Dads Share Their Craziest “Don’t Tell Mom” Stories

In an ideal world, there would be no need for secrets, and both children and parents would share their missteps with one another and have no fear of the possible repercussions. But everyone falls short, and in instances when they do, whether by accident, poor judgment, or choice, it can be difficult to explain.

Maybe you did something that you knew you weren’t supposed to, or maybe you just snuck out and snagged an awesome gift that you don’t want anyone to find out about. You might find yourself saying those famous words: “Don’t tell mom.” In this article, we’ve compiled some of the craziest and funniest stories of people who said just that. From eating inedible items to flushing money down the toilet, some of these people have sworn others to secrecy. You’ll probably be able to relate to at least one of these stories!

Just an Owie

My mother went on a girls’ trip with her friends for two weeks when my brother and I were 5 and 8 years old, respectively. Two hours after we say goodbye at the airport, my brother somehow manages to drop a drawer on his foot, severing his entire little toe in the process….

After rushing him to the hospital, doctors weren’t sure if they could save it, but thankfully, they were able to. When my mother got home, he only had a bandage around his toe, and as far as he knew, he only had an “owie.” My mom never found out until ten years later…. My brother came in for dinner. “Hey, remember when I almost lost my toe while mum was on holiday?” That was one of the most memorable family dinners we’ve ever had. Reddit User: Florentineobest

Bribing Them into Secrecy

This is possibly in line with bad parenting, but I didn’t have much of a choice; I had to keep it a secret. I took my two boys to a monster truck jam and lost the youngest one for approximately 20 minutes. The eldest and I kept calling him, but unbeknownst to us, his phone died….

We then decided to go to the police and there he was, standing with an officer telling him that he lost his family. At that moment, I was very proud that his first thought was to go to someone of authority, but then I was filled with dread about what I’d tell their mom….I had to bribe them not to tell her what happened. This happened back in March, and she still doesn’t know what happened. Reddit User: jokerZwild

Not on School Nights

I remember being 14 or 5 years old when we got our first cable television. I was very exciting, and we all took turns watching it individually as well as together. One night when I had just gotten in bed, my door opens, and it is my father peeking through….

He popped his head into the room and said to me, “We’ve got the adult channels. Never on a school night, and don’t tell your mother.” He closed the door after, and I was left to think about what he just said to me. He’s a great man. Reddit User: D-Angle

An Anxious Feeling

When I was around 11 or 12 years old, my father bought an old 4×4 Toyota Tercel wagon, and although it was an absolute dog of a car, it was surprisingly great for off-roading. My dad decided to take me along for a spin in an abandoned field down in the country.

For about 20 minutes, we were tearing through the forested area, and it was awesome….All of a sudden, I got really anxious and yelled at my dad to stop the car, so he slammed on the brakes, and we came to a screeching halt…5 feet from the edge of a cliff. We stepped out of the vehicle, and the cliff’s drop was about 25 feet.

We got back into the vehicle and drove home in complete silence. It’s been 15 years since that day, and my mother still doesn’t know about this. Anytime my dad and I do something dumb, we reminisce about what could have happened that day. Reddit User: ismynametoolon

Rated R Movies

My father and I always bonded by going to the movies, and we’d often go every time a big movie came out. The car ride to and from the movies,  we’d talk about life, the universe, and the movie we were on our way to see. Just awesome bonding time getting to know each other.

The movie we were about to see was The Matrix, but I was only ten years old at the time, and if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know that it’s not exactly for kids. When I asked if we could go, my father said no, and it’s the first time he said that to me.

One day when he came home from work, he slipped me something from out of his coat….He whispered, “Don’t tell mom” as he walked away. It turned out to be The Matrix on VHS. I lost count how many times I watched it. Reddit User: RossPeterson

Not Being Able to See

When I was 14 years old, my father and I were driving to the coast with a cement mixer loaded in the back of his truck. It wasn’t loaded properly, and although I was only 14, he let me take the wheel for a little while because the roads were straight for hundreds of miles….

I’d been driving for a while when the rain began to pour hard enough that the wipers couldn’t keep up. I could barely see a thing. The only thing I thought to do was to curl up into a ball as my dad yelled, “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING? HOLD THE WHEEL!”

