The Apple Fell Far: Smart Kids Reveal Their Parents’ Dumbest Moments

March 10, 2020 | Miles Brucker

The Apple Fell Far: Smart Kids Reveal Their Parents’ Dumbest Moments


As innocent and wide-eyed little kids, we assume that our parents know everything. Then, as we grow up, there may be a certain moment where we realize that isn’t true—and some of us get hit with that realization harder than others. These Redditors shared stories of the moments they came to the conclusion that their moms and dads might be a little—or a lot—denser than they thought.


1. This One Falls Flat

The first time I realized that my parents might not be that smart was when I saw my father’s Facebook profile for the first time. He had a significant number of posts explaining all about how the earth is flat. It was so bad that my grandfather actually made a shocking request: he told my dad to change his name since my dad was named after him.

Dumb parents facts Shutterstock

2. A Drink a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

When I was about 14 years old, my dad once told me that drinking your own pee everyday is healthy for you. Like how? Both my mom and I spent almost two full hours explaining to him why that was not actually healthy and why he should not ever consider doing that. Luckily, at least my mom has some common sense!

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

3. Calendar Girl

My father got extremely excited one day and sent me a text to let me know he had heard that this was the only year in history where your age plus the year you were born equals the current year. I patiently told him that I had a lot going on right now and didn't have time to start looking up nursing homes for him.

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4. This One Will Make Your Blood Boil

I was out for dinner with my parents one time when my mom suddenly started to feel really unwell. We took her to the emergency room for chest pains and she was subsequently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. While we were all there, the physician was asking my mom about her family’s medical history and whether anyone had suffered from diabetes in her family before.

My dad, who happened to be a little drunk at the time, asked if his family history would affect her. They're obviously not related by blood. The physician just looked at him for a few seconds and then calmly said no.

Dumb parents facts Shutterstock

5. Red, Red Wine

When my mom heard that drinking a glass of red wine a day is good for you, she poured my dad a full pint-sized glass of red wine. Without protest, he immediately downed the whole thing. When I asked them what made them think that this was an appropriate amount, they replied, "That's how much alcohol I always see people drinking in the movies."

Dumb parents factsLibreshot

6. Trash Talker

There was one particular, unmistakable moment that finally made me realize that my father might not be quite as smart as I had always assumed he was. That moment was when he went to the McDonald's drive-thru with me in the car, and proceeded to spend a solid three and a half minutes talking directly into the trash can.

The worst part? He got angry that it wasn't responding!

Dumb parents facts Wikimedia Commons

7. Washing His Mouth Out with Soap

My dad ate a bunch of baby shower favors made of soap that he thought were molded chocolates. Twice. This is a man who is considered very smart by most people. He has three college degrees and is a forensic scientist. Yet he somehow couldn’t tell the difference between soap and chocolate on more than one occasion…

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

8. Technical Difficulties

One time, my mom wanted me to drive her to the new Google headquarters building to complain about her Yahoo email account not working right. I barely managed to convince her that they are different companies. My mom is very smart in many ways, but lacks common sense. I spend most of my time these days trying to convince her not to do stupid things.

Perhaps from now on, I should just let her do it—and film it.

Helicopter Parents factsShutterstock

9. Looking for a Change of Scenery

My mom once decided on a whim that she was going to move to Saudi Arabia for a teaching job. She's a single woman. She recently ended a lesbian relationship. One of several lesbian relationships. Lesbian relationships that she has posted about on Facebook, where literally everyone can see them. It took multiple family members to convince her that this was not a good idea.

One of the other places she was considering moving around this time was a very small town in rural Alaska, with a population of less than 500 people living in it. This is a woman who has previously broken her leg from walking on a flat surface, and this town was a two-hour flight away from the nearest hospital...

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

10. Facing the Music

My parents forced me to take piano lessons against my will for many years, beginning when I was just nine years old. After a while, I got pretty good at it and started to like it. I decided that I wanted to become a professional pianist. When I told my parents this, their reaction was bone-chilling. They said that they were ashamed of me and begged me to change my mind.

