What’s the Most Brutally Honest Thing a Child Has Ever Said to You?
When you’re an adult, you have a full understanding of emotions and how to control what you say. It’s a different situation when you’re a kid. Many kids say the most shocking things without realizing what they’ve done. These Redditors discuss some of the wildest things they’ve heard children say around them.
It’s Inevitable, Y’all
My 5-year-old-granddaughter knew the speed-dial number on my daughter’s phone. Without my daughter’s knowledge, my granddaughter called me and left the following message: “Grandma, you are so very, very, very, very pretty, but you’re old and you might die.”
At the end of her message, I heard my daughter yell, “Who are you talking to?” Granddaughter quickly said, “I love you, Grandma. Bye.” Click. I was 50 at the time.
Low Blow to Mom
I was waiting for my daughter to get her coat and boots on at daycare, and another little girl walked up to me. She was probably about 6. She told me her parents got a divorce so she was just like my daughter now. I nodded at her and then I got this gem: “I get to go one week with my mommy and one week with my daddy. Today I go with my daddy. He has a new girlfriend and she’s WAY, WAY, WAY more pretty than my mom. I wish my mom was as pretty as my daddy’s girlfriend.” I just cringed.
A Wife for Every Week
“Daddy, why do you have so many wives?” my 3-year-old, Disney princess movie-obsessed daughter said to me. I was a single, 20-year-old dad with full custody, so naturally she saw me go through a few different girlfriends. That was the moment I decided things were gonna change.
Content With Boredom
I was sitting in my room and my 7-year-old cousin comes up to me and says, “Don’t you leave your room? Don’t you do anything fun besides sitting on your computer?” I said, “Yes I do,” and tried to make something up. He said, “It doesn’t look like it. Last time I saw you, you were doing the same thing.”
I was stunned and it hurt me inside because, truth be told, I don’t have any hobbies besides watching YouTube or surfing Reddit and barely leave my room let alone my house. That kid made me contemplate life.
Is It a Boy or a Girl?
I’ve always had a gut, ever since I was a teenager. About eight years ago, I was at my girlfriend’s (now wife’s) house, and we were babysitting her little brother and sister. Her sister was about 4 at the time and cute as a frickin’ button. She was sitting next to me on the couch and she turns to me and pats my belly with her hand and says, “Aww, you’re gonna have a baby!” I was an 18-year-old dude.
It’s Called Tough Love
Our 3-year-old son was going through several days of tantrum after tantrum. I realized soon that his mom and I were constantly giving him negative feedback, punishments, timeouts, etc. to no avail. I decided that we needed to hit the reset button, so I took him aside.
“Son, do you know why Mommy and Daddy are angry and giving you timeouts?”
He nodded with tears in his eyes, still coming down from his latest tantrum.
“Ok,” I said, “why are Mommy and Daddy mad and yelling at you?”
“Because you’re horrible,” he sobbed. I had to fight not to laugh. But it allowed me insight into his perspective! Now he’s 4, and his moods (and ours) are much more manageable.
They Saw Through You
I was walking down the street one day, and I specifically remember that nothing was bothering me. Everything was perfectly normal. Nothing great, but nothing bad. It’s what Stringer Bell would’ve called a “40-Degree Day.” Then I crossed paths with this small girl.
“You look sad.”
“Oh? Um… I’m fine, thank you. This is just how I look normally.”
She seemed to give this several seconds of very serious consideration before simply repeating herself in what seemed to be a slightly more sympathetic yet matter-of-fact tone. “You look sad.” And then she walked away. That was about 10 years ago and it has stuck with me ever since for some reason.
Ready-to-Drop Music Knowledge
I was playing some electronic music I like while driving my kids somewhere. My youngest (maybe 8 at the time) pipes up. “Hey dad, about this song…”
I got really excited. You expose your kids to things you like and hope they’ll get a taste for it, right? This is the first time either of them has shown real interest in this. I get ready to field their questions. Performer? Let’s see, remember who the performer is…check. Song name? Check. I got this. Album? ALL SYSTEMS GO.
