Kids Reveal the Biggest Secrets Their Dads Pleaded With Them Not to Tell Mom

Throughout childhood, we learn the art of secrets - but what unfolds when a father leans in with a whispered 'Don't tell your mom?' These online confessions reveal how people were asked to hide something from their mothers.

From lighthearted anecdotes to weighty episodes, Redditors unearth the instants preceding that pivotal phrase, transforming everyday occurrences into veiled chapters of family history.

Some children held onto these whispered burdens for decades, guarding them fiercely, while others couldn't resist the urge to spill the beans upon seeing their mother. These 35 confessions reveal why some children were asked to stay quiet.

Comments have been edited for clarity and grammar.

1. My Father Looked Sad

u/isomr: One day in grade school, maybe grade 5 or 6, my dad came unexpectedly into the classroom early in the morning.

He looked upset. He talked to the teacher briefly, then walked over to me and whispered, "Try to look upset. We're going skiing. Don't tell your mother." Best day ever!! Thanks, Dad!

2. The Not-So-Safe Spot

u/Bruce_NGA: My daughter and I were on a 10-day road trip through the American South. There was an Airbnb, a campground, and one state park outside Jackson, Mississippi.

We had just come from New Orleans where, among other things, we had taken a "Swamp Tour," where we were within spitting distance of some massive alligators.

After about six hours of driving, we pitched a tent for the night by a river. At the time, my daughter was eight years old and couldn't get enough swimming.

The park ranger was making his rounds, so we asked him if it was cool to go swimming in the river. He recommended a spot only a few minutes walk from where we were camped. So we do just that.

After a couple of hours of splashing around and having fun, we went to roast our hotdogs and retire—at which point we experienced the most glorious lightning storm I've ever seen.

The following day, we woke up, and while packing up camp, two local ladies started chatting us up. They mentioned the family of alligators they had seen swimming in the river.

Horrified, I asked where. They pointed right to where we were swimming. I asked if they had seen them the day before, and they said yes, in the same spot.

I literally looked at my daughter and said, "Mommy is never to hear of this." That trip was great for many reasons, but this story sticks out.

3. The Special Weekly Stops

u/Caladriel: My dad used to drive me to my flute lessons across town every Wednesday evening. On our way home every week, we'd stop at Baskin Robbins.

He'd let me get a double scoop in a waffle cone. We'd sit inside, take our time, and talk. It was extraordinary since my parents worked two jobs and had to chauffeur around two high school-aged kids to various functions/activities.

Spending one-on-one time with either of my parents was a rare and fortunate thing. They both worked two jobs because we weren't well off, so weekly stops at Baskin Robbins were a splurge thing, and I wasn't to tell my mom or my brother about it.

Schedules flipped around about a year later, and my mom was the one to take me to flute lessons. She'd always get good junk food from the gas station, and we'd eat in the car and talk. Neither parent knew the other spoiled me on Wednesdays.

4. The Video Game Secret

u/gorgonheap: My mom did not allow us to have video game consoles in the house. (Yes, we were deprived children.)

My brother and I shared a room. He won a TV at a school party, and one day, I bought an N64 and several games at a garage sale.

We then snuck these items into our house and set them up in our closet. We had been playing Mario Kart, Goldeneye, and Super Smash Bros. for a couple of days.

One day, my Dad walked into our room, and we weren't fast enough to dump the pile of clothes over things to keep them hidden.

There was an awkward silence before my Dad asked, "Is that a Nintendo?" When we told them it was indeed one, he asked if Mom knew about it.

"Probably not," we replied. Upon hearing our response, Dad asked, "Do you have another controller?" He played with us for a while, told us not to tell Mom, and to this day, we've all kept our secret.

5. The Milkshake Story

u/AspieSquared: When I was about seven, my Mum bought a cheap blender for the kitchen. It was one of those where the blending blade points downward.

To use it, you have to insert the jug from the front. Its design was such that you could attach any old cup to it, and it would still work.

However, Mum was very strict and prohibited us from using regular cups. We had to use the special blender jug. Dad hated that thing because it was a pain to clean.

Soon, the day came when Mum was out, and I asked my dad if I could make a milkshake. He chucked all the ingredients into the milkshake cup and stuck that into the blender.

