Sometimes, your parents will do something that might not seem like much, but in hindsight, is completely badass.
Below are stories of the coolest things parents have done, as told on AskReddit. Check them out! For more stories, a source can be found at the end of the article.
My Dad was driving me to his office when I was about 10. There was a group of 5 people outside of the library kicking the crap out of this guy’s face. My Dad just calmly parked the car, got out, and started pulling these dudes off this other guy like it wasn’t even a thing. Someone called the police while my Dad held them all off. When I asked him why he did it, he said “I was having a bad day, and I could tell that guy was too.” He’s a lawyer in a relatively small town, and it turns out the guy he helped had actually got sent to jail because of him three years previously. He was still insanely thankful and sends us a Christmas card every year.
SmogginCragg
I was sitting in the passenger seat when I was like 12 years old when my dad got pulled over by a cop. After the cop asked: “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
He responded with, “do you?”
I let out a loud ‘Ohhhhhhh damnn’ and my father proceeded to get a large fine.
nuteIIa
You know that game at the fair where you try and run against the bungee cord for a prize? When I was a kid we went to a fair and a big firefighter tried that game, and didn’t win it. Then a marine home on leave tried it, and didn’t get it. Then my 42 year old dad gave it a go, and won. They were super confused, because they only had the one prize and they didn’t have a backup in case someone won. But they had to give it to us. It was awesome. Also he burst all the blood vessels in his face and looked like a monster for a week. But still, awesome.
Kijafa
My dad got involved in a strange love triangle when I was about 12.
He dated this girl for awhile but she was crazy, break up got nasty and she eventually told her new boyfriend a few weeks later that my dad had been trying to come over/
Well the guy didn’t like that so much. So he knocked on my fathers door for an hour or so, my dad didn’t want to talk to him.
My dad walked outside and the guy pulled a gun on him. It was absolutely horrifying to see my father about to be shot by some nutcase. I was looking on through the window, I was so scared and only 12, I ran to call the police.
Half way through the police phone call I hear my dad yell.
“THAT’S RIGHT PULL A GUN ON SOMEONE LIKE ME AGAIN.”
Apparently my dad had disarmed him and pistol whipped his skull so hard the guy couldn’t stand.
He is the most wonderful father a person could ever ask for.
ajhimmler
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On my mom’s side, there was some pretty hideous generational dysfunction that nobody seemed to be able to beat (like 3+ generations running of alcoholism, father figure issues, etc.) – Mom helped stop a ton of that crap from ever getting passed down to my brother and I.
Dad’s family grew up extremely poor, lower class Mexican in south texas. He resolved to never be poor, so he took out loans and worked his butt off to become a petroleum engineer and now he’s rich.
I consider them to be equally badass.
[deleted]
My dad was fetching my sister at her primary school when some thieves on motorbike snatched a lady’s purse off. He dropped my sister down, asked her to wait, chased after the thieves on his motorbike, kicked the thieves down and then proceeded to beat the crap out of both of them and handed them to the police.
Some days later the police called him up to the station to get some kind of awards, but he refused because he didn’t want any publications. in his words “I didn’t want the thieves to remember my face – it might endanger your sister since the thievery occurred near her school”.
RougeCrown
Similar story. When I was around 10 or so, we were relocating cities because my father received a better offer from a district attorney’s office. After packing up the U-Haul and driving for about an hour, we stopped off at a McDonald’s to get some food.
As we’re all walking in (my dad, mom, older brother, and myself) – I hear what sounds like a faint ‘slap’ on the other side of the partitioned glass, where the playground was located. I see this fairly large black man pointing a menacing finger at the lady seated across from him, telling her to ‘mind her manners’ and all that. I didn’t say anything, but as we were standing in line, my mother made a mention of it to my dad – who said he saw it and was going to inform the person working the cash register to call the police when it was our turn.
All of a sudden, the glass door leading out to the playground swung open, and the lady is trying to escape from this guy. He grabbed her arm, and told her that he’d rather kill her than see her with anyone else.
Now, I want you all to picture this. This guy was probably 6’4, an easy 220 or so pounds (as far as I remember, anyway). My dad is 5’8, and about 180. He’s a stocky guy, but he was clearly outmatched in this scenario.
My dad calmly and coolly told the man to take his hands off her. He told my dad to mind his own business, and my father proceeded to lecture him on the fact that if this guy could control his temper, he wouldn’t need to intervene in front of his children, and that he’s trying to raise his kids to respect women and other people.
The guy let go, looked at the woman and told her he was going to ‘be by later to finish this conversation’. My dad told the barbarian that the cops were being called, that he was the new district attorney in the neighboring county, and that he would be checking in to ensure she was being left alone.