If that’s not stupid, I don’t know what is!

Dumb parents factsPxfuel

11. War and Peace

The moment I finally realized that my parents weren’t particularly bright was when my mom decided to ask me whether World War I or World War II came first. I honestly had no idea how to even begin to respond to that question. If you aren’t capable of figuring that out on your own, how could you have possibly made it this far in life?

Retail Workers Disturbing Moments FactsShutterstock

12. Premeditated Stupidity

My mother received a large inheritance, used it to remodel her house—which she hadn’t yet paid off—and then took out a line of credit on it just months after the housing crash. This is the single stupidest thing I have ever seen someone do that actually involved a ton of planning and work to make possible. It took months for this dumb plan to happen, and I tried my best to dissuade her every step of the way.

It’s one thing to stick a fork in an electrical socket on a whim; and it’s a totally different thing to hire a carpenter to build a house, hire an electrician to wire it, go to Target to buy a fork, then put it in the socket.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

13. Singing a Different Tune

This story is a bit of a double-edged sword because it simultaneously showcases both how smart and how dumb my dad can be at the same time. Basically, he fell for that online iTunes gift card scam. You know, where one of your friends’ email accounts get hacked and you receive an email from "them" asking you to buy these gift cards and mail them to whatever address.

Well, at the time, an organization that my dad is on the board of was hosting a big giveaway and the email he got came from another board member, so he assumed he was picking up prizes for this giveaway. However, because my dad is a moron, he didn't follow all the instructions in the email. He bought the cards and then texted his buddy to ask what he wanted done with them.

This buddy promptly called my dad an idiot and explained the scam that he had just fallen for to him. Now, this is where it gets good! My dad knew that if my mom found out he had spent 400 dollars on gift cards, he would be sleeping in the kennel with his hounds for at least a month. He also knew that if he didn't tell her and she found out some other way, his fate would be even worse.

So he decided to partially fess up to what had happened. He told my mom that he had fallen for the scam with a "Haha, I'm so stupid" look on his face to garner some sympathy...but he also told her that each gift card was only for $25, which was not true. So, she said "No big deal, we'll just give them to our daughter for Christmas."

So, when the holiday season came around, after I had been presented with my "$50" in iTunes cards, I was silently pulled aside by my dad and told, "There's actually $200 on each card. Merry Christmas and please, for God's sake, DO NOT TELL YOUR MOTHER!"

Worst Christmas Gifts factsShutterstock

14. I Would Advise Against That

It's not my parents, but my in-laws whose intelligence I often find myself questioning. I think they must have given all their genetic intelligence over to my husband at birth and left nothing over for themselves to keep. They're recently divorced, and his dad is on very limited contact with us at the moment due to being a toxic, raging narcissist.

Anyway, my father-in-law once heard that olive oil was good for you, so every single day for years he has continued to put at least a tablespoon of olive oil into his orange juice. He also has an electric skillet that he never washes, because he believes it's similar to a cast iron pan and needs to be "seasoned."

I discovered this the hard way one morning when the eggs he made us smelled and tasted exactly like the fajitas we had eaten the previous night. This was back when my husband and I were teens and I was visiting him from out of state. The worst part? When my husband was a teenager, his dad told him to use straight bleach on his face to take care of his acne. Yup. Bleach.

He also told my husband that shaving cream is a scam and that he should just shave dry with the same old disposable razors over and over again. The best part was that he told my husband to use baby powder instead of deodorant because "Women will be attracted to you because it will remind them of the scent of a baby."

Fortunately, my husband was not stupid enough to listen to any of this nonsense. Yes, his dad does smell like baby powder. No, I am not attracted to him. Or to the smell of babies, for that matter. His dad also doesn't believe in any form of western medicine. He's a regular middle-aged American guy, so it's not as if there's any cultural difference here.

He just thinks he knows better than everyone else.

Dumb parents factsPeakpx

15. Reliving the Past

My mother left an abusive man. She promised that the nightmare was over and that we would never see him again. She then started dating a guy almost immediately after who was exactly like him. The one difference? He hit on my sister. My mom is engaged to him now...