I reminded him we had to use the jug because Mum said so. Dad replied, "Well, Dad can do it this way because Dad said so."

Then, he promptly turned the blender on and sent milk, chocolate, banana, and ice cream splattering all over the kitchen ceiling.

6. The Last Cookie

u/selfishbutready: Yesterday, I gave my kid an Oreo before dinner. He ate it, but I told him not to tell his mother.

Soon, his Mom got home and asked, "What did you do today?" He replied, "Dad gave me a cookie!" I thought, "Yeah, that was the last cookie you ever got."

7. Father-Daughter Time

u/bubmiller: When my wife would go out with friends, my daughter and I would eat dinner in the living room in front of the TV instead of at the table.

This was known as "Mommy's-not-home style." We usually had food my wife didn't like, so it was our treat.

This went well until my wife wanted to try one of these meals. I set up everything on the table, and my daughter asks, "Aren't we going to eat Mommy's not home style?"

8. A Life-Threatening Mistake

u/Iwanttheknife: When I was growing up, my dad was a private pilot (but a former military pilot with many thousands of hours) and would sometimes take me along.

One day, mid-flight, the engine just quit, and we found ourselves at 5,000 feet and steadily descending in a glide over some pretty forested land.

It turns out he forgot to switch fuel tanks mid-flight (there were three in the plane, and you're supposed to switch between them as you fly to ensure a constant fuel supply and proper balancing).

Luckily, he diagnosed the issue and restarted the engine with a couple of thousand feet to spare, and we were okay.

After he got sorted and chilled out a bit, he clicked on the intercom and said, "You're not gonna tell your mom about that, are you?"

I was about 13 years old (I'm in my 40s now), and she still doesn't know. She was paranoid about us kids flying with him, and that incident would have been the end of it.

He's in his 70s and still flying. He swears that's the only time he's ever had an experience like that while flying. I don't know if I believe him.

9. The Secret Plan

u/Far-Personality63: My kids were horse-playing in the picture-adorned hallway, knocked some frames off, and made a hole in the wall.

I knew Mom (my wife) would be pissed, so we hung everything back and covered the hole! I told them not to say a word, and if/when it's discovered, I'd take the heat.

Needless to say, years later, my wife discovered the hole, immediately went to the kids, and as instructed, they blamed me!

I received the wrath of my wife while my kids watched in utter shock and disbelief. I took it like a champ, never cracked, and became a hero!

10. Movie Time

u/Jubie1: My dad gave in and let me rent "South Park: Bigger, Longer &Uncut." He told me not to tell my mom.

Then, my mom let me rent it again a few weeks later and told me not to tell my dad. I never told either of them I had already seen it in the theater.

11. Impulse Shopping

u/swenkortig: When I was young, my mom sometimes visited her mother for about a week. When she left, my father took us "impulse shopping" at the grocery store, and we would live for the week on whatever my dad, brother, and I picked out. I remember subsisting on liverwurst and gummy bears.

12. 'Don't Worry, Mom. I'm Okay'

u/[deleted]: My dad took my then-toddler sister on his motorbike. She hit her chin on the tank during the ride and was a bit hurt.

My dad said she mustn't tell my mom, or she won't be allowed on again. So, as soon as my sister walked in the door, she said, "Don't worry, Mom. I'm okay!"

13. Why Did the Bed Collapse?

u/meghanmck: Whenever my parents left home, they asked my older sister to watch me. In their absence, we used to jump on their bed.

Standing up, we'd let our legs drop from under us and land on our bottoms. We did this all the time. Well, one time, we snapped the bed frame in half.

Confused, we ran to the basement, found what we could from our dad's toolbox, and used wood glue and tiny wood nails to put it back together. It worked.

Everything was fine until my parents went to bed that night, and the bed collapsed under the weight of them just sitting on it. They still tell that story during the holidays.

14. My Mom Caught Us

u/SusheeQueen: It was the night the movie "Eight Below" was released. You know, the one with Paul Walker and all those huskies?

Back then, I was in the "I love princesses, ponies, and puppies" stage of life and really wanted to watch it, but the only show was at midnight. I begged my mom and dad, but mom firmly said no because it would be past my bedtime.

