Have anything you still fib to your parents about?

jenna8984

Tattoos they don't know about? Hiding smoking habits?

This is so trivial and dumb but my parents are health nuts. They are flying in to stay with us today so I bought a whole bowl of different fruits for the kitchen table even though H & I do not eat fruit, I want them to think we do hahahha

emmaaa

I pretend to my mom that I take my vitamins regularly and don't eat as much junk. She always tells me that I need to be healthier and drops "subtle" hints that I should lose weight.

Maggie0829

Nope.  Growing up any time I tried lying to my parents, especially my Mother, they knew it so as an adult I figured it would be kind of pointless to fib about things.  My Mom knows, she always knows.

ShesSoCold

I confessed to my mom like two years ago that I got a speeding ticket in her car when I was like 16 or 17. She would have been irate. 

arrippa

Nope a few years out of school, I came clean to my mom about my high school hijinks. I am an adult so I own my life and I don't need to lie to my mom. That said,  I get my hair cut and dyed before seeing her, just because I don't want to hear her nagging me about it.

jenna8984

arrippa said:

Nope a few years out of school, I came clean to my mom about my high school hijinks. I am an adult so I own my life and I don't need to lie to my mom. That said,  I get my hair cut and dyed before seeing her, just because I don't want to hear her nagging me about it.

Exactly!! I'm not trying to pretend to be a health nut, I just would like to not listen to her nag all weekend that we should really have more fruit!

novella1186

Well my dad is a total asshole and my mom is super judgmental and snarky (remember when she said I wasn't going to look special on my wedding day because I was planning to wear my hair down? yeah.) She's also the hugest gossip in North America. And also (I feel bad saying all this because it's making my mom sound terrible and she's really not) she kind of kills my joy by getting overly excited and crazy about something.

For example, me: "We put an offer on a house." 

My mom: "Yay! Did you call grandma? Did you tell your cousin? Did you tell your sister? Call your dad. You need to have change of address cards made and send them out! What's your new address? What day are you moving? I'm calling Aunt L!" 

Joy: Killed. That's just too much. She did the same thing when H and I got engaged. Made a fucking guest list and sent it to me like an hour after I told her. We hadn't set a date yet or anything. 

So sometimes I fib or just fail to tell them things. 

anjemon

The only thing I straight up lied to them about in recent history was when I was basically living with H (then BF/FI). I had my own place but I was never there. And then I let my bff stay in my room in the apartment for months when she was unemployed.

So since H and I got married and officially live together I don't lie about anything. I do swear a lot less around them and don't drink very much. It was SO WEIRD when H and I brought alcohol into their house when we were there over the holidays last year. But all of that is just left over from HS when I wasn't able to do any of that stuff, they don't say anything about it when I do.

Pupatella

novella1186 said:

Well my dad is a total asshole and my mom is super judgmental and snarky (remember when she said I wasn't going to look special on my wedding day because I was planning to wear my hair down? yeah.) She's also the hugest gossip in North America. And also (I feel bad saying all this because it's making my mom sound terrible and she's really not) she kind of kills my joy by getting overly excited and crazy about something.

For example, me: "We put an offer on a house." 

My mom: "Yay! Did you call grandma? Did you tell your cousin? Did you tell your sister? Call your dad. You need to have change of address cards made and send them out! What's your new address? What day are you moving? I'm calling Aunt L!" 

Joy: Killed. That's just too much. She did the same thing when H and I got engaged. Made a fucking guest list and sent it to me like an hour after I told her. We hadn't set a date yet or anything. 

So sometimes I fib or just fail to tell them things. 

Totally agree with this!! My Mom is also super involved. I think it has a lot to do with me being her only child. We get along great and all, but sometimes it is too much.

Most recent example, FH and I went to doc to begin the TTC talk, and I asked my Mom a few questions. Luckily she has kept the TTC part in confidence, but she has already told both me and my FH that she is getting an apartment in our area because she does not want to miss her grandchildren growing up. (Keep in mind we haven't even started the TTC part yet, but she does live about 8 hours away). She also told my step Dad her plan, and it is scarily in motion...I will NOT be telling her anything further until I absolutely have to.

cgss11

Hmm I can't think of anything I fib about.