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

16. This One Gets a Failing Grade

In high school, our grades were always posted online. One day, my dad wanted to check them to see how well I was doing. I didn’t want him to realize that I was actually doing quite poorly. So, I told him that the internet was closed because it was after 5:00 PM. He completely bought it and did not even attempt to check if I was telling the truth.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

17. There’s No Place Like Home

For some unknown and stupid reason, my parents never gave me a key to the house. Like, they explicitly made a point of never allowing me to have my own key. I also had to be out of the house if they were gone. So there I am, parents gone, and I can't stay inside my own house. Everyone I tell this to looks at me like I am an alien.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

18. They Couldn’t Put Two and Two Together

When I was too young to talk, my sister once pushed me down the steps and, unbeknownst to my parents, I broke both of my collarbones as a result. For a few days afterward, they were getting such a huge kick out of the fact that whenever they raised my hands above my shoulders I would just start crying for no reason. Yeah, I'm pretty happy I don't remember that.

It has since become a common family story, so the remorse seems minimal on their part.

Science factsPxfuel

19. This Doesn’t Add Up

I realized that my parents were not that smart after I followed their career advice and realized that they had gotten literally everything completely wrong. For example, they told me not to study engineering because, and I quote: "Engineers don't get jobs." Now, imagine my rage when I began looking for jobs with only a math degree and discovered the stupidity of their advice…

Memorable Overheard Comments FactsShutterstock

20. So Many Questions, So Few Answers

I get the sensation of feeling that my parents might not be as bright as I used to think every time I watch a movie with my mom and she says things like, “Who’s that?” or “What’s going on?” constantly as we’re watching. Mom...I’m watching the movie with you. Don’t you realize that means I haven’t seen it either??

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

21. Radio Silence

My mom once drove all the way to my apartment for my advice because the radio in her car allegedly wasn’t working. She was sure that there was something wrong with her Sirius. I pushed the volume knob, which doubles as a power button, and it instantly turned the thing on. There was nothing wrong with it. It had simply been off.

Dumb parents factsPixabay

22. More Like Cat Scratch Fever

My mom once blurted out "I think the cat has diabetes. You need to get her checked for diabetes." "Why?" I inquired. "Because she thumps when she walks," my mom replied. Okay, so she got this idea in her head because we did once have a previous cat who’d had diabetes and "thumped" when he walked. The "thump" was from his right leg dragging behind him because he had lost all feeling in that leg, which was how we caught and got him diagnosed with his illness.

He had a very prominent limp and it was very visible that he dragged that leg. Our current cat, though, walks perfectly normally and the "thumping" is because she bounces when she runs. I told this to my mom. You can see that she walks and runs like a normal cat, and you can see her bouncing on her paws when she runs.

"No, she's thumping 'cause she has diabetes," was the only reply I got to my explanation. Whatever you say, Mom...

Dumb parents factsNeedpix

23. There’s No Cure for Stupid

My mom “learned” from some unknown source that cancer can’t survive in acidic environments. So, she now believes that to prevent cancer, you should be drinking lemon water to raise the acid Ph levels in your blood. Yes, she truly believes that drinking lemon water is all it takes for your body to obliterate all cancer cells. The worst part?

Up until very recently, she was a practicing oncology nurse. I made her swear to me that she would never say this stuff at work to her colleagues, and especially not to patients or their families. I had to have a come to Jesus moment with her over this. I’m still gobsmacked that she bought this nonsense to begin with.

She literally thought she had cured cancer when, in reality, she basically did nothing.

Dumb parents factsPikrepo

24. They Each Have Their Blind Spots

My dad doesn't believe in carbon monoxide poisoning and my mom doesn’t understand how to use the decimal point on a calculator. To be a bit more specific, my dad thinks that the whole concept of carbon monoxide is just a fictional scam designed to sell detectors and appliances to poor, unsuspecting homeowners who don’t know any better. So how did I discover this strange belief of his, you wonder?