My dad reached over and shoved me back against the seat. He then grabbed the wheel and pulled on it hard, swinging it back around to straighten us out. He let me drive for another hundred miles in absolute silence, then he said, “It’s my turn. This is not a 4 or 10 years later story; you don’t tell mother until after I’m dead.” Reddit User: [redacted]

“My Icky”

One day I was at home with my two-year-old daughter while her mother was at work. I was watching television and drinking a beer, but I felt the need to go to the bathroom, so I set it down to go to the bathroom. My daughter, who is extremely smart for her age, knows that she should not touch things that aren’t hers.

But my beer was just too tempting for her to resist….I came back just in time to see her take a big swig of it. She hated the taste and spat it out. I’ll never tell my wife, and to this day, my daughter refers to beer as “my icky.” Reddit User: TooLazyToBeClever

A Deal With My Dad

One night, while my mother was at work, my father and my uncle went out drinking. I heard them come in while I was taking a shower, then all of a sudden, I hear banging on the door. Out of nowhere, my father kicks down the door, and why did he do that?

Just so he could throw up in the toilet…. In his drunken state, he tripped over the toilet and ended up relieving his stomach in the bathtub where I was standing. Because of that, I never got in trouble for coming home drunk as a teen. Reddit User: yagerbomb

You’re Too Young for One

On Christmas Day, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, my dad got me my first real knife despite my mom saying that I was too young for one. I wanted to use it as much as possible, so I’d find anything that needed cutting and use my new toy. I also got some games, so I decided to use it to cut the plastic off….

I sat on my bed while my sister sat next to me watching television. I started to cut off the wrapper, and I don’t know how, but the bed moved, and I ended up jamming my new toy into my leg. I just stared at it while my sister ran to get my father, but I decided to pull it out myself….

Luckily, my mother was out of the house when it happened, so she couldn’t hear my sister screaming at the sight of it. The cut was relatively small, but it was still about 2-3 inches deep. My mom still doesn’t know about it. Reddit User: notthecolemanyouknow

Greg, the Blind Man

My father was one of five boys, all born within the space of 10 years. One day, he and his brother were playing Blind Man’s Bluff with Greg, the middle child, as the Blind Man. My uncle Bruce, the oldest, started throwing insults at Greg to get his attention. He got really upset and charged at Uncle Bruce….

Bruce moved to the side while Greg ran full force into the corner of the house, knocking himself unconscious. Uncle Bruce is freaking out, as he thought that he accidentally killed his brother, but that’s not enough for them to call their parents. Instead, he and another brother pick him up and tuck him into bed, then go back to their game like nothing happened….

When it’s time for dinner to come around, and their mother is asking where Greg is. They end up saying that he just went to take a nap because he wasn’t feeling well. Greg was fine, but I’m amazed that they all lived to adulthood. Reddit User: BlueApple4

Sail Away

When I was a teenager, my father and I went on a two-week trip together to Belize ahead of the rest of our family. We sailed up the coast to Ambergris Cave in a 2-person sailing sea kayak my dad bought a long time ago. For most of the trip, it was smooth sailing…until we got closer to the cave.

There was this huge break in the coral reef for ships to sail in from other countries. My father was navigating the ship like a professional until there was an unbelievably large wave that ended up coming. My dad put some slack on the sail so that the gust of wind would not rock the boat too much; however, he was a bit too slow. As we were thrown out in midair, my father yelled, “DON’T TELL YOUR MOM WE WEREN’T WEARING LIFE-JACKETS!” Reddit User: TresDigitus

Recounting a Story

When I was younger, back in grade school, I got into trouble for something silly; I can’t remember exactly what it was that I got in trouble for, but my mother sent me to my room without any dessert. I spent the night crying in my room and just a few moments later, my father came in and snuck me a piece of cake….

He told me not to tell my mother about it. I ended up telling her a few decades later, while we watched sadly as my father was taken off life support as his vital signs were slowly going down. She loved that story and that he did that. Reddit User: Jujubeez

Discovering the Tooth Fairy

When you have children, there are a few things that every parent has to do. It includes pretending to be Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. It was my turn to be the Tooth Fairy, and I guess I wasn’t careful enough, because my oldest daughter ended up catching me…

She agreed that she wouldn’t tell her mother or ruin it for her little brother. She still gets the money every time she loses a tooth, but I don’t have to go out of my way to be a ninja about it in order to give it to her. Reddit User: londongarbageman

My Wife’s Makeup

One afternoon, while working on the extension of our home, my wife comes home to leave our youngest (6) and her cousin (5) in my care. I left them upstairs, and then I realized that it was too quiet where they were supposed to be playing. Parents would understand the type of silence I’m referring to, so I run upstairs, and they’re not in the room….