So, I went to bed sulking and crying. Then, about half an hour before the movie, I heard my bedroom door creak open and saw my dad sneak in.

He walked over to me in bed and said, "Go get ready. We've got to leave in five minutes if we want to make it in time."

We then snuck out of the house and got to the cinema so fast that we managed to watch the trailers, too.

I remember buying a large popcorn and being mad at my dad for finishing it before the movie even began. I look back on it now and laugh at how apologetic he was.

On the drive home, he said we had to make sure we didn't make any noise because that would make Mom wake up. He made me promise and everything.

When we got home, we found mom waiting on the couch with her arms crossed. She was too tired to get mad and just told us to take her with us next time.

15. Installing the Dart Board

u/Calrimetre: When I was a kid, my parents built their first house and absolutely loved it. Mum was determined not to damage anything for as long as possible.

Just as we moved in, I was helping Dad set up his new dart board. It needed to be screwed in to hang it.

Dad decided not to use a stud finder and took three attempts to find the stud to screw it into. Luckily, the board covered up the other holes.

Then, Dad made me promise not to tell Mum. She didn't find out until the day they moved and took down the board.

16. The Amazing Graphics

u/[deleted]: When, after several hours of failure and frustration and having to send me to bed halfway through the setup, my Dad sneaked upstairs to wake 11-year-old me up just after midnight.

He said a simple phrase, "I got the new PlayStation working! Come and have a go, but shush, your mum is in bed!" The first game we booted up was Alien Trilogy. THOSE GRAPHICS WERE INSANE!

17. Too Much Mountain Dew

u/jetogill: I had plans to attend an out-of-town wedding, but I had to take my son to get his hair cut. I picked him up at school, and he was in a dreadful mood.

I told him if he'd go to his haircut without a fuss, I'd let him have a Mountain Dew, which he wasn't allowed.

I got my son's haircut, went to a gas station, grabbed a 20-ounce Mountain Dew, and handed it to him in the back seat with the warning, "Don't tell your Mom."

His nine-year-old brain thought this meant he had to down 20 ounces of Mountain Dew on the 5-minute car trip home.

Sitting in the middle, he unbuckled, moved to the door, rolled the window down, and I was like, "What are you doing?"

Soon, I realized he felt like vomiting. We got home, he got out, laid down on the cool concrete, pressing his forehead to it, and said, "Never again."

18. Learning How to Ride a Motorcycle

u/KittyLicker2386: I was 22, had just graduated college, and lived at home while starting my first "real" job.

Since I was single, childless, and living at home, my living expenses were minimal, and I saved a fair bit of money pretty quickly.

I wanted to do something exciting but didn't know what. I'm not the backpack-across-Europe type and come from a rather bland family.

A co-worker told me I should buy a motorcycle, but I knew my mom would never approve of it. So, I waited until my parents were out of town one week and bought a used Honda CBR 250.

My mom hated it (now that I'm married with kids, she says it's "irresponsible" of me to ride such a statistically dangerous vehicle).

My dad, however, had always wanted one in his younger years but had never done anything about it. He approved.

One weekend, not long after, my mom went on an out-of-town shopping trip with my sisters. My dad asked if I wanted to do anything.

I thought momentarily and asked him if he wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle. He got this silly/excited grin that I'd never seen before. And that is how my then-60-year-old dad learned how to ride a motorcycle.

19. He Broke the Window Glass

u/Eroe777: When I was a kid, many of us were playing Wiffle ball in the neighbor's backyard. My dad and the father of the kid whose yard we were playing in were playing with us.

At one point, the other kid's Dad lobbed a pitch into his son, who proceeded to send it through the kitchen window of their house. Cue much panicking on the part of us kids.

The dads were much calmer, and he said to his son, "Don't tell Mom. I will get some glass from the hardware store, and nobody will know the difference." He had no idea Mom was in the kitchen when the ball went through the window.

20. The $5 Budget

u/Sirenfes: When I was a kid, my family went camping a lot, and each time, they gave me a budget of $5 to play video games at the arcade or buy some snacks and ice cream.

Well, one lovely Memorial weekend, as I rode my bike to the arcade, I came across a sign that said, "Kittens for sale! Only $5!"