Well, I once rented a place from my parents that had an old heater, and it leaked the first time I ever used it. My roommates and I woke up the next morning feeling horrible. By sheer luck, we realized what it was. The fire department had to literally threaten my dad to get him to fix the problem. Meanwhile, my mom likes to do the calculator thing “her way.”

At least that’s her answer if you ask her why she refuses to ever use the decimal point button when calculating things. I think she gets confused whenever the last zero disappears. Now, that being said, I’m still glad that she uses a calculator at all; because her math skills without it are actually way worse! Believe it or not, some of my most vivid childhood memories of all time are of her screaming at people on the phone because her numbers didn't match her balance.

It was a monthly thing. And she was not usually in the right. Also, my mom asked me how much a gram weighs earlier today. I think it’s safe to say that numbers and math just aren’t her things...

Dumb parents factsMax Pixel

25. Do My Eyes Deceive Me?

My dad crashed his car at 8 in the morning one day, on his way to work, because he was surprised at seeing an undressed woman streaking across the road. When the police turned up and asked him about what had happened, he explained that he ended up crashing the car because he wasn't sure if he had really just seen the woman, or if he was still drunk from the night before.

That is how he lost his driver's license—but that’s not the whole story. Oddly enough, there actually was an undressed woman on top of the fact that he was still tipsy!

Lawyers Share “I Rest My Case” FactsPixabay

26. This Little Mommy Went to Market

This isn’t about my parents, but rather something stupid that my friend’s mom does that drives me absolutely up the wall. She doesn't understand the concept of consolidating thoughts, and she has a really annoying way of speaking where she drags out the last two syllables of a phrase for way longer than necessary.

So, for example, if you were to be trapped in a conversation with her, you'd hear something like "Yesterday we bought apples at the store, and we bought bananas at the store, and we bought oatmeal at the store, and we bought milk at the store, and we bought jelly at the store, and we bought bread at the store..." Jesus, lady!

I don't want to hear this conversation at all, but just tell me the six things you bought and shut up!!

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27. Poo Done It

My parents are divorced and don’t particularly care much for one another. In a fit of rage and an unbelievably stupid lapse of judgment, my mother once broke into my dad's house with a gun. Out of fear, she pooped her pants while in the house and left the stained pants lying on the stairs. Lo and behold, the cops used this evidence to track her down and identify her as the culprit behind the break-in.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

28. Where Oh Where Can My Baby Be?

My parents are both very well-educated, but this was one of the stupidest things I've ever seen them do. I was in the basement playing video games for a bit and then went upstairs to discover my parents frantically looking for me. They were in that anger-relief kind of state and told me that they'd been looking for me for hours and were about to call the cops. Here's the thing.

I had my phone on me the entire time and had received no calls, texts, or messages of any kind from either of them at any point during that period. Also, none of them ever went down to the basement to check if I was there. If they had, they would have easily seen me. I couldn't have really left the house either, because I wasn't old enough to drive at the time.

I don't know what was going through their minds that day, but it definitely wasn't common sense. I would have loved to have seen the police officers’ faces if they had found me in the basement after they called the cops. I can't discount the idea that my dad might have been under the influence of something or other at the time, but my mom is just totally oblivious.

Strangest things done online factsFlickr, Andrew

29. Self-Centered

My dad legitimately thought that the sun orbited around the earth until I enlightened him. He casually mentioned it in conversation, and when I said no and told him that the earth orbits around the sun, he said “Really? I did not know that!” I asked him, “If the sun orbited around us, what about all the other planets?” He’d never considered that.

Glitch In The Matrix FactsPxfuel

30. Getting Red Pilled

My foster mom doesn’t believe in depression and thinks I’m addicted to my medication. She caused a huge fight two years ago on Thanksgiving because she saw me take a pill bottle out of my glove box and pop one in my mouth. Surprise, it was my antidepressants. But that’s not the worst part. Did I mention that she’s a registered nurse?

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

31. Painting a Very Grim Picture

My mother and I were out walking and we came across an older couple we knew from the local church. Their eldest son had died the previous year from an inoperable brain tumor, and their younger son just moved out for university. Mum starts with, “Must be nice to have the house to yourself! More time for Church!”