This floored the guy. He wound up and clocked my father as hard as he could.
My dad, without even missing a beat, grabbed the guy, pushed him into some tables, and started laying punches into his face. It was truly incredible watching my dad, whom I had always seen as relatively harmless, just start pulverizing a guy with haymakers.
My father eventually let up on the guy. The police came, he explained the situation to them, they arrested the disorderly buffoon, and then my dad bought my brother and I Happy Meals.
Bamont
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My dad was driving to a dinner date with my mom, having left me and my sister with a babysitter for the evening. On their way, on country back roads, they saw that a car had run off the road down a steep embankment and was now on fire.
Dad jumped the barbed wire fencing, ripping his dress pants, and pulled a very drunk guy from a burning car and somehow got him help in a pre-cellphone era with no one else around.
The next day, when the guy sobered up and he checked himself out of the hospital.
justinsayin
I’m 25, and my dad is 45.
I was playing around with my 3 year brother on the trampoline this summer. My dad walked up to us and asked if I still knew how to do a backflip. Sure I said, and proceeded to do a shabby backflip, barely landing on my feet. The old man laughed mockingly, adding “That was the worst backflip I’ve ever seen”. He then stepped onto the trampoline, and proceeded to perform a perfect double backflip, then walked back to the house and popped a beer.
Calimariae
My dad fought off a bunch of guys that jumped him in the middle of the street by blocking off his car. They wanted to steal the car; he threw the keys onto the sidewalk and proceeded to kicking their asses. They had some sort of makeshift weapons (don’t remember now, but it was sticks or batons), and they messed his back up with them pretty bad. Basically, they were a bunch of jerks who were used to scaring people into submission, and they ran away as soon as he put up a fight and knocked some teeth out.
He came back home a bit bruised up, but nowhere near as bad as you’d imagine… except for his knuckles. Goddamnit, his knuckles were RAW. I did think he was badass after that, but mostly I was really pissed off about what happened and that I wasn’t there.
Coool_Hand_Luke
Sleeping at my cabin once with my family (immediate family and G parents). Wake up to my Grandma screaming at my Grandpa in the middle of the night. Look out the window and see my Grandpa butt ass naked holding a 9mm staring down a black bear. Apparently he got up to go to the bathroom and saw a black bear trying to climb in his bedroom window. Still not sure how he got a gun out so fast.
theRZArecta
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Was travelling with my Dad when I was a kid, about 100 miles from our hometown, we’ll call it Derpville. Stopped at a grocery store for something and this kinda sketchy dude in the parking lot stops us on the way out of the store and starts telling some story about how he is from Derpville and needs money to get home to his baby or something. My dad keeps walking back to the truck and gets in.
Little kid me says “why didn’t you want to help that guy?” Dad says “because he’s lying.” “How do you know?” “Because I can tell. And his story is bullshit.” “You don’t know that. And he is from Derpville. We could at least give him a ride.” “He’s not from Derpville. He just looked at our plates when we got here. And he doesn’t want a ride, he just wants money. Probably for drugs.” “Thats not fair, you don’t even know that for sure. You say to always help people when you can.”
Dad looks at me and says “Okay. lesson time. come on.”
He gets out of the truck, takes a pistol out from under the seat, and tucks it into the front of his waistband. My dad never did shit like this, ever, I didn’t even know he had a gun, so I was just staring, wide eyed. “Stay behind me and don’t say anything.”
He walks up to the guy and says “So why do you need money again?” Guy says “Man my baby, she at home with my little girl and I need to get home to Derpville she aint got no formula she hungry.” Dad says “Ok I can give you a lift back to Derpville.” Guy says “Naw man I gotta wait on my girlfriend, but we still needs money to by formula my check aint come this week yet from work..” Dad says “Where do you work?” Guy says “Uhh da Red Lobster in Derpville”
Dad asks guy his name, then pulls out cell and calls Red Lobster in Derpville. They never heard of the guy. Guy gets pissy, pushes my dad and starts cursing at him. Dad lifts up shirt to reveal that he’s strapped, guys eyes get big and he runs away.
Thought my dad was like Steven Seagal. Then later that day I had to go wake him up after he fell asleep on the toilet.
AirhornSonofFoghorn
While on a humanitarian trip to Africa with my mother and a few others, a few guys started yelling at us at around 6 in the morning while we waited for our bus and started getting closer and closer. She basically let off a pterodactyl scream and told them to piss off. They did indeed, piss off. I was very proud.
