S/O Harmless lies teen you told your parents

[babsbunny]

Based on posts I'm seeing in the other thread, it sounds like people would like to share some of the lies they told as teens. Also probably good help for MOOKs on what to look out for. Come share. Bonus points if you have told your parents the truth now or decided it is better if they don't need to know. 

[babsbunny]

My dad, bless his trusting heart, thought my friends and I were studying in our basement (that's what he said...maybe he was lying too, lol). We generally didn't do anything too stupid, but we weren't studying.

[countthestars]

H went to college 30 minutes from my house, right on the way to my college, 1.5 hours from my house. Luckily I went to school pre-life 360, because I used to say I was headed back to school but stay with H instead. At 1.5 hours after I left, I’d go out to the car and call my parents to tell them I was back at school.

Maybe this wasn’t very harmless!! Haha

ETA: we do not speak of this (yet?)

[livinitup]

Thanks, dad, for letting me borrow the car to go see a movie. Again. The same movie as last time, it was so good, we saw it again. (As confirmed by the movie time as printed in the newspaper, and reviews eerily similar to Siskel & Ebert.) I know you don’t like me “just hanging out” but using the car for movie plans was a-okay.

I didn’t see a movie, dad. I was just hanging out.


(Maybe he knew? I never confirmed my web of lies.)

[al dente]

This is so dumb, but when I was in 8th grade I really wanted a cell phone but my parents wouldn't allow it. I bought myself a prepaid virgin mobile phone, wrapped it, and made a whole show with my friend of opening it in front of my mom and talking about how a secret crush must have given it to me lol. I did confess to that as an adult and my mom was like "I was always so confused who would give a cell phone to a crush!"

I also had many a "friend" that I was holding things for but of course never partaking in. I have not confessed to those, and tbh always assumed my parents knew. But reading threads here maybe they really believed me lol.

[gummy]

Oh gosh, what didn't I lie about to my parents!

[sadlebred]

Easy--I just never told my parents stuff. They didn't ask too much about my life since they didn't really care and trusted me. (My sibling....not so much in the trust dept. for them. I still know more about their teen years than my parents, I think.)

[wanderingback]

We were always spending the night at "Stephanie’s house."
Stephanie was a friend but not close enough that my parents knew her dad. Most nights he wasn’t home and if he was home he didn’t care what we did or who she had over. So some nights we really were at Stephanie’s house but other nights we went to parties, slept out by the water, etc. I’m 100% sure my parents didn’t know what was happening at Stephanie’s or the fact that I wasn’t always there.

Mom - how was Stephane’s last night and who was there?
Me - it was fun! Just watched a couple movies till 2am and then went to sleep. It was just me, Sally and Brenda!

One time I was so hungover (my first hang over) and I did have a big homework assignment due. I think I faked a stomach bug and needing to finish homework and just rotated between my room with the door closed and my bathroom. Omg, that was not fun lol.

[tiki]

In high school I had my mom drop me off at a friend's house for a sleepover. My friend and I then snuck past her dad so he didn't see me, crawled out her window, got picked up by a friend in his pickup truck, and went to a co-ed sleepover at a different friend's house. Despite the subterfuge, the forbidden sleepover consisted of barbecuing, watching movies, and everyone trying to sleep despite the loud breathing of several pug dogs.

[ssmjlm]

I can’t remember anything terrible, but my sister was a nightmare from about age 3ish, so that’s about when I started to make sure I didn’t cause trouble and my mom didn’t care because she was dealing with her.

I don’t know if they know the number of times I went a picked her up from some drug house. Maybe they did, but it was easier to stay quiet.

[Jalapeñomel]

I’m spending the night at Rachel’s, and then we went to Mexico (or big keggers in the desert).


My teenage years were hard for me and, consequently, my parents.

[sent]

Nothing.

My parents were such constant helicopters, I had no opportunity to lie. I also had very little fun. Almost everything I did outside of school hours was related to a school club or sport. Otherwise I had to tag along with my parents and attend stuff on their social calendar. I ended up at a local college and despite living on campus, they still helicoptered. Things got mildly better in college once I got a car and I got to have just a little more fun there. Still nothing crazy.

I do wonder how it's going with the current generation of high school kids and their helicopter parents. I hear from the PTO moms that they're not as interested in dating like their boy-crazy moms were and they're putting off driving because I presume their parents are happy to shuttle them everywhere.

[stuffandthings]

I cannot think of a single thing, honestly. It was a combination of 1) a great, close relationship with my parents; 2) me being a goody two shoes who had no interest in doing anything dangerous or imprudent, and; 3) my parents not really forbidding much. I literally had to set my own curfew and pretend it was my parents’ command because they refused to give me one but I hated staying out late.

