We recently shared a viral Reddit thread in which people shared the things their parents think they're hiding from them, and they were heartbreaking, funny, and real:
Well, here are some more that our readers chimed in with that prove parents — and grandparents! — can also be just a liiiiiiitle bit messy:
1. "I found out that my real father — who was never really a part of my life — was actually just my mom's heroin dealer."
2. "When I was 12, my kitten died while I was at school. I was told she just got sick suddenly and there wasn't anything anyone could do. Well, over 10 years later, someone made a joke at a family gathering about dropping a refrigerator on a cat..."
"That's when I found out that my dad had been moving the refrigerator to put in new flooring, and when he put it back down, my kitten ran under it and got crushed! 10 years later, they all just assumed I knew the truth, but I did not."
3. "When I was 13, my mom — who had recently divorced my dad — had some friends over for dinner. She thought I was in my room, but I was just around the corner when she told all her friends she was going to miss how huge my dad's dick was, then proceeded to give ACTUAL DIMENSIONS!"
4. "I found out that my dad wasn't present at my birth — he had gotten into a bar fight while out celebrating my upcoming arrival...and was in jail."
5. "My parents have two couples they've always been really close to. Growing up, they lived within a few houses of us, took beach vacations with us, were at all of our birthdays and holidays, and their kids were like our cousins. Well, it wasn't until we were adults that we found out all our parents were polyamorous!"
6. "I recently found out that my grandma smokes weed. Now we have weekly game nights with smoke sessions."
7. "That my mother secretly went off birth control and tricked my dad into getting her pregnant. He had recently found out that she'd been having an affair, so she got pregnant to keep him from filing for divorce."
8. "I found out my dad has had a Playboy collection since the time he was 15, when my grandmother bought him a subscription!"
"He was 55 when he finally cleared out all those magazines."
9. "Back in the 70s, my grandmother had an affair with someone she worked with. Well, after the guy died a few years ago, my grandmother — who didn't realize people knew about the affair — was raving to our family about how wonderful he was. My grandfather and my mom were talking about how annoying it was when my grandfather mentioned something about tapes..."
10. "I was always told that my mom had three cousins on my grandmother's side — two girls and a boy. Well, I found out that only the two girls are her cousins. The oldest one got pregnant at 13 and had the boy, who was raised as their brother."
"To this day, we don’t know if he knows that his 'sister' is actually his mom."
11. "I found out that the reason my father never contacted me until I was grown up was that when I was 2, my grandfather bought me from my father for $30,000."
12. "When I was little, my mom let me go through all of her old paperwork, and she didn't realize her old high school diploma was in there. The last name on her diploma read, 'Waters,' which I thought was strange because her maiden name was 'Hammann.' She tried convincing me that she was just given the wrong diploma..."
"Years later, she finally admitted that her last name did in fact used to be Waters because she got married at 17 before she graduated high school! Then, she got married again when she was 23 or 24 to a different guy!"
13. "My parents had five kids in six years, then they had me 11 years later. Naturally, I assumed that I was an accident, until recently, when my sister told me that as a kid she overheard my dad tell my mom that since my siblings were 'older now,' she should get a job to help with the finances..."
14. "I found out that a while back, my dad's colleague really wanted to have an affair with him and he called my mom from a business trip, terrified, because the woman wouldn't stop knocking at his door wanting to come in his room."
15. "My first year of college, my dog died on my birthday, which was during finals, so my mom and roommate agreed to lie and tell me the dog died later, after I finished the semester."
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.