AvocadoGuacamole
My family was on vacation when I was about 12 and we went to the beach. The water was pretty rough that day and there was one area full of all these jagged rocks. Well my dad was teaching me how to surf that day and he’d already warned me not to go near the rocks because a rip was forming over there. So there we are, out in the middle of the ocean, amidst all the other tourists when my dad goes “stay on the board and stay here” and swims away. I hadn’t been paying attention but apparently my dad had noticed these teenagers swimming near the rocks and one of them got caught in the rip. He had managed to grab onto a rock so he wasn’t being pulled any deeper but the waves were crashing over him and it was clear he wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer. As I watched my dad swam over and managed to pull the kid to safety, avoiding the rocks and waves and fighting back against the rip.
He then proceeded to lecture the kid about ocean safety because, ya know, he’s a dad.
mightshe
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We were going crabbing and there was an alligator that had gotten itself wrapped up in hooks.
My dad calmly pulls the thing out of the water by its legs and carefully undoes all of the hooks and lets him go.
andrewsmith1986
It seems like a small thing overall in light of these stories but it still seems badass to me – my 70 year old grandfather (World War 2 veteran) while dying of lung cancer and on an unsuccessful round of chemotherapy rebuilt an external staircase on the side of his house. Everything was level, straight, and perfect.
When we cleaned out their house 5 years later I had to take a rail off that stair to get something out…by “I” I mean it took 3 of us.
OH_divorcing
When I was a kid, I watched my dad lasso a rattlesnake with a shoestring.
He was a park ranger, and he’s always been very into wildlife. He was getting ready for a yearly presentation that his organization would take around to the area elementary schools about local wildlife and ecology. So of course, he needed a rattlesnake. We went out driving one afternoon and happened to see one across the road, so he stopped to catch it. He had a glass box for it in the back of his truck (who doesn’t drive around with a snake box?), but he didn’t have the stick he’d usually use to capture it. So he pulls off his sneaker and takes the shoelace out, and after a couple of tries proceeds to lasso the thing, put it in the box, and take it home. My dad is awesome.
Jantastic
My dad ended the Cold War.
He was studying over in Russia during the late 80s, right around the end of the war. One day him and some of his friends from the States went on a huge party boat with some Russians. A local news crew was there and they interviewed him; Russian women in either arm, of course.
He said something along the lines of “us Americans don’t want to keep this feud going, we love the Russians. We want to be allies and partners!” Apparently Gorbachov was watching this live feed and later wrote in him memoirs “I saw American and Russian students getting along, having a good time and being friends. I then decided to call Reagan and begin talks of peace.”
So now my dad likes to tell people he ended the Cold War.
crzystve42
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I like to complain about my dad because, let’s be honest, he’s kind of a dick. But he does have his awesome moments.
When I was maaaaybe 10, we had an old bull named Bruce we used for breeding. He kinda reminds me of the guys on Jersey Shore. All pumped up on testosterone.
One day, I’m minding my own business, doing my farm chores, when I hear a loud BANG. Turn around. There’s a crumpled up gate and Bruce is out of his pen, staring me down.
He’s moving his head back and forth, sizing me up, deciding whether or not I’m a threat. There’s a soft clinking noise as the chain attached to his nose ring drags across the concrete. Then he stops, lifts his head, stares behind me. And my father, driving the skid loader, charges in from seemingly nowhere, placing himself between me and the bull.
I flee to the safety of the barn. As I turn around to shut the door, I see my father ram the skid loader into Bruce, shouting his redneck war cry: “HEEEYUUUPPP IN THAR!!!”. Bruce, startled, jumps back into his pen. Dad parks the skid loader in the gap, climbs out, and walks away. Like a boss.
sparkle_bomb
This is my now deceased Uncle.
He was going to see his girlfriend in a real rough part of Philly back in the 70s I guess it was. These 3 guys come up to him in his car when he is stopped at a light and try to car jack him. They pull him out of the car, and after he managed to get to his feet, he tears into these guys with pure violence. The three guys get pretty banged up, and the cops arrive and take everyone in.
A few weeks later there is a trial, the 3 men, not wanting to go to jail for carjacking, say that my Uncle started it all and they were the victims. So in this court room, my Uncle, and his 2 brothers (1 of which being my dad) all over 6 foot, all big and broad shoulders. Were watching this trial unfold, when my Uncle gets called to the stand, and this is what the Carjackers lawyer says.
“Now, sir, How tall are you? “6’2″” “And how much do you weigh?” “About 210 pounds” “And you mean to tell me, that my clients, not one over 5’8″ and barely 180 pounds would try to attack you?” to which my Uncle replies “Well, I look a lot smaller when I am sitting in my car”
Court Room erupts in laughter as the this ridiculous attempt at a defense falls apart.
Phenomenon42
(Source)