Well, I spent that entire weekend over by their campsite, playing with the kittens, until eventually, one of them grew on me to the point I had to have it.

So, on the last day there, I gave them my $5 and brought my buddy home. My mom quickly realized what had happened and agreed to help me hide him until we got home because my dad would never allow a cat.

My dad didn't realize until we were already halfway home. It has been over ten years since I've had my best friend, Oscar, with me.

21. Who Ate the Ramen?

u/youngmazino: My mother is super strict about my dad's diet, given his family's history of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Before I moved out, I remember seeing my dad's lunch that my mom packed. It was a massive ziplock bag filled with veggies and fruits to the brim. She didn't even separate them.

It was a cluster of random things: tomatoes, celery, strawberries, apple slices, broccoli, persimmon.

So, naturally, my dad snuck downstairs at night to eat some ramen. But my mom, being sharper than a Damascus blade, would notice minor evidence like a tiny spring onion scrap in the sink.

Of course, she'd notice the entire ramen packaging in the trash can. Whenever my dad would get caught, he'd just point towards me and say I had eaten ramen. I'd play along and say I ate it. Sometimes, we ate it together.

22. The Driving Lesson

u/[deleted]: When I had my driver's permit, my dad was supposed to help teach me to drive. He made me drive him everywhere, and teaching me consisted of him leaning the seat back, turning the radio on low volume, and napping until we got to our destination.

I remember the first day it happened, he just said, "I'm supposed to be monitoring you closely and keeping an eye on every move you make, but I'm tired. You'll be fine. Just don't speed. And your mom doesn't need to know I'm asleep, or she'll get angry."

What Dad doesn't know is when my brother got his permit last year, Mom's way of teaching him to drive was the same.

23. My Father's Secret Skill

u/Gordon_frumann: When I was young, my mother was away for two weeks because of work. One evening, after my father laid me to bed, I saw him ironing his shirts. He looked at me and said: "Don't tell your mom I know how to do this."

24. Hiding the Evidence

u/[deleted]: When I was twelve or thirteen, my brothers Tyler, 10, Trenton, 5, and I were really mad at our brother Tanner, 8.

We decided to give him an "atomic wedgie" by tying a rope to the belt loop on the back of his shorts and swinging the rope over a tree branch about 20 feet up.

We pulled him up and swung around for quite a while (he was actually having fun with it, as were we) when we decided to pull him all the way up.

As soon as he got up next to the branch, his pants ripped apart and were dangling in this tree. Tanner's expression went from giggling joy to pure terror as he plummeted 20 feet in his dinosaur underwear.

After we calmed him down and made sure he had no broken bones (thankfully), we made sure that nobody would tell our parents. EVER.

We buried the rope and his torn-up shorts by some bushes in our backyard. My parents still don't know.

25. I Was Late for the Sale

u/C0nkles: When I was around 16, I went to GameStop with my dad to trade in my Xbox 360 for the Xbox One.

They had a deal where they offered about $250 off if you exchanged an Xbox 360 for the Xbox One. So, I saved up just enough from my weekend job at a chess store to afford it with the deal.

So we got there, and it turned out I was about a week late for the sale. I was devastated, but my dad just covered the rest of the cost.

I also sold many games I probably wouldn't use afterward, which helped, but he still shelled out a good $100. On the way home, he gave me the "Don't tell mom" talk.

26. The Brakes Stopped Working

u/Some_Drummer_Guy: Dad bought Mom a new car. It was a used car, and my mom loved it. On the first day after we got the vehicle legal and registered, Dad and I took it to the auto parts store to get a code reading to troubleshoot a minor issue.

We were in the parking lot when he lifted the hood and noticed a connector that wasn't plugged in. He plugged it back in, thinking it might be the culprit for the issue.

We jumped back in the car, and he noticed the ABS (anti-lock brake system) light on the tach (dash panel with the speedometer and gauges) had gone off.

He wondered aloud, "Hmmm… that plug is obviously the ABS. Why would they (the previous owners) have that unhooked?" Less than a minute later, we found out why.