I go to the next room and see them sitting in the middle of me and my wife’s bed with all of my wife’s makeup laid around them. They are covered in the stuff, and there was foundation ground into one of my wife’s favorite duvets. I was horrified, but I grabbed a bag of wet wipes and got to work….

After banishing them to the playroom, I put the duvet in the wash. I went back to the girls and said, “Listen, girls, do you want to do a sleepover tonight?” “YES!” they squealed. The only rule was that they never mention the makeup. Reddit User: Merax75

Brothers’ Secrets

When my husband and his brother were about 5 and 6 years old, they decided to do some “cooking.” Because they were so small, they had to use a stool to climb up the pantry to get what they needed. While pulling out everything they needed, they accidentally knocked over a bottle of BBQ sauce on the floor.

The boys cleaned it up as best they could, and that was by pushing all of it under the fridge….A few months go by, and their mom sees a cockroach crawl under the fridge and then decides to clean. She asks the younger brother what the mess is. He tells her, “Brother says that’s a secret. We have lots of secrets.” Reddit User: Kurlysoo

What’s in the Box?

During this one Christmas holiday, my father took my sister and I to the mall to do a bit of shopping. We split up for a little bit, and when we next saw him, he had a big box he was hauling around in a sack. He told us that he’d bought a pair of boots and not to tell my mother….

When we got back to our house, we told her that he didn’t deserve a present. On Christmas day, he told us to open the box, and it turned out to be this big VCR player. He had bought it for us. We felt so bad, but he ended up laughing it off. Reddit User: mamacrocker

Our Monthly Date

This happened to me just last week. My wife and I go on separate “dates” with our children about one day a month, just so we can spend some extra time together with them. On one of those days, I told my wife that we were going to go get dinner and ice cream…

But that’s not what we ended up doing. I brought my 6-year-old son to see the Marvel movie Dr. Strange, and I have absolutely no regrets about it. To this day (albeit it’s only been a short time) he’s still been able to keep it a secret. Reddit User: notTHATwriter

Going Down the Drain

My best friend told me this story. Approximately 5 years ago, his son, who was three years old, just learned how to flush the toilet, and as such, would flush everything. A short backstory is that they played the same lottery numbers every week. The one week when his wife was away visiting her mother, he won $6700 from the lottery….

It was great because they were struggling financially. He left the ticket on the counter, waiting to surprise her when she came back the next day. While he was playing video games, he heard the toilet flush, so he decided to get up to see what it was.

He walked in just in time to see the ticket going down the toilet…The $6700 was gone, and I’d never seen him cry as much as he did that day. He made me promise not to say anything because his wife might have hurt someone if she found out. Reddit User: thisiswhathappened

Defending Myself

Back when I was in the fourth grade, I got into a fight at school during the first period. The other kid and I both ended up getting sent to the principal’s office, and I wound up getting a one-day suspension because I actually gave the other kid a bloody nose.

My father was called by the school, and when he came to get me, he drove me around so we could talk about what happened….He took me for ice cream then to the playground so I could run around for a bit. My mom never found out about that story. Reddit User: Fancy_Pantsu

The Escape Artist

I once let my two-year-old son play on the balcony on his own while I went to wash the dishes. I wasn’t worried because the bars were too small for him to squeeze through, so it was fine, right? Nope…he somehow managed to squeeze himself between the bars.

When I came back, he was standing on the ledge of the balcony two stories above the ground…. I was silently freaking out. I didn’t want to scream and accidentally scare him and make him fall to his death. I got his attention, and he squeezed himself back onto the balcony. Reddit User: G n- DIGESTIVE_ENZYMES

Blaming My Sister

When I was about 14 or 15 years old, I borrowed my mom’s van (without her permission) and drove it to a friend’s party. On my way back, I accidentally hit a mailbox, which left a huge scrape on the driver’s side of the van. I didn’t say anything about it…

I watched as she blamed my older sister for years for the damage to the van. I finally came clean to my mother at my sister’s wedding, and she laughed about it. My sister, on the other hand, was not as amused as my mother. Reddit User: Cappuccino Boy

Making a Stuffed Animal

My friend, who is a mom, told her children that they weren’t going to get any more toys. Every time they asked, she would tell them that they have enough, or that they have to wait for a holiday (Christmas, etc.). When they can’t get through to their mom, they go to their father, who is not as strict as their mom….

