would play, where we would pretend to go around to people's houses and take their children. Once we rounded up enough we would eat them, violently and maliciously. This was her idea, through and through. The name of the game? Social worker."

YOU WILL NEVER BE BORED AGAIN.
posted by artof.mulata at 4:43 AM on May 1, 2013 [3 favorites]

When he was little, the son of some friends came up to them...
"Make me pancakes."
"Make me pancakes."
"Make me pancakes...Or I'll kill you!"
posted by Thorzdad at 4:55 AM on May 1, 2013

Kinda creepy: When she was 2, my daughter told me that "last time we were alive," SHE had been the mommy and I had been the baby, and that she had been a "really good mommy" to me.

Not really creepy, but funny: When my son was in first grade, on the first day of school, another kid did something to him in line that made him really upset and ended up with both of them having to go to the principal's office. At pick-up time, as the teacher was explaining the situation to me with my son nearby, the offending kid came over and stood near my son. They stood face to face, staring each other down, and then my son narrowed his eyes and said in a steely voice, utterly serious, "So. We meet again."
posted by mothershock at 5:35 AM on May 1, 2013 [9 favorites]

Some of the stories in that reddit thread are pretty amazing/terrifying. Children are scary.

To be honest, they all made me excited for the time that our son starts to talk. Then again, my wife has softened me to imaginary horrors via her love of all things zombie-related, and we're sharing that love with our son by way of a How to Speak Zombie book (he also has the How to Speak Wookie book, and at times, he has conversations between the two books). We're also trying to add zombie to his vocabulary of animal noises he can make.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:06 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't have any creepy kid stories from my son yet, but under the "kids are weird" category, my mom's younger brother had an imaginary friend, who he called Tonto. My uncle, when a kid, had adventures with Tonto, until one day, Tonto wasn't there any more. I'm not sure if my uncle was asked or provided this fact without prompting, but apparently Tonto was crushed by a rock, and was never heard from again.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:10 AM on May 1, 2013

"Now we're mating like reptiles!"

This made me laugh so hard I scared the cat off the couch.
posted by elmer benson at 7:19 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

My son said things about how he was the daddy back when I was little. Reddit seems to be convinced this is reincarnation; I think it's just kids being unclear about how life works. He sees himself as small now, and us as big; naturally, he wonders how it got to be this way. He tries to come up with an answer, and it doesn't make sense to an adult who knows how the whole circle of life works. I don't even think he really understood what "dead" meant until very recently.

When we talk about things that happened before he was born, he asks "Where was I?" and we tell him "You were still an egg in Mommy's tummy," which he accepts as reasonable. (It gets fuzzy when we discuss really old events, and have to tell him "Gee, back THEN, Mommy was still an egg herself!")

He looks at the world with major curiosity but limited understanding. For example, a few days back he was telling me that food makes him grow. I said yes, it does. After some thought he told me if I spit out ALL my food, I would shrink and then I'd be a little baby-sized Daddy, which made him giggle madly.
posted by caution live frogs at 7:24 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I always had this picture of myself as an imaginative kid, but after reading this I realize I was dull as dishwater.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:53 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

and we tell him "You were still an egg in Mommy's tummy," which he accepts as reasonable.

Until he finds out the whole truth later: Half of you was an egg in Mommy's tummy, the other half was a sperm swimming around in my balls, then we got them together with a special hug. That boy is going to wonder how many other things you told him were just the tip of the iceberg of truth.
posted by e1c at 8:22 AM on May 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

This only re-enforces my belief that children are high, all the goddamn time.
posted by crush-onastick at 8:31 AM on May 1, 2013 [4 favorites]

Reddit seems to be convinced this is reincarnation; I think it's just kids being unclear about how life works.

Yes, this. My youngest brother (he of the turtle named after a tampon!) used to say "when I used to be big" all the time when he was 2-4. What made things a lot more complicated was that my great-grandmother was lurching down the alzheimer's spiral when he was a toddler, so it probably seemed logical to him that some bigger people needed to be cared for like babies, thus the border between "toddler" and "big grownup with toddler-esque needs" was pretty permeable.

That said, some of these detailed stories about how "last time I was alive I died in a fire" are pretty creepy. That we read it as "reincarnation" says a lot about the Western lack of understanding of the concept of reincarnation as it works in religions that actually hold that belief, though.
posted by Sara C. at 8:55 AM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

This only re-enforces my belief that children are high, all the goddamn time.

