Gross Things Your Parents Did

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom would burp often as she got older, most the time with an open mouth. Now DH is doing it and it's not attractive.

My mother thought farting was funny. And did not hesitate to do it, even at the dinner table. NOT cute.

I'm a woman and don't do it around company or at a dinner table, but farting is as natural as talking. You're the weird one.

Read what she wrote. Everybody knows it's natural, but not everyone does it at the dinner table.
You're weird to take what she wrote the way you did.

[Anonymous]

My parents did not wash their hands enough. Like they often prepared food or ate food with their hands without washing their hands first, and I only started doing this as an adult when I realized it was unsanitary. They did wash their hands after the bathroom, but otherwise were pretty loose with it.

We also wore shoes in the house and now that seems disgusting to me.

My dad would pick his teeth with a toothpick or sometimes with his fingernails after certain meals. But that I knew was gross -- my mom would give him a hard time about it and ask him to leave the table. Ironically, I have more sympathy for my dad about this now because I have similar teeth and have discovered in middle age that I am very prone to getting things stuck between my teeth during meals. But I excuse myself and take care of it in private, and also carry flossers in my purse for this purpose.

That's it though. I actually don't think this is is terrible. My parents both grew up quite poor, in huge families with minimal parenting. I grew up middle class and it's not surprising there were some manners deficits given their backgrounds. I actually think they did really well considering they really had to work at it. Moving up classes is challenging and requires a lot of attention to detail and and discipline. I didn't appreciate how much my parents had to do to transcend their backgrounds until I was much older.

[Anonymous]

Smoking. And not washing hands as often as we do now. It's kind of a miracle we never had food poisoning/salmonella/ecoli in our house. Like, I don't think she disinfected the counter/faucet after opening raw chicken or touching the faucet with her raw chicken hands. Stuff like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom would always lick her finger and use it to clean our faces.

I have never once done that to my kids.

This was my first thought when I saw the thread title. So gross!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not wash their hands enough. Like they often prepared food or ate food with their hands without washing their hands first, and I only started doing this as an adult when I realized it was unsanitary. They did wash their hands after the bathroom, but otherwise were pretty loose with it.

We also wore shoes in the house and now that seems disgusting to me.

My dad would pick his teeth with a toothpick or sometimes with his fingernails after certain meals. But that I knew was gross -- my mom would give him a hard time about it and ask him to leave the table. Ironically, I have more sympathy for my dad about this now because I have similar teeth and have discovered in middle age that I am very prone to getting things stuck between my teeth during meals. But I excuse myself and take care of it in private, and also carry flossers in my purse for this purpose.

That's it though. I actually don't think this is is terrible. My parents both grew up quite poor, in huge families with minimal parenting. I grew up middle class and it's not surprising there were some manners deficits given their backgrounds. I actually think they did really well considering they really had to work at it. Moving up classes is challenging and requires a lot of attention to detail and and discipline. I didn't appreciate how much my parents had to do to transcend their backgrounds until I was much older.

My parents both grew up quite poor, too, but their parents made it clear that money/wealth had no bearing on manners. My grandmother lived in a house in Ireland with no running water but had impeccable manners. I've met billionaires who are incredibly gauche. I don't think there's a 1:1...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up pretty WT. We actually lived in a 50ft trailer home on the outskirts of a small town. My stepdad was often drinking or drunk. On those nights, he and my mom were either fighting or f**king. On the nights they weren’t fighting the whole trailer home would rock and creak and you could hear skin slapping sometimes, etc. I’ve never told anyone about this. Lol.

This sounds like the beginning of a movie. 8 Mile, or something similar.

It was like the redneck version of 8 mile - except I didn’t have any talent. I can say that you almost preferred them to fight. Lol.

[Anonymous]

My mom would keep olives in her purse and eat them as snacks throughout the day. Like dip in the bag and grab one randomly no matter where she was.

But the grossest is my in laws who use white towels and they have skid marks on them. Aparently my FIL does not wipe well and even after a shower has skid marks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not wash their hands enough. Like they often prepared food or ate food with their hands without washing their hands first, and I only started doing this as an adult when I realized it was unsanitary. They did wash their hands after the bathroom, but otherwise were pretty loose with it.

We also wore shoes in the house and now that seems disgusting to me.

