The Most Messed Up Things Parents Have Done to Their Kids

The award-winning spiders-eating-spiders HBO drama may explore many overarching themes – the pursuit of power, the toxicity of wealth, the corrupting influence of the American dream – but mainly, perhaps, it is about what happens when parents completely, totally and utterly fuck up their kids.

Before the show’s brutal patriarch – spoiler alert – dramatically died this season on his private jet, he adhered to a strict belief that bribery, blackmail and browbeating are all reasonable approaches to rearing one’s children.

Sure, he may have created a snow globe of ultra-wealth, influence and privilege for his four off-springs, Connor, Kendall, Roman and Siobhan. But he also built a family dynamic in which the younger Roys are incapable of receiving a box of donuts from him without trauma-inducing panic.

Mockery? Absolutely. Mental intimidation? But of course. Physical confrontation? Well, why not? It’s difficult to feel any sympathy for the quartet of cock and balls that are his children. But one does rather wonder: Would they have been such utter wankers if they’d not endured so much suffering at the hands of the old man?

Few of us, fortunately, have to deal with quite such brutality from our own mas and pas. But who among us hasn’t got a searing tale of parental fucked-up-ness? We spoke to five people about the worst things their parents have ever done to them.

‘My mum got off with my uni flatmate’

“Looking back, I think my mum probably had a small mid-life crisis when my sister and I went to university. She was in her mid-40s and, ever since my dad had left a decade earlier, all she’d ever really done was care for us. When we were gone and the house was suddenly empty, she wasn’t sure what to do, so she reverted back to her 20s. She got a bunch of tattoos, downloaded Tinder and started going to gigs – she even got her nipple pierced, FFS. 

During my second Christmas back from uni, I had all my flatmates come over to stay for a couple of nights. We got back from the pub about midnight, and my mum was still up drinking with a neighbour – it’s all a bit hazy after that. My mum was flirting, like she always did, then at about 3AM I walked into the utility room and there they were, my mum and mate snogging. And I mean properly snogging.

There’s a level of cognitive dissonance when you see that. I didn’t kick off or anything, I think I made some joke about half expecting that mate to try it on with my sister – but my mam? That came from left-field. She went to bed pretty much straight after and that was that, but it did bother me. 

She said later it was “just a kiss”, but it was just a kiss that I had to hear a lot of jokes about for the rest of my time at uni. It felt like a betrayal, really. Put it this way: I never had my uni friends round to stay again.” - James, 27, Nottingham

‘My mum heard me talking to a boy – so she chopped up my phone with an axe’

“When my mum bought me my first phone, she told me I wasn’t allowed to use it for talking to boys – she was very protective in that way. We lived in an area of Abbey Wood, in southeast London, where there was crime and gangs, and she was determined to keep us on the straight and narrow.

She kept a full-sized axe under her bed because it was just me, her and my sister in the house. If anyone had ever broken in thinking three females were a soft target, they would’ve discovered otherwise: You didn’t mess with my mum.

At 14, you push boundaries though, don’t you? I’d got my first boyfriend and, of course, I spoke to him on the phone – nothing bad, just teenage flirting. But there I am, giggling away in my bedroom, when my mum appears at my door. I don’t even know how she knew it was a boy, but she grabbed my phone and stormed into her room, grabbing her axe and literally chopping the phone in two. I think the boy was still on the line, wondering what was happening, when the blade went in. 

Afterwards, I obviously had to tell my friends why I no longer had a phone, and the word spread about what happened. It got out that my mum had an axe and wasn’t shy about using it. It’s funny, through the years I think every house on our street got broken into at some point, but ours never did. I’ve often wondered if there was a link.” - Zohra, 32, London

‘I ruined my parents couch – so they sold my Playstation 4’

“When my parents went away one Saturday night when I was 15, they said I could have a couple of friends over – obviously, I threw a party instead. It was a good one, too, except at some point red wine got spilt and my dad’s flowerbeds got trampled. Someone called the neighbour an old fucker when he asked for the music to be turned down, too. 

When my mum opened her underwear drawer the next day, she discovered four empty cans among her knickers. I never did find out who the fuck put those there.

Suffice to say, her and my father were fuming. They spent a couple of days thinking about what to do and decided they were going to get a new sofa – that I was going to help pay for. I remember saying to them, ‘Oh aye? What am I paying for it with? My fiver-a-week pocket money?’ And my mum just said, ‘Nah, with your PS4’.

They put it on eBay with six or seven of the games. I was apoplectic. I told them, ‘If you sell them, I will fucking move out’. But they did it anyway and it turns out, at 15, you can’t really move out.

Even now, it feels like a spiteful punishment. I appreciate someone ruined their sofa but don’t have kids if you’re not factoring those things in. If you’ve got a teenager, accept your couch may get spilled on.” – Harry, 22, York

‘My dad attacked my under-15s football referee’

“The thing I still remember most is my dad’s face – red, sweaty and pulsing with anger. The dickhead had just run onto the pitch of my under-15s football match and was screaming in the referee’s face about a disallowed goal. It was horrific; him suddenly grabbing the guy and slapping him; the ref throwing his hands above his head to stop the blows. 

I remember, clear as day, all my mates – lads who loved nothing more than a good playground fight – standing there in total shock. All of their dads had to split it up and we had to abandon the match. My dad got asked never to come back again.

He wasn’t a great father, if I’m honest. He wasn’t violent (save for the referee thing) but having children felt like an inconvenience to him. Save for Sunday morning football, again, he was never very present in our childhoods. He wasn’t really interested. When we were young, he preferred us to be in bed by the time he got in from work.

He died a few years ago after a medium-term illness. Perhaps the referee thing had played on his mind because he started talking about it at one point – laughing, actually. Perhaps he wanted to apologise, though he didn’t.

But, then, who am I to judge? There was plenty I wanted to say to him which I never did. Like how come, in all those years of childhood you never once took us, for instance, to the cinema? How come we never had a McDonald’s together? How come you’ve gone and fucked off and left me with barely single memory of us doing anything fun?” – Alex, 35, Liverpool

‘My dad almost killed me – by speeding’

“When I was eleven, my dad was in the local newspaper: He’d ploughed his Audi at 50mph into a parked car in a 30mph zone. I was in the passenger seat. I suffered four broken ribs, a fractured ankle, ruptured spleen and internal bleeding. Then I spent two weeks in hospital, while he was charged with dangerous driving.

It should probably cause some kind of trauma to be almost killed by the man who’s supposed to look after you, but I’ve never exactly seen it like that. He obviously shouldn’t have been speeding, but ultimately, it was an accident – these things happen.

Truth be told, I quite enjoyed the time off school: It was the summer of the South African World Cup, so I lay on the sofa watching all the matches. More to the point, I think it made my dad a soft touch forever. During my teens, he probably let me get away with more things than he should’ve done. When I got caught skipping Year 11 to go drinking at a mate’s house, he barely raised his voice. When I got caught doing 34mph in a 30-zone a year ago, he paid the fine.

He’s never driven like that again either – or at least, not with me in the car – so I guess he learnt his lesson. That’s probably all you can ask when your parents fuck up: that they learn and move on.” – Jemma, 24, Sunderland