In an ideal world, parents share an infinite amount of trust with their kids as well as with each other. However, sometimes moms can get a little overbearing or uptight and the dad in the situation realizes it's ok for the kids to just have a little fun. As long as no one gets hurt and it isn't about indulging in something inappropriate, it's a no harm, no foul situation.
Whether it's splurging on a little fast food when mom tries to enforce healthy eating, or letting a son watch movies with some slightly graphic parts, these dads just wanted to get their kids' affection by letting them cheat a little. Sometimes the moms found out later and think it's funny...other times, they don't. Here are some of Reddit users' silliest, most gleeful stories about the best "Don't Tell Mom" moments they had with their dads.
A Secret Day Of Fun Ends In An ER Visit
“My dad took off work one day to take me and my sister to go to Putt-Putt and for pizza since mom had to go to a late meeting downtown and would be home later than normal. I sucked at the mini-golf but the best thing was the batting cages. I wasn’t exactly a rockstar at it but I was pretty good.
My sister, however, wasn’t so awesome at it but she wanted to try the fast-pitch just like I was, so my dad was encouraging her to move up a little closer to the base and start taking a couple swings. Well, she pretty much immediately got hit in the hand and it smashed her pretty good against the bat. It started turning black and blue real quick and swelling quite badly. We were all freaking out a little bit as we turned in our equipment, got some ice, and then headed to the children’s hospital for x-rays.
Now, as a 10-year-old, I was a terrible liar. I was thinking that we’d broken my little sister and that mom was going to be so angry with all of us (she wasn’t the most stable). In the ER, they put a bright green cast on my sister’s very broken hand (she broke her middle finger, so it looked like she was flipping everyone off). Dad just calmly explained that we’d tell mom that she tripped and fell. That lie lasted less than 24 hours.
Luckily, mom thought it was pretty funny. She was less thrilled when my dad later pulled stunts that ended up breaking my glasses, her truck, and that one time he lost both me and my sister at a soccer game.”
He Could Have Been Seriously Injured
“It was Christmas Eve and I was chatting with my dad in his office; he was at his desk and I sat cross-legged on the floor next to him. He was messing around with a scalpel, dropping it onto the floor and trying to make it stick into the carpet. Well, on one drop it slipped out of his hand earlier than he meant to when it was positioned directly over my right leg.
The blade went straight through my jeans and the handle stuck upright. I felt no pain and was kind of shocked but was immediately relieved when I realized that it had managed to find a baggy part of my jeans that had no piece of my leg under it, probably the only place it could have gone without piercing my leg.
My dad’s face just went white and I had to assure him that it had missed my leg. Needless to say, he didn’t want me telling my mom that he had just dropped a scalpel onto her son’s leg. Looking back, I have no idea what he was doing playing with a scalpel, but he learned his lesson.”
Burgers, Fries, And White Lies
“When my dad was in his early 50’s, he was diagnosed with diabetes and a heart condition of some sort. My mom, who was a terrible cook to begin with, cut down on salt, sugar, and fat for every meal we ate. Dad loved food, and that did not please him.
It was around the time I was learning to drive, so a couple times a week after dinner, Dad would offer to take me out to ‘practice driving.’ We would drive directly to Scooters, a local burger drive-in, where we would have our second dinner of burgers and fries. Dad would always say, ‘Don’t tell mom!’ as we were walking up to order our food.”
Pizza Hut Unexpectedly Turned Into A Place Of Cherished Memories
“My dad and sister died in a car accident when I was 13. When I was younger, my mom worked a lot of night shifts at her nursing job. My dad couldn’t cook to save his life so we spent quite a few nights at the nearby Pizza Hut, especially on Wednesdays when they had the buffet open. We knew the staff, we had a regular order, and they knew us. We also had an unspoken rule to not mention to our mom.