“Sure, Alex, what is it?”
“Do you think you could maybe play this,” — my heart speeds up — “when we’re not in the car?” Aaaaaand now I’m sad.
That’s an Illegal Move
I was wrestling kids in one of those big inflatable jumpers at a birthday party, getting overwhelmed by the pile of kids kicking and punching at me. At one point I get up to catch my breath. A kid looks at me straight in the eyes and says, “Hit the weight room, pork chop!” and dropkicks me in the groin.
The Truth Comes Out
My oldest granddaughter is 8. Technically, she’s my step-granddaughter since I married my wife when she had two grown children. However, no one’s bothered to explain to the three granddaughters all that stuff.
Someone at school, however, explained what step-siblings and step-parents are, and my granddaughter is exceedingly bright. So she dropped the bomb the other day, the one I’ve been waiting for since the day she was born:
“You’re not my real grandfather.”
Well, kiddo, have fun finding your “real” grandfather. While I was changing thousands of diapers, reading hundreds of books to you, playing with you all the time and basically being a rock-solid pillar of love in your life, “real” grandpa was living a mere 15 minutes away from you and has spent a total of about three hours over eight years in your presence.
Of course I didn’t say any of that stuff, and she later apologized when she realized that she’d stung me a bit.
Step Away From the Cooler
Probably when my 2 1/2 year old called me out for being a drunk in front of a half-dozen people in the grocery store. I reached for a couple of tall boys out of the cooler and my boy screamed at the top of his lungs in an angry, authoritative voice, “NO! PAPA NO! WALK AWAY, PAPA!”
I was startled and ashamed but grabbed them anyway. When I turned around, there was a group of elderly women and a mom with her kids. They were all staring and shaking their heads at the degenerate drunk standing in front of them. I didn’t quit for several months after, but I’ve been sober for 3 years now.
It’s a Hip New Walk!
My niece (who was about 3 at the time) asked my grandma if she had a baby in her belly. Obviously my grandma said no. My niece turns to me and says, “That’s weird. If she doesn’t have a baby in there, why does it wobble when she walks?”
Now my grandma has always been over-dramatic and gets easily offended — obviously my niece didn’t mean anything by it, but nope. She goes on a full rant to a 3 year old. Screaming, shouting, swearing. My niece hasn’t spoken to her since — she refuses to be in the same room as her. I wish I could do that too.
Who You Gonna Call?
My youngest sister was about 6 at the time, recently had a birthday and found herself with a little birthday money. At the time she was obsessed with those Monster High dolls. She already had about 15 of those things, but like any addict, it just wasn’t enough. During a routine grocery trip, we older kids wander off with her to the toy aisle and she locks in on the Monster High doll section. She snatches up the doll she wants, and we wind up back with Mom at the register.
She pulls out her little Velcro wallet, fully prepared to walk out of the store with that doll. Mom stops her, saying “You’ve got too many already.” Cue a 6-year-old whining fit; she’s told to go sit on a bench and wait to leave.
We all pile up in the minivan. She pops in her headphones to her little iPod shuffle and starts blaring the angriest Selena Gomez song she can find. We start chatting, and Mom tries to get her attention for something to no avail. Asks one of us to get her attention. We nudge her and she pulls out her headphones. In the calmest voice I have ever heard a child use, she says, “I’m sorry, is this car haunted? I thought I heard my mother talking, but she’s dead to me.”
My mom had to pull over because she was laughing so hard for so long.
Take Them for a Ride
I visited my 5-year-old niece recently and she really wanted my sister and me to get her scooter down for her instead of her tricycle. We told her she’d have to wait until her dad came home. We change the subject and she interjects with the most adorable and manipulative statement I’ve ever heard.