Withhold though? Yes. Like my parents don't need to know of the piercing I have. Now if for some really weird reason they heard I had it and asked, I would admit it I guess but I can't see that coming up.

I've been fairly open to my Mom about ttc because we've had some generic stuff come up and she knows I'm being tested. But that's about it. I haven't said that we are actually trying or not yet (we're not), just that we're figuring out this genetic stuff first and will go from there.

climbingsingle

No. I'm 3 weeks away from turning 35. I find it pretty silly and childish to lie to my parents about things. I'm not going to pretend to live a life I don't just to impress them or get them off my back. 

[Deleted User]

I'm really bad at hiding things, and like Maggie said, my mom ALWAYS knows everything (when will I have this skill?). The only things I fib about are stupid. For example: my parents ask what I did over the weekend? I tell them I wasn't feeling well, so I just stayed in and watched TV all weekend. Truth? I felt fine, but wanted to be lazy. They don't really take well to the "I just didn't want to leave the house" thing. FI and I like to have what we call "free weekends" where we don't go out and therefore save a lot of money, and even though I think we are being financially responsible, my parents think it's a waste of a weekend.

julieanne912

When I was younger I did... about all kinds of stuff.  But now, the main thing I do is just watch my language around her.  She and my stepdad are pretty religious and I feel it's just disrespectful to drop a bunch of F-bombs around her.  If I did it, she wouldn't say anything but it just doesn't seem right to do it in front of her.

lembaslover

anjemon said:

The only thing I straight up lied to them about in recent history was when I was basically living with H (then BF/FI). I had my own place but I was never there. And then I let my bff stay in my room in the apartment for months when she was unemployed.

So since H and I got married and officially live together I don't lie about anything. I do swear a lot less around them and don't drink very much. It was SO WEIRD when H and I brought alcohol into their house when we were there over the holidays last year. But all of that is just left over from HS when I wasn't able to do any of that stuff, they don't say anything about it when I do.

Yup I pretty much did that too. For about a year then my lease was up and we realized what a waste of money it had been to keep my place and that it'd be dumb to renew a least for a year when we'd be married in 6 months so I just told my parents due to lease timing I was moving in with FI. They have learned to accept it (not like it) and it's ok. I don't plan on telling them my apartment was pretty much vacant unless they visited or FI and I wanted to spend time downtown since my apt was walking distance.

Other than that it's more just that I leave stuff out. For a while I hid my tattoos but they eventually saw one and then I was like yea I have more and now I don't try and my mom sees a new one and just says "I can't believe you keep doing that to your body, don't you know how bad it's going to look like when you get wrinkles?". When have wrinkles looked good mom, when? 

justsie

My parents are not aware of how liberal leaning I am. They are both very conservative, prolife, war on religion types. I've been avoiding a lot of discussions when my mom watches her late night news. I thought for a while I was going to have to lie to my mom about not having children. I've said so many times I don't want them, but I'm an only child and they force/comment on the topic frequently. The other day at dinner though we were playing some question game and the question was how many children I want to have and she answered zero. I guess my statements have stuck more than I thought! I was a huge relief. 

l9i

DH and I are going to start TTC soon and we don't plan to tell either of our parents bc we feel there is no reason too.  The only thing that would happen is our mothers becoming obnoxious and relentlessly bugging us, plus they would never keep it a secret and that's ultimately nobody's business.  

I hid a lot of stuff from my parents growing up, now the only thing I can think of is sometimes we'll say we're busy when we aren't to avoid things, like being forced to see my brother... no thanks, I'm very content with him out of my life.

lnixon8

I sugarcoat some parts of my job. I teach high school in a not so great area and it's not weird for me to be cursed out or have people that are 20 years old get in my face. They are just afraid for me. 

The problem is I forget about this when I tell my cousins and this little number got back to them: First year teaching (I was 22) and this 18 year old "freshman" won't put his phone away while taking his final exam. We go back and forth...eventually he puts his phone on his crotch, gets in my face and says "fine-GRAB IT!" I almost cried. Like me, my Mom would jump to conclusions, think this was a weekly thing and try to get me to switch to elemntary or something.