One day they come home, and the eldest child rushes into the house to show mom their new toy. She looks at their dad but asks the kid, “Oh, where’d you get that?” Realizing that he isn’t supposed to say anything about the toy, he tries to answer without selling out his dad. He then says, “l made it!” They both got in trouble; the dad for buying the toy and the kid for lying. Reddit User: Svuroo

Getting Our Story Straight

Every time my mother would go out of town for work, my father would tell us, (my sister and me) that it was “make up your vegetables” night. What he meant by that is that it was pizza night, but we had to tell our mother that we ended up eating vegetables while she was out of town.

The only real problem with the deal was that my sister and I didn’t get our story straight when she came back home. She asked us what we ended up having, and we accidentally responded at the same time with different vegetables. Dad was busted. Reddit User: Brantelope

Their Little Secret

My daughter and my spouse, who is not her biological parent, were pretty big movie buffs and usually bonded over watching newly-released flicks. Unbeknownst to me, my partner took her out of school so that they could see the much-anticipated movie, Avengers: Endgame.

They’d been planning their little date for months…. When they were done, they drove back just before the buses leave so she’d be on the bus with the rest of the students. I didn’t find out until a few months later. I pretended to be mad, but I was happy that they got to do it. Reddit User: Scnewdie08

Tipsy and Tipsier

When I was 17 years old, I had to work a Christmas party at a restaurant where there was an open bar. Although I wasn’t supposed to do it while working, for several reasons, I drank quite a bit that night. I was taken home by a co-worker only to find my mother waiting for me.

She said to wait for my dad so he could give me a scolding for coming home in my drunken state….Not too long after, he came home, a little tipsier than I was. He asked me if I drove home, and I said no. He asked if I did anything stupid. I said no. He told me to go to bed. Reddit User: MeanElevator

Saturday Sugar Rush

When I go and run some Saturday errands, I usually decide to take one of my children with me to ease the pressure on their mom of watching the kids. It’s a tradition of ours as well to get a sugary drink and a candy bar that their mother would definitely disapprove of while we’re out.

Before giving it to them, I make sure in the agreement that I mention “it must be all gone” by the time we get home….It’s been our secret for years, and their mom has not yet connected the dots about it. I kind of love that though. Reddit User: LiveShowOneNightOnly

Keep an Eye on Him

Anything that my father does, he gets awfully engrossed in, and doesn’t end up paying attention to anything else he’s doing. When I was an older teen, he and my mother had a date night, and I was charged with babysitting my little brother, who was toddler at the time.

Just as they were about to leave, my father comes into my room, closes the door, and the look on his face tells me that something is wrong….He tells me, “Don’t tell your mother, but I need you to keep a very close eye on your brother.” He had managed to eat a whole pack of Blu-tack (a type of reusable putty) while my dad was supposed to be watching him. Reddit User: GetCapeFly

A Pothole and Some Missing Kids

I have so many “don’t tell mom” stories that I don’t know where to begin. The one that sticks out in my mind is the time my dad left me and my little brother in a sailboat at Pohick Bay Regional in Virginia. At the time, I was eleven-years-old and my brother was six-years-old.

He left to go on another boat with his friends, and at dusk, he got into his car and left. It took him landing in a pothole, some 40 minutes later, to realize that we weren’t in the trailer attached to the vehicle. We couldn’t tell our mom even if we wanted to. Reddit User: bloodguard

Letting Us Pick the Movie

My mother had been dating my stepdad for a couple of months, and since they were pretty serious, she asked him if he could watch us when she had to work an unscheduled shift. He decided to take us to the movies. We went to see the movie Lord of War…

The movie is about a real-life arms dealer and smuggler…. We were way too young to watch it, but he let us see it because we wanted to watch it. She was furious when she accidentally found out six months later, but they’re married now, so he’s good. Reddit User: RustyTrunk

Not Feeling Up to It

When my sibling and I were much younger, our mom had to travel for work for an entire week. It was our father’s responsibility to get us up out of bed so that we’d make it to school on time and in one piece. For the entire week, he didn’t feel like waking up to bring us to school…

So you want to guess what he did? He kept us home from school for that entire week and fed us an absurd amount of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It still to this day is remembered as one of the greatest weeks of our lives. Reddit User: [redacted]

A 6-Year-Old Secret

Back when my daughter was about 7 years old, she would help me wash my motorcycle, and then I’d take her for a quick ride around the neighborhood. I went at the maximum speed, and when I’d turn around every so often just to see if she was okay, there she was.