“Aunt minusthelela, if you ever find someone or something you love, you show it and go for it. You need to do whatever makes you happy in life, even if other people don’t believe in you. I believe in you so much and want to see you happy. Now, wouldn’t you want to see me happy too? Don’t you want me to follow my dreams? If you do, you could use your power to get my scooter down and let me live my life in happiness.”
Born to Make Mistakes
When I was in college I used to “clown” for kids’ birthday parties. One day it was really hot and these little monsters were really annoying me. I’m there trying to make balloon animals as fast as I can to satiate the gaggle of screaming kids, and I just can’t get through them fast enough.
In my haste, I pop a balloon as I’m handing it to a toddler, and the kid starts crying. Parents run outside to see why their little one is crying next to the strange man in the clown suit, and another little kid comes to my defense. “HEY! It’s okay. He just made a mistake. We all make mistakes, even clowns.” I don’t know why I remember that, but the tone of his voice was so genuine.
Ready for Another One Already?
I had just come home from the hospital after having my second kid. My 3-year-old LOVES to take baths with me. After I had healed up a bit, I took a bath with her. As I was washing her hair, she turned to me, poked my still-large and stretch-marked belly and said, “Mom, do you have another baby in there? Because your belly is bigger than all the other mommies’ bellies.” My stomach has since gone back down, but darn it, I started dieting the next week.
No Glass Slipper for Her
I played Cinderella in a high school play. It was a comedy mash-up of a bunch of fairy tale characters. Elementary schools would come for daytime shows as a field trip, and after their shows, we’d go out into the audience in costume, talk to the kids and take pictures and such. A lot of them would get really excited to meet certain characters, and as Cinderella, I’d often be that special one for some little girls.
After one show, I’m finishing up signing an autograph for some kid, and another cast member goes, “Cinderella, there’s a girl in the front row who’s dying to meet you!” Okay, cool. I head down to the front row. I’m now the center of attention in this tiny little theater, and as I find the girl, I realize she’s sobbing.
She sees me and throws her head back into her hands, sobbing even harder. Now everyone is staring at us. I crouch down a bit and ask her what’s wrong. She looks up at me and LOUDLY, in between sobs, she makes out, “CINDER…ELLA…IS…SUPPOSED…TO BE…PRETTY.”
The New Doctor Love
My siblings have always supported me dating my best friend, so when it happened, they were all just kind of like, “FINALLY!” Well, a few months into dating I’m telling all them the great stuff he does. My youngest brother (7-ish), cuts me off and just goes, “I’ve changed my mind. YOU are not worthy of HIM. He’s this pretty great guy and you could never deserve him.”
I was dumbfounded, obviously, that he had been paying attention to our relationship at all, but I took what he said to heart. Ever since then, I’ve tried to appreciate him more, because if a 7 year old can spot a keeper, I’d best keep him.
Sorry for Breathing
My 6-year-old niece was having a slumber party with me (her favorite aunt — parents were out of town). We stayed up an hour past her bedtime watching Disney movies and eating snacks. I laid next to her at bedtime and told her stories. Suddenly, she put her hand over my mouth and explained, “Sippistar, your breath stinks!” Yeah… And here I thought I was all cool!
Lost a Fan
One boy in my children’s choir said, “My grandmother has stopped coming to church because she says that you play the organ so loud it makes her hearing aid screech during the service.”
His comment hit home but was perplexing because I go out of my way to achieve balance with dynamics — never sustaining full organ for long and countering it with gentle passages for contrast.
Take It Slowly, Dude
It was our family Christmas party and my uncle was shoveling cookies into his face. My then-4-year-old cousin walked up to him, placed her little hand on his large, protruding belly and said, “Moderation.” No idea how she knew that word, let alone how to use it correctly, but it was one of the funniest things. We still talk about it like 12 years later.
It’s Always Food O’clock
My 4-year-old daughter was finishing dinner and told me she was full. She had enough left to be worth putting it in the fridge.