NowIamMrsKlein

I used to 'fib' to my parents about my dating.

I am a very private person and I felt no need to talk about a guy I was seeing if there was no future. I didn't think that my parents needed to know that I was just out having fun.

This being the case they knew that FI was special because I introduced him to them after 3 weeks of dating. At 25 it was the first guy I had ever had meet them and only the second guy that I had mentioned dating. I am sure they thought I was some sort of loner/cat lady in the making because I never had boyfriends or told them about going on dates. But I figured it was none of their business that I was casually seeing a couple guys.

l9i

SoontobeMrsKlein said:

I used to 'fib' to my parents about my dating.

I am a very private person and I felt no need to talk about a guy I was seeing if there was no future. I didn't think that my parents needed to know that I was just out having fun.

This being the case they knew that FI was special because I introduced him to them after 3 weeks of dating. At 25 it was the first guy I had ever had meet them and only the second guy that I had mentioned dating. I am sure they thought I was some sort of loner/cat lady in the making because I never had boyfriends or told them about going on dates. But I figured it was none of their business that I was casually seeing a couple guys.

And here I thought this was just me!  My parents think DH is the only guy I ever dated.  I just didn't feel the need to vocalize everything because I didn't want the 21 questions over something I knew wasn't serious.

wandajune6

I don't hide much. They don't know the details of our fertility problems but that's about it.

Except for one issue: tattoos. I have 2. My goal had been for them to never find out about either. That failed. My mom saw the first when I was trying on wedding dresses. I was trying to be modest/discreet but the salesperson was not being helpful. That wasn't fun.

kmmssg

And threads like this one are what convinced me (many years ago) to stay here.  I learned a lot about boundaries by listening to you ladies.

2 of the things I found out from DD #1:

1.  Mom - remember how I always got home before you when I was in High School?  Well, I got a ticket when I was driving to school in my Senior year so when the letter came in the mail about it, I hid it and I just went went and paid the fine and never told you about it.

2.  Mom - remember when I was a senior in high school and I interviewed to work at Meijer?  And you kept pestering the snot out of me about getting back with them about a job?  Well... I didn't go back because I would have had to take a drug test.  I wouldn't have passed.

Now, she has 2 teens, a 12 yo, and an 8 yo.  Karma is a bitch and I have popcorn and a frosty beverage just waiting for the show.

jenna8984

@kmmssg hahahah frosty beverage- I love you.

redheadbride15

jenna8984 said:

arrippa said:

Nope a few years out of school, I came clean to my mom about my high school hijinks. I am an adult so I own my life and I don't need to lie to my mom. That said,  I get my hair cut and dyed before seeing her, just because I don't want to hear her nagging me about it.

Exactly!! I'm not trying to pretend to be a health nut, I just would like to not listen to her nag all weekend that we should really have more fruit!

OMG my mother does this too! Every time she visits the first thing she does is look around the kitchen and then say "we're going to the grocery store" and she buys like 5 different kinds of fruit. We make it through like 1/10th of it over the course of the weekend, then she goes, and the rest rots and gets thrown in the trash later that week. I'm a good vegetable eater, but I can kinda do without fruits.

My parents don't really know much about me, but I don't actively hide anything from them either. I was an independent kid who grew into an independent adult.

teddygirl9

I'm not actually that bad, but my boyfriend lies to his parents a lot. Even though we've been moved out/living together for 2 years. They are muslim, and he is "muslim". He eats more pork than anyone I know haha. So if they come over we have to put the bacon in the bottom of the freezer, under random things, just in case they check the fridge/freezer. He also used to go to church (mosque) on fridays - except the sermon thing started at like 7, then everyone mingles and you give money to some dude for some blessed food. He would show up at like 8:15, right as the sermon was ending and buy the food and talk to his parents like he was there the whole time. So yeah, he keeps a lot from them.

themosthappy91

When we were dating H insisted we lie to his parents about a lot and I was so uncomfortable with it because I'm very open/close with my family and just did/do not understand their type of relationship.

