As parents, we walk the fine line between a duty to keep our kids safe on the internet and doing our best to respect our kids’ privacy when and where we can – but if we’re responsible, we know we have to check their accounts at least every once in awhile to make sure we don’t need to intervene.
Since we’re dealing with teenagers, though, there’s a good chance every parent is going to find something completely stupid at one point or another – and these 16 parents have seen some stuff, y’all.
16. It’s sort of educational?
Had a coworker bring in her kid during the summer so that she could run him to the local middle school for football practice when she took her break at 9. Since I was in training at the time, I was sitting with her at her desk and mine was not in use. To keep him occupied, I’d log into my computer and then she’d pull up youtube so he could watch the “Watch me Whip” song, because apparently kids will watch that s**t for hours.
Well, one day she goes over to check in on him and says in a confused voice “Who the heck is Ed Gein???”
So it turned out that it was still logged into my Youtube profile, where I had taken to watching documentaries about serial killers, and the kid had clicked on one of the recommended videos.
Whoopsies.
15. Bless his heart.
Not technically a parent but an older sister, so my little brother when he was around 7ish had a search history of naked women and such.
And when my mother found out and confronted him he cried and was saying he just wanted to be like Jack from the titanic by drawing naked women and he had a few pages of his attempted drawings
14. Not girl ones!
I once found my sister trying to search “s*xy boy penies” She might have just missed an S, but I still find it hilarious.
13. So he says.
this was before my son was on social media; he was 7 or 8, and he asked if he could have some “alone time” in the office. I looked at his search history:
“big b**bs” (which turned up weird humongous photoshopped b**bs) immediately followed by
“little b**bs” and then
“hot girl” which turned up page after page of Weber grills.
He’s 18 now and has no memory of this.
12. Flip it around.
Well I have child-like parents.
Weirdest thing so far was having to sit down and have a talk with my mother about how some things on Facebook are not real.
My extended family lives in Houston and during Hurricane Harvey my mother was driving my elderly relatives to hysteria by emailing them horribly photoshopped pictures of Houston landmarks submerged under 50 feet of water followed by “It’s a biblical flood, the world is ending, the news is lying to you, you’re going to die if you don’t get in your car and try to drive out of town right now”.
I talked to my stepdad and made him give me her password so I can shut down her account during the next natural disaster.
11. Smart parents!
Was at my friends place around the age of 10-12 when my parent called me home randomly.
I run in the front door and both my parents are sitting in the living room and immediately ask me to spell the word ‘s^x’ I do and then the tell me to send my brother over.
Brother runs over, he’d be around 9-10, and doesn’t come back.
Turns out he searched for ‘girls having s^x’ but spelt it six.
10. Sure, sure.
When I was 9 or 10 my buddy and I were on the family computer doing whatever 9 or 10 year olds do. My friend told me to go to “prettygirls.com” (innocent enough) – except it directed us to a porn site called “teenf**kinglive” and we immediately panicked and closed to browser.
My mom really chewed us out when she found it. I tried to tell her we were just looking for pretty girls but she wasn’t having it. It was a long few weeks of computer-less punishment.
9. So much cringe.
I found my stepdaughter’s musical.ly account. She had a bunch of poor attempts at s^xy belly dancing to various Evanescence songs.
8. It’s a trap!
Not super similar but related. My mom gave me and my sister diaries when we were about 14-15 and I instantly knew it was a trap and they would read it so I drew a monster truck and some stick figures doing Kung fu then left it.
My sister instantly decided to write about the dude she f**ked under the pier and how she had been smoking weed everyday and how much she hated my parents. I have never seen someone dig themselves a grave so deep so fast.
They read them the minute we left for school in the morning.
7. These are serious questions.
My friend told us about how he found his brother’s search history:
Girl p*nis
Girl not have p*nis?
Why girl not have p*nis?
He was 10
6. Very suspicious.
My 15 year old happily announces he “went viral,” because his comment amassed 1.5K likes on reddit.
“What did you say?” I ask.
[pause]
“…I forgot.”
“What’s your reddit name?”
“…I can’t tell you.” ”
Then why did mention it??”
5. Also. Ha!
Saw my 12-yr old brothers search history once. Was literally “b**bs butt and also va*ina”
4. Bravo, kid.
That my 12 year old son searched for “pro study tips“. No joke. My son. Trying to study harder. Never a million years and lives would I have expected this.
3. That’s a conversation.
She joined one of those Facebook groups. It was called “anything is a di*do if you are brave enough”.
2. Everything’s coming up Milhouse!
When my twins were young, elementary school, they were looking up the Simpsons and accidentally came across cartoon Simpson’s p**nography. The computer was in the living room so I heard them giggling and turned to see two guilty little faces.
So hard not to laugh and so disturbing! What a conversation… The sight of Milhouse and Lisa is forever burned into my retinas.
1. A cautionary tale.
Pictures of my daughter (11) posing quite harmlessly that went on to bum shots (wearing shorts).
Someone pretending to be a 14yo girl asked her to do these shots for a modeling competition and sent similar shots so she knew how to pose.
She eventually stopped the conversation. The pics came through to my iPad (linked devices)
Police got involved and also CEOP. They originated from an account in South Africa so Interpol took over the case and we will probably never get an update.
Instagram never even bothered to respond to my report.
I’m not sure I’m looking forward to this part of parenting honestly.
Parents, please share your own stories with us in the comments!