Life is full of cringe; we just have to learn to accept it. However, no matter how well you might be doing, your memory likes to remind you of your worst moments years later, just when you expect it the least.
In an attempt to reassure everyone that it’s normal, Reddit user Royalscowlness asked platform users to share the embarrassing childhood stories they cannot seem to forget.
They received hundreds of replies, so we put together the ones that stood out the most — and hopefully, they’ll offer a little comfort in the awkwardness. You’re not alone!
Read More: 50 People Share The Embarrassing Childhood Moments They’ll Never Live Down
#1
Ugh. In third grade I was painfully dorky and I would always sit and read by myself before the bell rang. The other kids made fun of me for reading, so…my solution? I made cat noises at them. Like hissed and stuff. Yep. That’s what 8-year-old me came up with. It did not do wonders for my popularity.
Image credits: wigglybutt
#2
In kindergarten I was in the yard playing when I found a big rock. I thought it would be a good idea to see what would happen if I threw the rock at a window, so I did. This smashes the window. Two weeks later I started a new kindergarten but my parents keep telling me it wasn’t related.
Image credits: LowSociety
#3
My dad had an old station wagon and when I was a kid I liked to go in the back and put on puppet shows using my stuffed animals for the people in the cars behind us whenever we were at a red light. I have no idea if anyone ever noticed, but I can’t imagine what they thought of seeing these stuffed animals dancing around in the rear window.
Image credits: -eDgAR-
#4
When I was in kindergarten at a Catholic school, I told my teacher, a nun, that I really had to use the bathroom. The kindergarten and pre-k rooms had their own bathrooms just for this reason. I told her I couldn’t hold it, but she refused to let me go until we finished morning prayer. I begged but she made me stand there and told me I’d get in trouble if I didn’t listen. So I tried to hold it, but ended up peeing all over myself in the middle of the Our Father prayer. She yelled at me and the whole class laughed.
My mom let her have it though, it was just the beginning of the amount of nonsense that happened in that school.
Image credits: sharkswithlasers88
#5
Posted this before, but when i was three or four I drank the majority of a bottle of delicious strawberry cough mixture and had to have my stomach pumped. **Kids like me are the reason that medicine is intentionally disgusting.**.
Image credits: ButHagridImJustHarry
#6
At Easter one year I ran full force into a sliding glass door. Then I opened it and tried to run away but ran into the screen door.
Image credits: 21andInvincible
#7
One time when I was eating with my family at the age of 10, I was sucking the juices out of a good breakfast sausage, then when they asked me what I was doing, I yelled “IM JUST SUCKING ON MY SAUSAGE!!!”
They still mess with me to this day.
Image credits: anon
#8
When I was in kindergarten, I told my teacher to pull my finger. I am female, so was she and she was also very “proper and unforgiving” which my mother hated. So.. I farted, because she didn’t know that’s what happened. When my mom got the call she had to hold back laughter. Now whenever stories are being told (including in front of new, potential mates) I get to hear how I farted on my kindergarten teacher.
Image credits: sunshinesurr
#9
I accidentally told my uncle’s wife that my side of the family didn’t like them. It’s been about 15 years and they still can’t forget about what a 7 year old told them.
Image credits: anon
#10
This is my brother’s story that we won’t let him forget…
When he was 8 he was a chubby youngster that really loved Chef Boyardee’s canned pasta. Loved it to death.
One day he put some canned pasta in the microwave in a glass bowl and waited the allotted 2 minutes or so, and then eagerly reached in and grabbed the bowl. It was, as you might imagine, heated to near melting by the molten lava of pasta sauce. My brother immediately dropped the bowl, which shattered all over the floor.
Glass and pasta and meaty red sauce everywhere.
My mom runs over and starts yelling, “Oh how could you! What were you thinking!” You know, upset mother things.
My brother just looks at her… and then bursts into tears. Sobbing.
My mom then feels terrible. Starts consoling him, “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to yell at you” You know, apologetic mother things.
Then, my brother, through is sniffles and throaty lingering sobs, looks at her and says “It’s not that! That was the last can of pasta!”.
Image credits: cranberry94
#11
I purposefully peed my pants in the 1st Grade because I was too embarrassed to ask to go to the bathroom.
Image credits: freshbakedbrouhaha
#12
At the grand old age of two my twin and I got up in the middle of the night, got out steak knives and grated cheese into the heat vent. It is a miracle we weren’t hurt. My dad did his best to clean out the ductwork, but he said the smell was ingrained into our heating system. Not exactly embarrassing, but definitely odd. We also had our own language until we were about 4 years old.