My dad would pick his teeth with a toothpick or sometimes with his fingernails after certain meals. But that I knew was gross -- my mom would give him a hard time about it and ask him to leave the table. Ironically, I have more sympathy for my dad about this now because I have similar teeth and have discovered in middle age that I am very prone to getting things stuck between my teeth during meals. But I excuse myself and take care of it in private, and also carry flossers in my purse for this purpose.

That's it though. I actually don't think this is is terrible. My parents both grew up quite poor, in huge families with minimal parenting. I grew up middle class and it's not surprising there were some manners deficits given their backgrounds. I actually think they did really well considering they really had to work at it. Moving up classes is challenging and requires a lot of attention to detail and and discipline. I didn't appreciate how much my parents had to do to transcend their backgrounds until I was much older.

My parents both grew up quite poor, too, but their parents made it clear that money/wealth had no bearing on manners. My grandmother lived in a house in Ireland with no running water but had impeccable manners. I've met billionaires who are incredibly gauche. I don't think there's a 1:1...

It might not be a 1:1 but there's a strong correlation. It's not a personal failing, it's built into conceptions of class. A lot of manners are not intuitive, but part of a code specifically designed to help upper class people identify one another. So if your grandmother had impeccable manners, she went out of her way to learn that code and apply it, or her own parents did. It didn't just come naturally -- it takes effort. It especially takes effort if someone is raised in a lower class household where that code is an unknown mystery.

Which is also why billionaires sometimes have terrible manners. They have money but they don't know the code because they didn't grow up with it.

You think manners are a sign of a person's inherent goodness but they are entirely separate.

[Anonymous]

We had a special pail for food scraps for composting. My dad would catch mice overnight in the house and just empty the traps into the pail, and the dead mice would lie on top until my mom made him take it outside.

[Anonymous]

Lol some of these are so gross, and a lot I find pretty "meh" - ie: showering 3x/week is quite common still for lots of people; lots of people wear shoes in their home, maybe even the majority. Mine is that my parents didn't / still don't find food to really have an expiration. It would have to be truly disgusting for them to realize maybe it has passed the time to eat it. I NEVER eat leftovers at their house. If it wasn't cooked in front of me, I'm not touching it. But somehow we had no foodborne illnesses growing up that I'm aware of, and I've never known either of them to get sick from it. So maybe I'm just a prude about food expiration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom would always lick her finger and use it to clean our faces.

I have never once done that to my kids.

came here to say this too. My mom wore dentures that I’m not sure were cleaned regularly (though I could be wrong) and she always cheered doublemint gum so her spit was sticky and stinky. I hated it. If I fought it, she’d grab my face and squeeze.

They also kept bacon grease in mugs ands empty cans. Mostly mugs. So many mugs of bacon grease that my stepfather wouldn’t let us throw away for some reason. Eventually my mom needed a long series of surgeries and my older sister came to help out. She and I cleaned the kitchen and boot did we hear about throwing away all that rancid years old bacon grease. 🤣🙄

[Anonymous]

My MIL talks with food in her mouth. Holds it in there almost like a wad of chewing gum and talks. Absolutely revolting.

My late father used to eat huge portions of a dinner but he’d swirl it all together in a bowl. So mashed potatoes, steak, vegetables…stirred repeatedly. He was an alcoholic and when drunk, would have fresh pee stains on his clothing - like he didn’t shake so the drips were there for all to see. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom would always lick her finger and use it to clean our faces.

I have never once done that to my kids.

came here to say this too. My mom wore dentures that I’m not sure were cleaned regularly (though I could be wrong) and she always cheered doublemint gum so her spit was sticky and stinky. I hated it. If I fought it, she’d grab my face and squeeze.

They also kept bacon grease in mugs ands empty cans. Mostly mugs. So many mugs of bacon grease that my stepfather wouldn’t let us throw away for some reason. Eventually my mom needed a long series of surgeries and my older sister came to help out. She and I cleaned the kitchen and boot did we hear about throwing away all that rancid years old bacon grease. 🤣🙄

Was the bacon grease refrigerated or just kept on the counter?
I save bacon grease, but only about 6 ounces or so, for frying eggs. And I keep the bacon grease in the refrigerator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mother still offers me her used bath water. We used to bathe in series- Mom, me, brother. Whatever. We weren’t any sicker back when we were less hygienic. And yes I wash my hands after using the toilet.

Yuck.

[Anonymous]

This thread has made me realize DCUM is mostly a bunch of backwoods hillbillies that pretend to be rich and are too good for their home towns now that they discovered the big bad city.