We get not even 500 feet down the road, and as he's slowing down for the traffic light, we hear a long, grinding whine type of sound that slowly drops in pitch. WHIIIIRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

Dad mashed the brake pedal and had it all the way to the floor, but we were still moving. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!" The ABS had failed, and we now had no brakes.

We were closing in on the bumper of the stopped car in front of us. In an evasive maneuver to avoid smashing into that car (we were inches away), he jerked the wheel to the left to coast the car towards the empty lane next to us.

We eventually coast to a halt. After sitting through the light, we turned off into a parking lot next to us, rolled to a stop, and promptly unhooked the ABS plug. Then, he got back in.

"No wonder they had that thing unplugged! Don't tell your mom about this, or else she'll be scared to drive this thing," he said.

27. Faking an Allergy

u/[deleted]: My dad dislikes mushrooms with a passion, enough so to claim that he is allergic to them.

Once, while Mom was away for the weekend, we went out to eat, and he ordered an omelet. He specifically asked if there were mushrooms in it and asked for no mushrooms.

When our food came, his omelet had mushrooms, and he asked who made it. The woman serving us said she had made it and hoped he enjoyed it (it seemed to be one of her first days at this restaurant because she seemed a little stressed out).

He didn't say anything about the mushrooms to her. Instead, he thanked her, and she left. Then, he ate the omelet and told us not to tell Mom.

28. The Really Fast Way

u/CajunPlatypus: I was about 6 or 7 years old when my dad worked as a bus driver for our local public transit.

He owned a Suzuki Madura and used to ride it to work on good weather days. He used to take me to work with him occasionally, and I would ride the bus with him all day.

So, the first time he decided to ride his motorcycle with me, my mother told him to take me down the slower streets and not the interstate.

I woke up super early with him, and he asked me, "Do you want to take the slow way? Or the really fast way?" Naturally, I wanted to go fast, so he told me never to tell my mom.

We would blaze down I-95 to his job every time after that, with me hanging on tight to his back. I remember my helmet clanking into his and having the time of my life.

29. Chicken and Chip Lunch Box

u/Free_The_Pee: My mum put my family on a diet, but my dad hated it. One day, I was catching the bus home from school and saw him at the corner dairy.

I quickly got off the bus and ran into the store to get a ride, expecting to see him getting a loaf of bread or some milk.

Instead, I saw him at the takeaway counter with the worker saying, "The usual? One chicken and chip lunch box?"

We locked eyes when he saw me staring, and he knew he was caught. Then, he returned to the worker and said, "Make it two, please." We ate in the car and bought gum so my mum couldn't smell it on our breath.

30. A New Experience

u/[deleted]: My mother had to move away for a year for job-related reasons. I clearly remember that she sat my father down in the kitchen and told him the exact rules for us kids.

Up until that point, he had been the one to work more and had been around less. One of the rules was "being in bed by 9 p.m."

As soon as she was out the door, my father turned to me and said: "Children of the Corn is on tonight. Do you want to watch it?"

It was on at 2 a.m., and it was the first horror movie I watched (I was 11). Luckily, I loved it. Soon, horror movie nights became our secret thing to do when my mother wasn't around.

31. Racing School

u/goobino: For at least ten years of my life, I bugged my parents to let me race cars. Finally, when I was 19, my dad agreed to let me do Skip Barber Racing School, but the only condition was that I couldn't let my mom know.

She's super nervous and protective about me, and the only reason I was never allowed to start racing was "she could crash and die" and "she's a girl and only boys like cars" (my mother came from a very old-fashioned family).

Anyway, my dad ended up withdrawing money to pay for racing school, and he told my mom that he was coming to visit me for the weekend during the five days that I had the racing classes. To this day, Mom doesn't know about it.

32. The Secret Reward

u/Ivan_834: I got straight As in my sophomore year of high school. I rarely got As in my household, so my proud father told me he would take me to Gamestop to buy the new PS4.

My mom told us our budget was only $200, but my dad ignored it and bought me the PS4 + GTA Bundle, NBA 2k14, Call of Duty: Ghosts (by far our worst investment), an extra controller, and a TV for me to play in my room.

It wound up being around $880, but my dad said he would just work extra hours to pay it off because he was proud of me.

He didn't even have to tell me not to tell my mother. He just looked me in the eye once we got in the car, and I knew what it meant. I love my parents.