[stemmie]

My dad was a relentless control freak who saw his kids as existing primarily to reflect on him as a paragon of the community. Otherwise, he wasn't particularly interested in parenting. My parents were out a lot of the time.

I basically lied about most everything. Mostly for my own entertainment. For the most part I was a really good kid and pretty ordinary in terms of college-age behavior.

Dad never figured it out. I never shared with my mom, but she sort of figured it out when dad developed dementia and we needed to use "therapeutic lies" as work arounds to the legal and medical steps taken to get the situation under control. Mom commented that I was really good at this and I told her I had lots of practice growing up. She laughed. Turns out she was a friggin' hoodlum as a kid.

[circa1978]

Oof, what didn't I lie about. 😐 It would be hard to exaggrate what I put them through, particularly from 15-17. But I had a lot of early life trauma to sort through, stumbled into a very poor first serious relationship, and had a lot of fun disorders: ED, OCD, LD and ADD! I built better relationships/a life for myself once I had autonomy as a college age person and was mostly honest with them from that point on. I guess I lied mostly because telling the truth felt unsafe - I saw my parents perfect people who didn't understand my problems. By the time I was an adult, I had failed so hard as a teen, I didn't worry about stacking up; I would just live my life differently. But it was also just easier. What they didn't know MOSTLY didn't hurt them, to this day. And they caught me often enough that I already had a bad rep in the family, which is funny because my cousins and brothers were often either my co conspirators or just as bad. Luckily, we mostly turned out fine.

[4speedy]

I used to put a few bucks of gas in the car before going home so my parents wouldn’t know I had been driving from one end of the city to the next every weekend. We used to go into the city to go dancing at clubs and they never knew.

[heygrey]

Oct 13, 2024 9:00:55 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I cannot think of a single thing, honestly. It was a combination of 1) a great, close relationship with my parents; 2) me being a goody two shoes who had no interest in doing anything dangerous or imprudent, and; 3) my parents not really forbidding much. I literally had to set my own curfew and pretend it was my parents’ command because they refused to give me one but I hated staying out late.

This was my life too. My parents had basic rules that mostly consisted of "don't break the law" and "don't be an idiot" and the promise to pick me up whenever, wherever if I needed them. My personality was a combination of goody goody who dreaded the idea of getting in trouble and homebody who actually didn't want to go to a bush party on a Friday night. 

[fernweh]

My parents never questioned that I would spend the weekend at my best friends house. Like go after school on Friday and come home Sunday evening. Almost every weekend. Which technically was true that part that wasn’t spoken out loud was that her mom would let us drink (in excess) as long as we gave her our keys. Boys and girls were allowed to stay the night. They still don’t know. While I have told them I did some underage drinking they think it was in college not HS.

Another thing is - I don’t remember telling my mom this but she swears I did. When H and I moved in together she thought we were sleeping in separate rooms because we were waiting until marriage. LOL we were 22, engaged and living together of course we were having sex. I may have said sarcastically ‘don’t worry we have separate rooms’ but I definitely didn’t say in seriously.

[bittybomb]

I smoked a lot of pot my junior year. My parents thought I was at the library every night studying. I was not studying at the library, lol.

To that end, the dime bags used to have cut decals on them and I’d save them. My dad washed my coat once and found all the empty baggies in the dryer and flipped his shit. I was like dad, these are my friends. I just really like the cute little pictures. For sure he didn’t believe me even if he pretended he did and told me not to collect anything so stupid again. lol.

[mysteriouswife]

My cousin and I slept in my backyard in a tent all summer for many years. As tweens neighborhood kids would come hangout all hours of the night. Once we were high school age we have people park at a school and walk. H was a frequent visitor. My mom found out a month before she died. Her face was priceless. She has no idea. My brother knew because of rumors at school.

[tiki]

Oct 13, 2024 7:26:16 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’m spending the night at Rachel’s, and then we went to Mexico (or big keggers in the desert).

Were desert parties actually fun? I assume you just had to sit in/on the cars? My friends group seemed to have enough low-supervision homes that I never actually went to one. 

[ellipses84]

I was a really good kid and never did drugs despite being around some close friends who did A LOT. However, my older siblings were pretty bad teens, got caught half the time and were kicked out or all moved out by 16 so my parents were weirdly strict about some things (like I was not even allowed to be at my house if they were out of town) but also kind of let me live my independent life once I was 16 as long as I got good grades and worked to pay my personal bills like car, gas, insurance, pager, clothing, etc.

My most common lie was probably a Round Robin to get around curfew. I’m spending the night at Megan’s. Megan’s spending the night at my house. Really we are camping out in the middle of nowhere at a bonfire party or staying up all night hanging out at some guy’s house. Our parents might threaten to call each other but in reality they never will and if they need to get a hold of me they will probably just page me.