The conversation devolves from there. She ignores all hints to drop the subject, including the mother stating they hadn’t been back to the church since their son died. The couple was obviously horrified. I couldn’t end the convo quickly enough. Afterward, my mother told me I was just being immature and had no conception of what “polite adult conversation” was like.

Whole Class Laughed FactsShutterstock

32. No Christmas Miracles in This House!

There's this tradition every Christmas in our town where the firetrucks and police cars ride around town with Santa and Mrs. Claus riding on a fire truck decorated for Christmas. I can’t stand this event, because they all blare their sirens while parading around. Imagine the combined sound of approximately four firetrucks and three or four police cars all blaring their sirens at the same time.

Again, this happens every single year and has been a major tradition in our community for at least the past 10 years. Yet, without fail, whenever it happens every single year, my mother panics and runs around the house shouting "I HEAR SIRENS! WHAT ARE ALL THOSE SIRENS FOR? DO YOU HEAR ALL THOSE SIRENS? WHAT'S GOING ON???"

Dumb parents factsPxfuel

33. Sounds Like Someone Could Use a Brain Donor!

I got into an enormous argument with my mom recently because I had myself listed as a potential organ donor on my driver's license. She told me that she was convinced that the government would try to take my organs while I was still alive if someone needed them. The kicker? She's a member of the Canadian Nurses Association!

Despite her silliness, I still love her to bits and pieces.

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34. I’ve Got a Secret

My mom is an idiot when it comes to keeping secrets. If I would have told her that I had a crush on someone, she would have freakin’ asked about it every day, and she would have told everyone and asked to know who the girl was by name. Nevertheless, she keeps wondering why I don't open up about stuff like that around her...

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

35. Making Some New Friends

My dad’s house is on stilts in the middle of nowhere. He gets a lot of raccoons. He started feeding them dog food recently. This has turned into the raccoons bringing hoards of their families to his home for food every evening. Last time I was there in the evening, there were at least 45 of them sitting around on his lawn. He enjoys this and throws the dog food off the porch for them to fight over.

The thing is, raccoons poop. Whenever they poop on the porch, he picks up their poop with a shovel and flings it at them. He thoroughly believes that he is "potty training them" by doing so. Nevertheless, they continue to poop on the porch quite often.

Abandoned Places FactsMax Pixel

36. Food, Glorious Food

My parents don’t understand how nutrition works and they fed me nothing but junk food in huge portions for my entire childhood. Luckily, I've educated myself as an adult and managed to control my diet for the past three years. For the first time in my life, I am now at a healthy weight and feeling better than ever.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

37. If It Quacks Like a Pyramid, It’s Probably a Pyramid

One time, my mother almost got involved in a pyramid scheme. Despite our multiple warnings to her beforehand, she was convinced that it couldn’t possibly be a pyramid scheme because “those are illegal” and therefore, in her mind, don't exist. This little endeavor of hers took multiple family members to talk her out of.

Charles Ponzi factsShutterstock

38. Hey Big Spender

My parents had just gotten through complaining that they couldn’t afford the basic necessities. Then, on a whim, my mother went out and bought two $200+ pillows and some fancy towels. They have never bought a home in their lives. They say they were priced out and couldn’t afford it. Yet everything they own is all top of the line.

They live in an expensive rental area. I offered to buy them a place for a quarter of their rental price, but my dad insists that he “must live near the ocean,” so they choose to keep struggling. My mom wants to move up to my area. When my dad worked, he made really good money. $75-80 an hour. Yet he never saved a penny in his life.

Now, his only income is his social security checks, but he still wishes to live as though he makes $80 an hour. My mom makes $14 per hour. My wife and I have a big home in a rural area that we could easily add to. We could also buy a cabin for them with some of our savings, effectively lowering their rent. They have had opportunity after opportunity to buy a house, but still, just sit around and talk about how much they wish they had done so instead of actually just doing it.