After they died, it was a long time before I set foot in that same Pizza Hut. When I finally did, my mom and I went to eat dinner. We ran into the usual waiter we had who looked confused. ‘Where’s your dad? Where’s your sister?’ I had to break the bad news to him.
After he walked away, my mom asked, ‘Wait…just how often did you guys get pizza?’ I guess my dad never told her, but she eventually saw the funny side of it. It’s probably one of my most cherished memories.”
The Steak Had A Special Ingredient
“My mom loves tri-tip steak and my dad makes it for her all the time. One time we were cooking and it was juuust about time to put the tri-tip on. It just so happened that day I found a bottle of pop’s favorite drink, but a version I hadn’t seen before (it was some extra aged or some special kind).
He couldn’t wait to try it, so we set the meat down and each poured a sample. It was smooth, real smooth, so we decided that we needed another. After a couple small sips, we turned our attention back to the three-pound hunk of perfectly seasoned meat ready to take a three-hour nap on the bbq to find it was no longer there.
Instantly my dad yelled, ‘DROP IT!’ and I looked over just in time to see his giant doofus of a white lab drop the entire steak in his water bowl and run off. My dad picked it up, dusted it off, seasoned it again, and gingerly placed it in his BBQ.
He paused, if only for a split second, and turned to me with a steely look in his eyes and said, ‘If you say one word to your mom…’ We ate the brats and sauerkraut my brother cooked and mom raved about the tri-tip.”
He Didn’t Even Have To Ask
“I was a big wrestling fan as a pre-teen/teen in the ’90s during was the height of WWE’s ‘Attitude Era.’ In addition, Sable (every teen boy’s dream in the late ’90s) had posed for Playboy magazine.
My dad bought the magazine for me without me even asking. He just told me to fill up the gas tank for him while he went inside to pay and came back with it, handed it to me in a brown paper bag, and said, ‘Don’t tell mama!’ Thanks, pops.”
They Say “Do Not Touch” For A Reason
“When I was around 7 or 8, we were at SeaWorld and at that time the park had little sharks in a tide pool area. There were some small sword sharks in there and signs saying, ‘Don’t touch,’ but my dad didn’t care and put his hand through the railing and into the water.
The sword shark’s teeth caught on his watch and cut his hand a bit, not badly, but enough that it bled. We went to meet my mom who was holding seats at a show and he said, ‘Don’t tell mom!’
So, naturally, as soon as we saw mom, we shouted, ‘Dad got bit by a shark!’
The Sea World people took notice and we missed the show. Next time we visited, they’d put chicken wire stuff around the rails so idiots couldn’t put their hands in. I don’t doubt that my dad is the reason for a lot of rules.”
Beware Of Mom’s “Jedi Mind Tricks”
“When I was 16, I went on a four-day elk hunting trip with my dad and his buddies. We started drinking as soon as we were off the county road and basically drank the entire time except for during the morning hunt and while we slept. The trip was 40% elk hunting, 60% drinking, and a lot of goofing around with the guys and the other surrounding hunters in the area. It was awesome.
We ended up bringing home an elk and on the drive, I got the talk of, ‘You know what mom thinks about drinking,’ and I was already pretty aware of the fact that it was a trip to get away from the wives and party with the boys without regulation for a few days, so I wasn’t about to nark on the whole thing.
Two days went by after getting home when my mom came into my room and gave me this look before saying something like, ‘You know, if there’s anything you feel like you can’t tell me about your hunting trip it’s ok, you won’t be in trouble.’
16-year-old me thought it would be a good idea to tell her, ‘Yeah, I drank a little bit…’ Bad move.
I told her exactly what she wanted to hear and my dad finally pulls me aside after a few days of angry wife/mom syndrome and enlightened me on how my mom will use ‘Jedi mind tricks’ to get us to admit our guilt. It was the best bonding experience I’ve ever had with my father. We still talk about how mom uses the ‘Jedi mind tricks’ on him.”