Lying about living together was probably the biggest thing, but to me the weirdest thing we lied about was going back to our mutual hometown (high school sweethearts) for weekend trips and not telling his parents. He wanted to just be able to do stuff with me/my family/friends we still had in the area and knew if his parents knew he was in town they'd basically insist he spend the majority of his time there with them.

H always told me "They are just going to be this way until we get married and it's easier not to deal with them since it's just for now. They'll change when we get married." And I was always like "That's BS, we're teaching them bad habits now by tiptoeing around them on everything and it's only going to get worse as life goes on!" But it turns out he was actually right... it's like a switch flipped for them the day we got married and now, while I'm sure they don't always approve of stuff we're doing, they don't say boo about anything to us. They are very much just like "You are 100% our kid until you get married and then you are 100% your own person with no obligation to us." Weird philosophy if you ask me.

jenna8984

Guys....the peanut butter. My parents were so excited to eat the fruit for breakfast this morning but then they wanted peanut butter toast with it and gave me an earfull about how mine has hydrogenated oils in it and I should really just buy the natural stuff that separates. No thank you, you can pry the Skippy from my cold, dead hands!

redheadbride15

jenna8984 said:

Guys....the peanut butter. My parents were so excited to eat the fruit for breakfast this morning but then they wanted peanut butter toast with it and gave me an earfull about how mine has hydrogenated oils in it and I should really just buy the natural stuff that separates. No thank you, you can pry the Skippy from my cold, dead hands!

Oh God no, don't mess with the sanctity of Skippy. There are some things for which "healthy" substitutions are not okay: peanut butter, mayonnaise, bacon, ranch dressing...

photokitty

If my mom asks how much I had to drink I always cut the number of drinks in half...tailgate season results in some fibbing, but otherwise not really.

OliveOilsMom

I hid my online dating from my parents.  I knew they would not like that because of the horror stories you would hear.  So I had a friend who I would call before and after all my online dates.  When I started dating H, I didn't tell my parents for about 3 months.  So since I was going out more often, my dad actually asked me once where I was going.  I said bowling, which is where H & I were going.  He said with who.  I said my BFF and my dad goes, but she's 7 months pregnant.  So quickly thinking, I said she actually watches and her H and I do all the bowling.

But when I finally told my mom about H, her response was "Oh, and your older brother is dating someone too.  Finally."  I was waiting for the third degree and that was her response!

charlottesmom0626

um everything. 

Some of you probably read some of my psycho mom stories, but basically it's in my best interest to keep all conversations light and casual, same as talking to a bank teller or grocery worker..so usually I just say things are "fine or good"

lovesclimbing

Quite a few things. We don't lie about them, I just avoid the subject and it doesn't come up.

H and I drink socially. It's very minimal when we do, never more than two drinks apiece. Both our parents believe all drinking is wrong. We didn't start drinking until after we were married. We never did in college or anything. We rarely order drinks at restaurants and don't keep alcohol in the house except for when having guests, so it's not like we're hiding it when parents visit or forgoing alcohol when going out to eat. We just avoid the topic and it doesn't really come up. If either set asked, we would answer truthfully, because we're adults and are allowed to do what we want, but it's nice to avoid it while we can because we know they would try to talk to us at least a little about why it's wrong.

My mom knows H's job has not been so hot lately. It's been worse recently and he's been super stressed and wants to quit, but I don't want to go into too much detail so I just say it's going ok.

My mom doesn't know how long it's been since I've been to the dentist because we can't afford it.

I would say the biggest lie I told was when mynsister loaned me her car for the summer for work (she left town for the summer), ran a red light, and wrecked it. It was covered under her insurance and at the time, H and I had let our insurance lapse for his truck because we were broke and living paycheck to paycheck. Anyway, when I told my sister and parents, my mom told me my sister had said the insurance company said we might get partial coverage from our own insurance even though our insurance wasn't on her car. I lied and said that wouldn't work because we hadn't updated the insurance after getting married and I wasn't listed as an insured person on H's truck (which was true.) The real reason is that I never even checked because we didn't have insurance. For the record, we got insurance again the next day and haven't let it lapse since.