Her: “May I please be excused from the table?”
Me: “Sure.”
She starts to get out of the chair, takes two steps, turns around and says, “Actually, can I put the food away? I’m really worried if I let you do it you’ll eat it because you eat everything.” Great, kid.
Who’s the Failure Now?
I was hiding Easter eggs for my then 10ish-year-old nephew, and he couldn’t find the last one and broke down crying that he was a failure. I teased him a little bit, making light of the situation. He fired back something along the lines of, “You’re in your 20s and still live with your parents and don’t have a girlfriend or job.” Talk about going straight for the jugular.
Bigger Is Better
I was a preschool teacher for seven years before I moved up to elementary teaching. I was very overweight during most of those years until I finally lost the weight. But one day, I was trying to move ahead of my class and there was a very small opening. I said to my students, “Sorry kids, but you have to give me room to squeeze through because I am way too big to get through there!”
One of the children said, “Why are you so big?” And another student replied without a second’s hesitation, “Because her heart is too sweet and too big to fit into a tiny little body! To have a heart as big as hers, you have to have a bigger body!” It brought tears to my eyes! I still teach at the same small school and she’s in fifth grade. I teach art, so I get to spend 30 minutes a day with her class. She is still that precious, sweet kid that sees things in a completely different way.
Grin and “Bear” It
I was explaining hibernation to kindergarteners. I told them bears eat a bunch before winter so they can sleep a lot. A couple of boys told me that was weird and said that the bears didn’t have a food cabinet.
Trying to be encouraging, I said, “I wish I were a bear. Then I could get REALLY FAT and no one would judge me.” A moment of silence later, the littlest girl in the class looked me right in the eyes and said solemnly, “I would judge you.”
Two-for-One Deal
Not long after my first girlfriend (who I had been with from 15 years old to 19 years old) dumped me, I was pretty upset. My cousin at the time was 6 or 7 and asked if I wanted to take her to a movie. I told her I wasn’t feeling up to it. She knew why I was sad (someone probably asked her to ask me to go to the movies to cheer me up). Her response was: “You can either get off your bum and do something with yourself or turn into a pile of poop. Morgan wasn’t even pretty. Time to get over it.”
She double-roasted me and my ex, so I decided to take her to see a movie. I feel like someone had told her to say something like that if I said “no,” but I never found out.
More Bang for Your Buck
After I’d just had bangs cut — and not being sure if I liked them yet — a little boy in the store asked, “Why is there some random extra hair in front of your forehead?”
“Well, it is a hairstyle called bangs,” I tried to explain. His reply was to promptly yell, “WELL, IT’S STUPID!” for the whole store to hear. The mom was mortified.
Nothing Like Post-breakup Attacks
A month after I was dumped by my long-term boyfriend, I was teaching a dance camp for little girls. One of them asked me if I had a boyfriend, and when I responded with, “No,” she asked why. I told her that he had recently broken up with me.
The response of that sweet little 7 year old? “It’s probably because you don’t wear enough makeup.” And if that wasn’t bad enough, she followed her first comment with, “It’s okay. He probably just stopped loving you.”
Dance Like Nobody’s Watching
I was a camp counselor last summer and we had a dance party for the 6 to 12 year olds. Gave them glow sticks, turned on Kidz Bop and everything was fun. I’m groovin’ while I’m DJing, and one of the 9-year-old girls comes over and whispers, “You should stop dancing. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
A Future Star in the Making?
I was playing guitar for my 5 year old and she asked if I knew any Taylor Swift. I didn’t, but as Swift is her favorite singer, I decided to quickly look up some chords. I started playing “Shake It Off” for her, and she says, “I love that song, Daddy, but you sing horribly. Stop it. You’re ruining it.”
She ain’t lying; my singing sounds like a cat being drowned. But at least I managed to get her interested in instruments! Even if her “playing” is just whacking the strings on my guitar!