The World’s Worst Lollipop
“One time Dad was doing some DIY stuff, putting a breakfast nook in the kitchen, when he drilled right through the wall into the built-in drawers on the other side. The drawer he happened to drill into contained my mom’s wigs (it was the ’70s, don’t ask). She didn’t wear them often, but they were expensive and, well, a power drill into the drawer meant that they were all a giant ball around the drill head like the world’s worst lollipop.
My dad managed to extract the mess and just threw it all out with a, ‘Don’t tell your mother!’ to me. Months later, when my mom went looking, she figured she had just misplaced the wigs (it was a big old house) and years later, when he came clean, she just laughed it off. Decades later, I can still get a laugh out of her with the story of him pulling the giant wig-ball out and going, ‘Oh crap…'”
He Should Have Done More Research About The Beach
“My parents divorced when I was fairly young and they moved to different states. As a result of the distance, my mom had custody of me during the school year, and my dad got me for the summers. He’d also gotten married again and had additional kids. I was 12 or 13 when this happened.
When I went to visit him, he always had at least one day a week that were just me and him days. He had recently moved to the town and had a job with a well-known express delivery company. This particular daddy-daughter day, he took me to work with him and let me ‘help’ by scanning the packages before he took them to the recipient. We got done with the deliveries really early, so he decided to take me to a local quarry he’d heard about to go swimming before we went home.
The quarry was surrounded by trees and bushes and there was a trail that you took from the parking area to actually get to the quarry. The trail wasn’t really wide enough for us to walk side by side, so I was a step or two in front of him. There was a bend in the trail, and around the corner came this guy, completely naked except for tennis shoes, his junk swinging like a pendulum.
Apparently, the quarry was a nude beach. My dad freaked out, hustled me back to the car, and took me to a different beach. On the way home, he said, ‘Please don’t tell your mom.’ I didn’t tell her until a few years ago (they were divorced for 35 years, got back together about 10 years ago and remarried each other). I give him crap about now, and we can all laugh about it.”
He Helps Out When He Can
“Both my parents grew up in lower-income working-class families, but have done incredibly well for themselves as adults. I’m now in my mid-20s and self-sufficient, yet I did not follow them into tech, so I don’t have a lot of extra income to throw around.
My dad is happy as long as I’m comfortably supporting myself, but he will pay for little extras in life when he feels like it while my mom wants me to live within my means and doesn’t tend to offer gifts readily. He used to try to justify it to her, but now that I’m an adult, he will just help out in small ways and say, ‘Just between us,’ and that’s the end of the discussion.
Basically ever since I started college, my dad has indulged me in small ways that we keep between us: a new computer when my old one crapped out during an intensive summer chemistry class, transferring the cost of flights when he knows it cost me quite a bit to come home and visit, reimbursing my lost wages when I join them on a family holiday that vacation days don’t cover; just nice things like that which are no skin off his back but which my mom thinks I should have budgeted for.”
He Immediately Spilled The Beans
“I went to a football game in Oklahoma City with my dad as a kid, and we also brought his friend and his friend’s son. We had dinner at Hooters and I got the magazines, pictures, and whatever memorabilia I could get my 6-year-old hands on. My dad made it very simple: ‘You cannot tell your mom we ate here.’
Literally, the first thing I did when we got back home was tell my mom how we went to Hooters. I thought it was hilarious. It’s been 20 years and my dad still brings it up from time to time. Somewhere stuffed away in a drawer at my parent’s house is a 1996 Hooters calendar.”
He Just Wanted To Spend Some Fun Time With Them
“My parents split up when I was little and my mom had custody of us except for some weekends. There would often be times that dad picked us up and my mom would inform him that my siblings and/or I were grounded because of some juvenile stuff we did.
Dad would acknowledge we were grounded and we were not to enjoy any TV, video games, playground activities, sweets, whatever…then he’d almost immediately take us to the best ice cream spot in town, the movie theater, or the local amusement park.