I’ll give you an example of how they deal with things. One day, my mom got back to work and noticed that her car was gone. My dad was in the parking lot waiting for her...in a new Mercedes. He had gone out and sold both their car and truck as a surprise. He bought a two-seater sports car and a giant boat to replace them.

Then he realized that they couldn’t tow the boat without the truck. These are my parents, ladies and gentlemen!

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39. Self-Deprecating Humor

Some might consider this smart, but I don't. Whenever I had a female friend come over or call me on the phone while I was growing up, my parents would purposely make fun of me in front of them. Even though it was meant to be light-hearted and casual, it made me avoid having close female friends. I have still never been in a relationship, and I am 22 years old.

I only recently had my first kiss.

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40. Family History

When I was a young kid in elementary school, we once did a family genealogy project. My mom told me that we were part Cherokee. Not a lot, just a little bit; and it was all from a family relative a few generations back. Being a kid, I thought that this was super cool and didn’t really ask any more questions at the time. Fast forward to high school, and my mom has proven that maybe she isn’t always the smartest bulb in the box.

One night, we get onto the subject of relatives. She mentions at one point, “Your grandfather’s brother married a Cherokee woman.” I sit there silently for a few seconds having a holy freakin’ cow is she really that dense kind of moment. After collecting my thoughts, as nicely as I possibly could, I point out, “Mom, if Grandpa’s brother married a Cherokee woman, that doesn’t make us part Cherokee. Genetics don’t work like that.”

She just stopped and stared at me for a good while and moved on.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

41. Who’s Bigger, Eh?

I realized that my mother was not quite as intelligent as I had thought when I discovered she thought that the United States was the largest country in the world in terms of physical size. Now, my mother and I live in Canada. For those who are unaware, Canada is a physically larger country than the United States.

Canada FactsWikimedia Commons, Makaristos

42. What Was That You Were Saying?

Whenever I speak to my mom, she gets confused by whatever I'm saying. She will always make some kind of assumption before I finish speaking and then, when I get to the important part, it doesn't fit into the concept she assumed was what I was going to say. So, I have to go back to the start to try and explain what I actually meant.

She then gets bored with that part and ignores me. As a result, she quickly gets confused yet again.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

43. In the Garden of Pettiness

I grew up in a smaller town right on the cusp of its big growth boom. We knew our town had finally made it when we got an Olive Garden. We used to eat there 2-3 times a month. My mom and I would always split an entree, and my dad would get his own. We knew the rule: if you’re splitting an entree and you get more than one of the family-style bowls of salad, you’ll get charged an extra $4 for the extra person.

Well one day, my dad decides he wanted more salad. Only he wants the additional salad, but the waitress said if she refills the bowl, we'll be charged the extra $4. Lo and behold, my parents threw the biggest tantrum because only HE wanted the additional salad. They demanded to speak to a manager, and the manager explained the rule (which we knew), but offered to comp the extra salad just to get my parents to stop yelling...and they did.

When our bill came, the manager comped my dad’s entree and the additional salad fee. Well, my mom got up. Interrupted the manager while he was talking to other guests, threw the check in his face, and asked, “What’s this?!?!” She was furious that he comped my dad’s meal. He ate the meal, therefore we would like to pay for it.

She wouldn’t stop raising her voice until she was allowed to pay for the meal (but not the salad). The manager was confused but obliged...when they brought the change, the manager slipped a few free appetizer coupons. My mom ripped them up and threw them on the ground as she left. Safe to say, I didn’t eat out with them for at least a month and I still refuse to go to Olive Garden with them.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

44. Que?

I realized that my mother wasn’t as smart as I thought she was when she told me that the country of Mexico was made the 51st American state way back in the 1960s. No, she was not confusing New Mexico and Mexico. When faced with reality, she said that it was a widely taught fact when she went to school back in the 70s.

I have no idea what she could have been thinking of...

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

45. The Boy Who Didn’t Cry Wolf

My mother did so many stupid things while raising me. When I was 12 years old, I was suffering from severe back pains. I cried and cried about how much it hurt, yet she just shrugged it off as growing pains. It wasn't until after I had turned 14 that she finally took me to a doctor to find out that I had two ruptured disks in my back.