- What's up with these children, anyway? They're three feet tall and spend half their time playing with imaginary friends!
- They're like insane dwarves! I can't relate to that!

Children are the gods' little mindfucks.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:25 AM on May 1, 2013

My five year old son: "Dad, do you need your face?"
"Um, yes."
"Okay." He ran off. He was holding something behind his back.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:33 AM on May 1, 2013 [8 favorites]

This whole discussion is making me really disappointed in my own very rational, non-creepy children. Seriously, I've got three of them, and no weird stories whatsoever. I need to apply for a refund or something.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:58 AM on May 1, 2013

Pater Aletheias, on the up side, you have never been woken up at 6am with your kid, inches from your face, whispering to you "I want to peel all your skin off"
posted by filthy light thief at 11:23 AM on May 1, 2013

You may also be making the common error of assuming that people on Reddit are truthful when it comes to telling amusing stories that will get them upvotes.
posted by elizardbits at 12:30 PM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

Please somebody else think this is funny

Yep. Laughing hysterically.
posted by gerstle at 1:41 PM on May 1, 2013

When my brother was 8 or 9, he and my mom somehow got into a conversation about the bad words that he knew. He didn't want to say them out loud to her, though (because they're bad words!), so he'd give her a hint and she'd guess the word. This went on until he got to the hint "Colorado."

"Colorado??" my mom asked, not being able to figure out how it was code for a four-letter word.

"Yeah," my brother said. "Don't you remember when you and dad went to Colorado? Who'd I stay with?"

"Dick and Eloise," my mom said, suddenly realizing that the dirty word associated with Colorado was 'dick.'

"But son," she said to him, "that's his name. It's not a dirty word if it's somebody's name. What if you had a friend in your class whose name was Dick?"

My brother thought hard about that for a few minutes, then said "Well, I guess I'd call him Chuck."
posted by mudpuppie at 1:51 PM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

I once got to watch a four or five year old girl repeatedly tapping her head against the wall of the elevator while singing " I LOVE my PRINCIPLE." over and over in a sing song drone the entire way down.
posted by The Whelk at 2:01 PM on May 1, 2013

Meanwhile, in another elevator, a banker was singing "I LOVE my INTEREST."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 2:04 PM on May 1, 2013 [6 favorites]

You may also be making the common error of assuming that people on Reddit are truthful when it comes to telling amusing stories that will get them upvotes.

Just like kids, saying insane things for approval.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:08 PM on May 1, 2013

My favorite child horror story was scary due to adults, not the child.

I took one of my then-girlfriend's boys into the restroom with me to pee. Let's call him "Wee Willie Winkie," for anonymity's sake.

He finishes his business, and walks up to my urinal, watches me for a moment, and says nice and loud, "I hope when I'm grown up I have a big penis like yours."

Carefully not showing concern about where this might be leading, and the potential for jail time and a lifetime "sex offender" label, I replied as calmly as possible, "Why's that, Willie?"

"Cuz then I'll be able to pee real fast."

"Yes, you will, Willie." Exhale.

And HOPE TO FSM that the boy forgets the moment before her ex- picks him up next.
posted by IAmBroom at 3:20 PM on May 1, 2013

IAmBroom: this reminds me of something that happened to me (a white woman) in the British Museum. I was looking at a bust of an Egyptian Princess. Her face and most of her torso was black, but her breasts were lily white. A small girl, about 7-8, walked over while I was standing there and said: Those are breasts. I answered "Yes." Then she offered "My Sissy has breasts." To which I again replied "Yes." The child continued "When I am older, I will have breasts." Again, I said "Yes."

She looked at the statue, looked at me, looked at the statue, looked over her shoulder at what I assume was Sissy or possibly her mother, and opened her mouth, asking "Will my--" At which point she was whisked away by her companion.

I can only assume she wanted to know if her breasts would be white and whether mine were black.
posted by crush-onastick at 3:47 PM on May 1, 2013 [2 favorites]

Following on crush-onastick: A friend of mine emigrated from a small town in Russia to Baltimore when she was 6 years old. In the airport, she saw the first black person she'd ever beheld in her life. She walked up to him, her eyes huge, and said (thankfully in Russian): "Are you... MAGIC?"
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 3:18 PM on May 2, 2013 [2 favorites]

In American airports, Russian children Magical Negro you.
posted by artof.mulata at 2:44 AM on May 3, 2013 [3 favorites]