33. My Dad's Teeth

u/tehxwilk: My family enjoys playing golf. While I was a middle schooler, they tried to prepare me to play golf competitively once I started high school.

Being an angsty young teenager, I refused to do what my parents liked and instead said, "NO... TENNIS IS WHAT I DO."

After many tennis lessons and long trips to the courts to practice on the plywood wall, my mother, being the half-genius, half-crazy, resourceful southern lady that she is, said, "We can build a wall at the house, and you can just practice here."

Dad and I created these big 2x4 reinforced plywood pieces that would hook into some piece Mom found at Lowe's Hardware (all the while exclaiming, "YEAH, THIS'LL WORK. YEAH I'm sure").

These plywood "backboards" were incredibly heavy and awkward to lift vertically and hook into these metal bars that we had bolted into a shed in our backyard.

One day, Dad decided it was time for me to get some practice in before mom got home. He waved me off when I offered help putting the boards up, saying, "Nah, I think I can get this."

I did not doubt his words because my dad was a muscular, 270 lbs man. He handled the first board with relative ease, but when putting the second board up on the wall, he dropped it before it was entirely in place.

Gravity happened, and it fell on his face, knocking his teeth out. Excuse me, his FALSE teeth. I did not know about that until the 15th-ish year of my life.

I stood back, eyes wide and full of confusion. What did he do? Scoop them right up off the asphalt and pop them back in without cleaning.

He turned to look at me, and we both stood in shocked silence for a second. "Don't tell your mother," he said.

Fast forward a couple of years, Dad had a stroke. Mom and I arrived at the hospital after the ambulance got him to the ER.

Like every hospital, they gave us my Dad's personal belongings. In a little sanitary plastic bag was a set of teeth.

The nurse handed the bag to Mom, who immediately said it must be a mistake because my father had always had great teeth.

After the nurse lifted my unconscious father's gums to reveal the gaping void left where said teeth should have been, Mom looked at me with the same shock, with eyes agape in confusion as I did with Dad during the tennis board incident. I giggled.

34. 'Daddy Said I Can't Tell You Anything'

u/jayrambling: When I was around four, my dad used to drive a Mustang, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I always wanted to drive it.

One day, he let me sit on his lap and drive to the corner store to buy bread. He told me it was our secret and I should never tell my mom.

After getting home, my mom asked me if I had fun in the Mustang, and I yelled, "DADDY SAID I CAN'T TELL YOU ANYTHING."

35. The Mismanaged Church Retreat

u/Niflhe: My father and I attended a small church retreat for men and their sons. Unfortunately, the planners didn't notice two essential facts: The campsite was at the bottom of an incredibly steep dirt path, and it would rain that weekend.

What followed next were two days of rain and mud and seven hours of trying to get six pickup trucks and a minivan up a muddy, slippery incline.

Everyone went before us to try and make it in one shot, only to fail. The pastor also happened to be a lumberjack and was furiously cutting down trees to try and create some semblance of a path.

Dad and I were the last two to go, hoping to succeed where everyone had failed. We made it up the path with the least trouble, but it still took over an hour.

Both of us and the truck were filthy with mud. Before we went home, we stopped at a car wash station to hose off the truck and ourselves. Over there, my dad said, "Son, let's... not... mention this to your mother."

36. My Father's Dark Secret

u/[deleted]: I was only 12 when my dad asked me to take this secret to the grave. The consequences were like a nuclear explosion. So, my dad called and said he'd pick me up from school at 4 p.m.

Time passed and I called him — no answer. It started raining and got cold. 40 minutes later, he finally showed up, totally out of it. We started driving, but we were clearly not heading home. He forgot I was even in the car and pulled up to some house, doors unlocked. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I followed him inside and saw five other kids, all looked just like me.

When my dad saw me, he broke down and admitted he had been living a double life. It turned out he had another family and those kids were my half-siblings. This secret, hidden for years from my mom, shattered everything I knew about our family.

As we wrap up these secretive tales, it's clear: 'Don't tell your mom' often carries a mix of laughter, tenderness, and surprise. But the conversation doesn't end here! Share your own 'classified' family moments if you were ever asked to keep a secret from your mother.