I figured he did it just as a way of giving the figurative bird to my mom, but as an adult, I realized that because he only got to see his kids once or twice a month, he wanted to enjoy every bit of time he could have with them.”
Parental Guidance Suggested
“I was at 9 or 10 years old at the time and my mom was out of town for work so it was just me and my dad. After I went to bed, I heard some noise coming from the next room where the TV was, so I went to investigate. It turned out that my dad had put on Lawrence of Arabia since he thought I was asleep and it wouldn’t wake me up.
For the rest of the time that my mom was out of town, we’d stay up until around midnight watching war movies that contained far too much violence and bloodshed for 10-year-old me. When the week was up, he told me not to tell my mom what we were up to. We ended up doing it every time mom went out of town to work.”
His Mom Was Shockingly Nonplussed
“I was visiting/meeting family in Nicaragua with my dad on a trip to the Corn Islands when I got a bad headache. I told my dad to have fun with my family while I stayed at the inn resting and he was hesitant to leave me alone, but I told him I just needed to take it easy.
Within 30 minutes of him leaving, the pain in my head and neck became unbearable and I was barely able to walk; I was on the verge of passing out. I ran outside crying because the pain had made me hysterical and I had all the symptoms of meningitis.
I asked the ladies at the bar next door if they could take me to the doctor, and they took me to a little house down the street where the doctor lived. When my dad arrived after getting the message from one of the ladies that I had gone to the doctor, one of the first things he said when I calmed down was, ‘Don’t tell your mom, ok?’
I told my mom later anyway just to see what she would say and I pretty much got the Hispanic mom equivalent of, ‘That’s nice, dear.’ Either she wasn’t listening to my story or she thought I was over exaggerating.”
Double Dipping At Mickey D’s
“Both my parents were both dieting and he cheated by going out for McDonald’s one time and I got a hot fudge sundae out of it. ‘Don’t tell your mom!’ he said.
Later that night, when he was at work, she decided it was a good time for a cheat day, too. We went to McDonald’s and I got another hot fudge sundae out of it. ‘Don’t tell your dad!’ she told me.
It Was Not A Vehicle Meant For Off-Roading
“When I was a kid, my family lived in Fort Benning, Georgia. My dad was (and still is) super into fishing and while he’s generally a pretty rational guy, one day he got the urge to drive us two to the Chattahoochee River for a day of fishing in a 1987 Honda Civic.
So, we got there, parked, fished for a while, and then decide to head back. It turned out that dad parked in a pretty soft section of the river bank and the car tires had sunk into the ground a little bit, so much so that the car became properly stuck.
We had to go foraging for chunks of wood to try and wedge under the tires and, thankfully, after a fair amount of scrounging for fallen branches and getting them stuck under the tires, we finally got the car free and got the heck out of there. We both agreed that, while mildly amusing, mom never needed to know that we went off-roading in the family car and got stuck.”
A Halloween Treat
“My mother became uber religious when I was about 12 years old and as a result, she declared Halloween Satanic and told me I could no longer celebrate the holiday. That Halloween, I sat in the bathroom in my costume and put on scary make-up.
My father came home from work and saw how sad I was about not being able to celebrate Halloween with my friends and my mother was working late at the hospital, so he instructed me to gather my things.
First, he took me to the candy aisle at the store and told me to pick out any two bags of candy I wanted. Afterward, he drove me to a local amusement park that was hosting a fright night and allowed me to ride some rides and walk through a few haunted mazes.”
A Disturbing Thing For A Kid To Find
“I grew up on a farm and we had these huge walk-in freezers where we would store poultry before selling it to grocery stores. We had a few dogs and cats over the years die, and sometimes they would die during the winter so we’d store them in the freezer until the spring thaw so that we could bury them.
One time, a building was about to be torn down and I was helping my dad clean out the freezer in that building. I ended up finding a dog and two cats; the dog had died well over 10 years prior. ‘Do not tell your mother,’ were my dad’s exact words.”