My cousin once said to me, before I had kids, that she’d only thought she’d been embarrassed before she had kids.

In reality, she had never known true shame before they started saying things in public that made her want to crawl into a hole.

These 11 parents know that face-burning feeling all too well, because they’ve lived through these 11 moments (and probably more).

11. Welcome to the jam!

My parents told me when I was a kid (I must have been 5 or 6, because Space Jam had just come out) I pointed at a black guy behind us in the checkout line at Walmart and said “Look! That guy has Michael Jordan skin!”

They still remind me.

10. She knew she was excited, that’s all.

When my daughter was three she had just learned about Obama.

So on our first outing to the store after that, the first black man she sees she shouts “Its Obama!”

9. That is the cutest thing.

Good friends of mine were at the mall with their son, who was about five.

An elderly little person walked by and the 5 yo yelled “Guys! Guys! I just saw a baby grandma!”

8. Oh my god this is hilarious.

I was at a friend’s house. They were having a BBQ. Lots of people over.  All the kids were playing in the bedroom upstairs.

My four-year-old daughter came flying down the stairs and ran into the bathroom.

All the adults are hanging out in the living room, which you have to pass to get from bathroom to staircase.

Anyways, she leaves the bathroom, pops her head in the living room and said, “I didn’t have to wipe because my pee cleaned my butt for me!” Everyone roared with laughter, and my buddy told me I better go make her wipe her a$s.

7. What a joker.

As we were going through airport security, the TSA agent asked my 5-year old son if we were his parents. He deadpanned, “I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

Hilarious now; not so funny at the time.

6. Ah, sweet innocence.

Out in the city one day and mum had to go to the bathroom.

Took me into the cubicle, cos you know, cities are dangerous and stuff. Anyway, turns out she unexpectedly had Aunt Flo to visit, which scared the bejeezus outta me. She gave me a brief explanation to abate the fear, and we carried on with our day. A few hours later it was obviously still on my mind…

We were waiting at the bus stop and I walked up to the handsome young man who was also waiting, tugged on the bottom of his shirt, looked up at him – all innocence – and said “My mummy’s bleeding. In her pants.” Poor mum. So mortified.

She picked me up, and ran to the next bus stop, hid behind it till the bus went past, then caught the next one.

5. If you’re a little boy, when is it not penis time?

My then 4-yo pulled off his swim trunks and yelled “IT’S PENIS TIME!!!”

Not exactly in public since he was in our yard, but the neighbors who were in their yard definitely saw and heard.

His younger brother, also at age 4, ran to the end of our driveway, pulled down his pants, and started arcing pee right into the street. He must have really had to go because there was time for several people to drive by.

4. Oh. Oh, no.

When I was around 5 or 6, my family took me to see the Little Mermaid in theatres. Me, my parents, and my (admittedly large) grandmother.

All was well until Ursula appeared on screen, at which point I yelled out in the theatre “That looks like Grandma!!!”

I didn’t get to go to theatres for a while after that.

3. Kids are so charming.

I told this story before, but when my middle son was around three, he would constantly point at different people and say “penis” if it was a guy and “vagina” if it was a girl. We tried to get him to stop saying the words in public, but eventually figured it would make more sense to not make a big deal out of it and wait for him to get tired of it and stop.

We were at the mall one day and the cashier was ambiguous looking. I myself wasn’t entirely sure of their gender until I saw her name tag. My son looks at her and says, “Penis or Vagina? Which one?” Surprisingly she didn’t seem offended and said, “I’m a girl”, to which my son responded, “Oh, vagina.” The cashier was a great sport about it and laughed it off.

I can laugh about it now, but I avoided that store for a while after that

2. She probably felt cool.

A few Halloweens ago while shopping in Target my son exclaimed “Whoa! nice ninja costume!” as we passed a woman wearing a hijab.

1. Bless.

When my sister was little, she pronounced her Ts like Fs.

My grandma had a dog named tucker. One day we saw a dog like him at the store and she yelled “look! It’s f*cker!!”

These days are coming for me and I can most certainly wait.

When did your kids embarrass you in public? Share the story with us in the comments!