Gross Things Your Parents Did

[Anonymous]

Parents were divorced and my mom had several men over several times a month. I'm honestly not sure if she was getting paid sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Wow, I'm honestly feeling a little queasy after reading some of these. I'm sorry you had to put up with that grossness.

Mine are a little tamer, but my parents never washed their hands, and they never taught my sister and I to wash our hands after using the bathroom. It wasn't until I was a teen that I realized other people were doing this every time that I started doing it. So gross, I know.
My parents also never washed their hands after handling raw meat. I still have to make my dad do it when he's cooking for me.
Leftovers and other food seems to have no expiration date in their house.
My mom never slept in underwear (totally fine, but...) then she'd get up in the morning in her short nightshirt and do stuff around the house with no undies on. And, everytime she bent over or raised her arms, we'd have to see her butt. Used to gross me out and embarrass me. I would remind her to put pants/undies on when I had friends sleepover.

God, I hope my kids never have anything like this to say about me!

[Anonymous]

My aunt and uncle once decided to fill their pool in ... by dumping all of their garbage into the empty pool for months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You don't need to. Every Southern home I know of had a small crock to save some bacon grease and it sat out and was never refrigerated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There is an argument that the "elite" serve a really important civilizing function for the rest of society--specifically b/c people try to emulate them--and that it's big reason society has become increasingly dysfunctional today. For example, if the upper-class divorces or chooses to have children outside of marriage, it's not a huge deal. There are dozens of supports in place that ensure that the children grow up in a functional setting. When the lower classes emulate this it's a disaster.

I.e. there is a direct line from "hold the door open for ladies" to "don't beat your wife." These social norms aren't needed by the upper class, strictly speaking, but they are needed for those who struggle to function in society to maintain some guardrails.

But Hollywood does this with their children.

Why can’t we?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

THIS! I grew up poor and cannot relate to single post. I will say that I had a friend whose house I loved having dinner with when her mom served canned green beans, we never had canned anything and I loved canned green beans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents were divorced and my mom had several men over several times a month. I'm honestly not sure if she was getting paid sometimes.

Some women are simply quite “high drive.”

Literally hundreds of times, I have read responses here from other women who do not believe there are any high-drive women. Confirmation bias maybe? But we do exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sooo many things.
Mother would walk around the house bare chested because she was hot when my brother wasn’t around. My father was sometimes around though, and I was grossed out as well.
At least he wore his pants.

There’s just too much to list.
After my mother died I got a glimpse into my dad’s disgusting habits because I started coming over to help and later moved him closer to me and now visit regularly. He had this one bowl he eats his slop from. Slop as in mixing everything together - soup, some grains, veggies, whatever he has that day. He then leaves the empty bowl on the table and reuses it without washing. When I visit I make him wash it of course but he doesn’t do it when he is alone.

Why do you think it was gross your mom sometimes walked around topless at home? As someone who breastfed, this doesn't seem like a big deal.

The food bowl thing with your dad is kind of gross, but only because he's not washing that bowl regularly. I don't think it's gross to combine grains and veggies to eat them. I also think you calling it "slop" is making it sound grosser than it is. It just sounds like food to me.

The judgment you have here seems deeply misplaced.

When your kids are WAY beyond breastfeeding years, yes it’s incredibly inappropriate to walk around topless. No one wants to see that.

[Anonymous]

After reading this thread, I asked my DS if I inadvertently do anything gross around the house. It was a relief when he told me I was "pretty normal."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sooo many things.
Mother would walk around the house bare chested because she was hot when my brother wasn’t around. My father was sometimes around though, and I was grossed out as well.
At least he wore his pants.

There’s just too much to list.
After my mother died I got a glimpse into my dad’s disgusting habits because I started coming over to help and later moved him closer to me and now visit regularly. He had this one bowl he eats his slop from. Slop as in mixing everything together - soup, some grains, veggies, whatever he has that day. He then leaves the empty bowl on the table and reuses it without washing. When I visit I make him wash it of course but he doesn’t do it when he is alone.

Why do you think it was gross your mom sometimes walked around topless at home? As someone who breastfed, this doesn't seem like a big deal.

The food bowl thing with your dad is kind of gross, but only because he's not washing that bowl regularly. I don't think it's gross to combine grains and veggies to eat them. I also think you calling it "slop" is making it sound grosser than it is. It just sounds like food to me.

The judgment you have here seems deeply misplaced.

When your kids are WAY beyond breastfeeding years, yes it’s incredibly inappropriate to walk around topless. No one wants to see that.

...what is the problem? This seems oddly prudish. We're talking about someone in their own home, with immediate family. Breasts are not genitals.

And where do you draw the line? What if someone on a hot day wears a light cotton dress around the house without a bra. Is that "incredibly inappropriate"?

I'm honestly baffled by this one. There's nothing sexual or unhygienic about this. No one is objecting to a dad walking around without his shirt off. I'm not trolling, I truly don't get this.

[Anonymous]

When my sister got chickenpox, the other four siblings had to drink out of her glass so we would also all get chickenpox and my
Parents could get it over with at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are some gross things your parents did? I'm wondering if some of this will turn out to be mostly generational stuff.

My mother drank from the carton/bottle/pitcher -- as in the big one in the fridge that was for everyone. She'd grab the 2 liter of pepsi, unscrew the top, and drink from the bottle, and put it back. Disgusting. Did the same with milk, a kool-aid pitcher, etc.

My mom and stepdad probably showered 3 times a week or so. My step dad was a doctor -- a freaking pathologist -- you would think he would have known better. Nope. Rarely, if ever, saw them wash their hands. I do feel like those silent gen folks did not shower enough.

It's cute that you think your stepdad was wrong about showering or that you know better than a pathologist.

I will assure you that he was absolutely filthy.

Maybe he was filthy, but in general, there is nothing wrong or unhealthy about showering 3-4 times a week.

Maybe for a hobo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents were divorced and my mom had several men over several times a month. I'm honestly not sure if she was getting paid sometimes.

Some women are simply quite “high drive.”

Literally hundreds of times, I have read responses here from other women who do not believe there are any high-drive women. Confirmation bias maybe? But we do exist.

I have a friend who is high drive, and it gets her so many problems. Suggested she monetize this.

My older parents grew up only taking one shower or bath a week, so that's what they did the rest of their lives! They did wash every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dad would pour Hawaiian Punch into his beer. This is a man who was raised in Germany with German parents, for Pete's sake!

German here. I actually sort of understand this one. He was making a Radler of sorts. Hawaiian Punch is a bit of an odd choice, but I guess he liked the flavor. I'm guessing you probably lived in a place without the ability to purchase the imports of the real ones (which is what we buy to avoid this )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents were divorced and my mom had several men over several times a month. I'm honestly not sure if she was getting paid sometimes.

Some women are simply quite “high drive.”

Literally hundreds of times, I have read responses here from other women who do not believe there are any high-drive women. Confirmation bias maybe? But we do exist.

I have a friend who is high drive, and it gets her so many problems. Suggested she monetize this.

My older parents grew up only taking one shower or bath a week, so that's what they did the rest of their lives! They did wash every day.

I knew a lady who would wear vibrator panties out and about. I can’t believe she never got caught.