A lot of time this was in an effort to look out for or protect my irresponsible friends. I was often DD / chaperoning / double dating with friends who wanted to date older dudes we had no business dating. Once I fit 8 teens in my 4 seater car but I was DD driving them home from a party out in the middle of nowhere.

[Jalapeñomel]

Oct 13, 2024 10:19:39 GMT -5 tiki said:

Oct 13, 2024 7:26:16 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I’m spending the night at Rachel’s, and then we went to Mexico (or big keggers in the desert).

Were desert parties actually fun? I assume you just had to sit in/on the cars? My friends group seemed to have enough low-supervision homes that I never actually went to one. 

Massively fun! We didn’t sit in cars, we all had camping chairs and blankets. Many of us frequently camp so we had a lot of supplies.

[mokes]

My tactic was often to tell my parents a lot about other kids and conveniently leave out that I was doing the same. They thought they knew so much lol.

I feel like there’s a lot of parents today fooled by this strategy!

[mrsukyankee]

I didn't drink or do drugs in high school outside of when my parents allowed me to have some wine at dinners. But the number of times I hung out with drunk or drugged out people was huge and my parents never knew. I socially smoked a bit but used my friends as my excuse (they did smoke a ton, so not unexpected to smell like smoke). I'm sure my parents would not have been happy about us cruising around in my friends car when we were meant to be studying at the library. Overall, I was a good and respectful kid, but I had some friends who were into stuff that would have made my parents upset if they knew I was adjacent to it.

And they had NO CLUE what I did in uni. I went from no drinking to definitely drinking (though not too much during field hockey season) and hooking up with guys. And as I was of age, they didn't need to know. I don't believe in the Life 360 for kids above 18 who are living on campus and just doing their thing. If they are travelling a lot, then perhaps sharing some info, but let them live and let go!

[SusanBAnthony]

Oct 13, 2024 9:00:55 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I cannot think of a single thing, honestly. It was a combination of 1) a great, close relationship with my parents; 2) me being a goody two shoes who had no interest in doing anything dangerous or imprudent, and; 3) my parents not really forbidding much. I literally had to set my own curfew and pretend it was my parents’ command because they refused to give me one but I hated staying out late.

This is basically me but I still did plenty of things I shouldn't have. I just didn't have to lie!

My friends and I skinny dipped A LOT and we also played soccer at night in the high school soccer stadium naked. And we went down the city pool water slides naked. And we drove around our town and stole hundreds of election signs and put them all in the yard of our swim coach, every fall.

But I never had to lie to hide it. I would hang out with my friends doing whatever until my self imposed 11 pm curfew. My parents would ask what we did, and I would omit certain parts but otherwise tell the truth.

[akayf]

I was a goody two shoes plus had no interest in parties when I was in high school. My younger brother was another story. His biggest lie was when he got so drunk at a party that he started puking uncontrollable. The party host’s parents were home but they always just basically stayed in the bedroom and let the kids do whatever. The girl flipped out because he was so drunk and said he had to leave. Other friends tossed him in their car and instead of taking him home, dropped him on the steps of the first aid squad, banged on the door and ran away. First aid took him to ER where he was treated for alcohol poisoning. He told my parents that his iced tea was spiked and he had no idea. He was super thirsty and had like 4 cups in a short period of time. and my parents believed him! My mom was slightly skeptical at first and did say as a parent what was worse-that your kid was so dumb that he knowingly chugged that much alcohol and got sick or that your kid was so naive and dumb not to realize his drink was spiked after one or 2 cups. She ultimately believed his spiked story.

He confessed to me when I confronted him later that he knew they were Long Island iced teas. Ps-he did find better friends who wouldn’t just dump him and run.

[lostrn]

Oh boy. When I started high school my mom was working night shift (11pm-7am 5 days a week) and going to college and my dad worked construction type jobs, so he went to bed kind of early and left the house fairly early. I got away with a lot of sneaking out at night and skipping school. I think they knew about the skipping school but could never quite nail me down on it. I made sure every class had a different number of absences and blamed it on poor record keeping by my teachers.
Then sophomore year a guy in my friend group moved in basically across the street. We ended up dating on and off for the better part of 2.5 years. The amount of times the dog had to conveniently go for a walk in the middle of the night was amazing 🤣 my boyfriend's bedroom was in the basement and had it's own entrance. And his parents went to sleep crazy early. We got away with a lot lol.
I was a bad teenager. I drew the line at drugs though.

[fangoriagurkel]

It’s not mine! I was just holding it for my friend! (Cue dramatic teen angst and exit)

[1confused1]

That I slept on the couch in my college age boyfriend’s dorm room when I went to visit him (I was in high school).

They knew I drank so I didn’t have to lie about that.