She would really love every minute of it….We would up making it into our little secret, and every time I took her for a ride on it, she’d have to change her clothes so that her mom wouldn’t smell like the exhaust from the motorcycle. Reddit User: drinking-beer

Witnessing a Fight

One day, while driving down the street, we saw a group of people standing on the side of the street, and it was clear that two of them were about to fight. My father flipped the vehicle around just in time to see the men come to blows, and it was horrific to watch….

One of the guys got the living daylights beaten out of him, and for all we know, we were just witnesses to his demise. My father turned the car around to our original destination and whispered to us, “Don’t tell your mom about that.” Reddit User: boghasattva

Tips from My Stepdad

My stepfather was an amazing man, but he didn’t always make the smartest choices in life. When I was much younger, he would take me to a bookie joint (a place where gambling and sometimes other illegal activities would take place) every Sunday for about a year.

He would tell my mother that we were going for breakfast and for the newspaper….I picked up a few tricks that paid off several years later. I made a nice chunk of change in the 1980s while betting on college football. I never told my mom about any of it. Reddit User: neorandomizer

Getting a Haircut

One morning, I walked into my four-year-old daughter’s room to find her giving herself a haircut with scissors. She had already cut off quite a bit  of hair when I caught her, and I immediately knew that my wife should not see what she had done to herself.

At the time, my wife was in our room getting ready for a much-anticipated job interview….I told her to hide so that her mother would not have a panic attack before her huge interview. When she got home, she saw it and wasn’t terribly happy about it. Reddit User: warlocktx

Can We Go to Blockbuster?

When I was younger, my father got pulled over for speeding while I was in the car with him. He really didn’t want my mom to find out, so he decided to take me to Blockbuster to go and rent some video games. Just so I was clear on our little arrangement, he reminded me not to tell my mom….

For the next few weeks following his little traffic incident, any time I that wanted a new game to play, I’d ask him if we could go and stop by Blockbuster. I’d add a little wink in just so that he knew I was still keeping his secret. Reddit User: itzpea

A Wonderful Retreat

When my father and I went on a church retreat for men and their sons, the planners failed to tell us two important details: that the campsite was at the bottom of a steep dirt road and that it was going to rain that weekend. As a result, the retreat turned into two days of rain and mud….

There was also that bit where we spent seven hours to get six pickup trucks up the slippery incline. Then we had to get up there ourselves. Everyone before us had failed, but my father and I made it up the hill in about an hour, with the least amount of trouble….It was a complete mess; we spent the next two days living like pigs. Before we went home, we stopped at a car wash station to hose off not only the trucks, but also ourselves. Reddit User: Nifhe

Selling Me Out

It was Halloween, and I was afraid my wife wouldn’t pick up enough candy, so I took our daughter to the store and told her that we could buy all the candy we liked so that way we could eat it all-year-round. I also told her that she had to hide it from my wife until Halloween….

We have a “no lying” rule in our house, so I had to be careful with how I worded it to her. That night when my wife got home, she immediately said, “Daddy, can I please tell Mommy about the candy?” right in front of my wife. I was busted. Reddit User: Pingly

Two Hours Everyday

For almost a year, my mother thought that elementary school ended at 5 o’clock instead of 3 o’clock, which was the actual time. Every day, my father would pick me up at 3 o’clock then take me down to the water’s edge, two miles down to the river crossing, to play in a large park.

We would keep this routine for about two hours almost every single day, and it was a lot of fun….When we were done at the park, we’d end up going back home and do normal family things, like watch movies while my parents fought. Reddit User: AizenShuisuke

A Truck and a Trailer

This only happened two months ago while I was working for my father at his diesel workshop. I was 14 years old, but my father would occasionally let me drive some trucks into and out of the shop by myself. My mother wasn’t very comfortable with the idea, though.

She would get mad at my dad every time she found out that I was allowed to drive….One day, my dad let me move a truck and trailer unit around the yard, and even I was slightly worried. On the way home, he tells me, “I want tea, so don’t tell your mum you drove the truck.” Reddit User: nitaideawhattodo