Again, when I was 14, I was very sick and she shrugged it off as a cold. Eventually, when I started running a bad fever, she finally took me to the doctor. Turns out it was pneumonia. Then when I was 17, I was having horrible stomach pains and was feeling very sick all the time. Finally, when I was 18, I went to the doctor myself. It was gallbladder disease.

Even after all those examples, she never seemed to understand the concept of learning from the past or that I wasn’t exaggerating when I complained about pains. Meanwhile, my brother would have a simple cough and she’d take him to the doctor immediately.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

46. Poison Ivy

The moment I realized my mom was not very intelligent was when she got mad at me for getting a flu shot. Why on earth would she be upset about something like that, you ask? Because the government apparently uses them to track and poison people, don’t you know! Makes perfect sense, right? I was 30 years old at the time.

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

47. I’m Not a Doctor, But I Play One in My Own Bathroom!

When my father decided to try and get rid of his skin tags himself, he read that they had no nerves and just cut one right off with a pair of scissors! He quickly learned that they do have nerve endings and never did that again. Also, he has had three hernias that needed surgery, but he just keeps "pushing them back in."

Horrible Teachers FactsShutterstock

48. Won’t Someone Think of the Children!

So my step-father sees one of those tear-jerker TV commercials about starving children in Africa and immediately proceeds to rant about how there's plenty of animals to hunt in Africa. “Why don’t they hunt them and just eat??” he angrily asks. He was literally shouting at the TV, "Eat, you idiots! Just eat!!!!"

Dumb parents factsShutterstock

49. Let’s Call a Square a Square

About a year into our marriage, my wife and I bought a dining table and chairs. It was our first “real” furniture! My wife was so happy, she posted pictures on Facebook and wanted her mom to look. Well, her mom commented on the phone that it was a nice “oval table.” Wife is immediately upset. "You didn't look," she says. "Yes I did!" her mom insists.

"It's not oval, it's rectangular." "No, it's an oval, I looked." Wife finally gets her mom to actually go look for real, and then it gets even worse. She drops this gem: "Well that's what I call it!" “Um, you call rectangles ovals?" This has become a running gag for us. Whenever we lose an argument, we always end it with, "Well, that's what I call it!"

Booing Me FactsPiqsels

50. Jumping to Conclusions

My dad once told me that he had pancreatic cancer. I asked "What stage?" and he said stage three. I was devastated. Later on that day, I saw my brother, who still lives with my dad. He was acting as though nothing was wrong or out of the ordinary. After a while, I bluntly asked him "Dude, why didn't you tell me that dad had cancer?"

At that point, my brother had the most confused look on his face. Then he explained, and I couldn’t believe it what I was hearing. My brother said: "He doesn't have cancer. He's just been on this diet he saw on TV that consists of only rice and vegetables. He's been eating like 1,000 calories a day for the past few weeks. He then Googled his 'symptoms' on WebMD and now thinks he has cancer."

Yeah, my dad is an idiot. A terminal idiot, to be exact!

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51. She’s Driving Everyone Crazy!

Every Friday, my mother goes grocery shopping. The store is a block away from where she lives and she usually drives there. On this particular day, after she finished shopping, she decided to walk back home. The next morning, she wakes me and my father up in a panic to let us know that her car has been stolen. The cops come, we fill out all the paperwork, and she gets a rental car for the time being.

That’s not even the best part. The following Friday, she drives again to the grocery market and parks the rental right next to her “stolen” car. Now, her car is a champagne-colored Mitsubishi Diamante—not such a common car or color. Nevertheless, when she sees it, she comments on how similar the car looks to hers, but makes nothing else of it.

A few days later, the cops call us to let us know that the car is in the grocery store’s parking lot just one block away from our house. Yea, that call was awkward, to say the least. I’ve got plenty of other stories about her, but this is probably the best one.

Dumb parents factsWikimedia Commons

Sources: Reddit, , ,


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