Image credits: tonster181
#13
When I was in fourth grade, we had a comprehensive spelling test of all of the words we had learned throughout the year. My teacher called out the word “engine” but for some reason, my brain failed me, and I could not for the life of me imagine why my teacher would be asking me to spell this word. I had just watched the movie “Tom and Huck” and good ol Injun Joe was fresh on my mind, so naturally, I spelled “engine” as “i-n-j-u-n.” My teacher was not impressed.
Image credits: aem2003
#14
When I was a little kid I was at a Durham Bulls baseball game (who were then the minor league team for the Atlanta Braves), and they had given all kids a free helmet – you know, one of those bad plastic helmets with the brown plastic snappy framing inside you get at the gas station for 99 cents?
Anyway I was walking around with my brother when Chipper Freaking Jones walks right up to me and says “hey buddy, that’s a pretty cool helmet. Wanna trade it for this autographed bat?”
I reply “no thanks, my dad might get mad if I give away my helmet.”
Chipper looks at me like I’m an idiot and gives the bat to some other kid standing nearby.
Image credits: anon
#15
I provoked a peacock when I was 3 or so, and it pooped on me. I’m 21 and people still warn me to be careful around peacocks.
Image credits: NachoBurger
#16
When I was about four, I decided to hop down the stairs like a rabbit. (FYI – there’s a reason rabbits don’t hop down stairs.) As I tumble, my mom chases me down going ‘oh’ at every bump. One of my sisters, older of course, laughed until she puked at the top of said stairs. Still haven’t lived that down.
Again, when I was older, about 8, I was playing with my mashed potatoes after dinner. My oldest sister’s future husband was there for dinner for the first time. I asked if he wanted my potatoes and ended up flinging a spoonful into his face from across the table. On purpose. That was mentioned every Thanksgiving for years – until his daughter accidentally did the same in a restaurant. (Landed in some poor ladies purse!).
Image credits: mel2mdl
#17
In first grade I once put my finger in the pencil sharpener and cranked the handle… Yes I bled and screamed, and no I can’t fathom why I did it…
Image credits: chargoggagog
#18
My best friend in grade school and I used to howl “COOOOOO-KIE CRISP” across the playground to find each other when we were separated.
Also, one time I read a book about schoolkids taking care of bags of flour as if they were babies. I thought it was a cool project, so I did it. I put a bag of flour in a onesie and carried it around school for a week. Fifth grade was a hoot.
Image credits: manyapple5
#19
When I was 13 I dressed up as a banana and ran around town with some friends, going into shops, buying bananas and eating bananas.
Image credits: Bosmantics
#20
When I was seven I was staying at my grandma’s house. She was cooking dinner and I wandered off into the bathroom where I found a pair of scissors. I proceeded to give my self a haircut. I was awful. For the next two weeks my parents made me walk around with said awful haircut as a punishment.
TL;DR My parents made me walk around for two weeks with an atrocious haircut I gave myself.
Image credits: jBudds
#21
In kindergarten I ran into the corner of a brick wall while playing tag. No idea how exactly I managed that. I still have the scar.
Image credits: anon
#22
I was maybe 5. We were visiting my elderly grandparents. I had learned a new expression recently.
As we’re pulling out of their driveway, my dad said “Good bye!” – very deliberately, as if to start a trend. My mom said “Good bye!”. My brother (12) said “Good bye!”. I proudly said “Good riddance!”
The memory that follows is just a blur of parental mortification and butt-swatting.
Image credits: playblu
#23
I was a really chubby kid, and one time at age 12 I went in a gas station with my grandma and the clerk lady asked me when my baby was due.
Image credits: jebus_cripes
#24
While in gymnastics I was swinging on the bar and my only friend in the class stepped in front of me causing my foot to cut open her face. I never returned to gymnastics.
Image credits: Spiro4
#25
When I was in kindergarten, my school stuck me in some second-grade classes because I was ahead of the curve. The first day of my more advanced classes, the teacher (who was an enormous black lady who scared me) put an essay up on the overhead projector and asked the class to copy it down “exactly as you see it.”
I copied the thing down, even taking time to reproduce the font– I wrote out every serif, loop, and shoulder on every letter, then turned it in, relieved that my assignment wasn’t so bad. Teacher saw my paper then yelled at me for taking the assignment too literally, then told me that they should send me back to kindergarten. They did not.
Image credits: ghettoeskimo
#26
When I was about 5 or so my younger brother was 2. Every time I played with his toys my mom would tell me that I was too big for them. So the first time I saw an obese person sit on a chair that was too small for them guess what I said. “You’re too big to be sitting in that chair.”.
Image credits: anon
#27
I would sing like an opera singer. I’d also say things from advertisements all the time, and there were a series of genital herpes ads that were on quite often, which lead to me screaming GENITAL HERPES in public, much to the embarrassment of my parents.
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Image credits: Bronson9900