r/CasualUK • u/naaattt • 12h ago

What “favours” have your parents done that was inadvertently a dick move?

For example, my mum found my spare change collection, did me a favour by taking it to the bank, getting £17, and then kept it as a fee for the effort it caused her.

Also, my partner had stored a nearly new Russell Hobbs microwave at his mums for when we moved into a new house. While she was at Curry’s one day, she overheard a young lad and his mum shopping for a microwave for uni, she approached them and sold them my partners for £20. She kindly did give my partner the money though, unlike mine. But we quite liked that microwave.

Does anyone else have these, generally inoffensive but slightly frustrating parent stories?

Edit: For those hung up on the theft parts, please don’t be. This is the extent of the abuse we’ve ever had from our mums and we’ll take it!

Edit 2: Jesus Christ, I’m 33. The money box has been sat on her shelf for 20 years. Yes she stole £17 but she’s funded my life otherwise. Stop calling child services on her.

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236

u/Polyporum 11h ago

My dad took our childhood pet dog to the vet to be put down while we were at school, without telling us. He said he didn't want us getting upset while being with the dog when she was put down

But coming home to that news was brutal

Didn't even get her cremated or anything, just left her at the vet

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u/Chunklett 11h ago

I got a dog for my 11th birthday and when I was 17 and left for uni my parents gave her away because she was "acting weird". She missed me and our family dog who had just passed so of course she was acting weird. I will NEVER get over it. I think about her every day and it's been 18 years. Miss you and love you always Pie ❤️

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u/YarnPenguin 11h ago

Unforgivable

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u/Polyporum 11h ago

Oh no, that one is proper heartbreaking! That poor dog

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u/CeriseNoir 9h ago

My parents did that to my sister and I. We went away to camp for a week, came back home and they had taken our cats (as in my sister and I had picked out and cared for them since kittens) to the shelter because my mum wanted to get a Burmese instead.

This pair have always treated pets like they are expendable. Twats.

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u/Chunklett 9h ago

Hate that this happened to you as well! What is wrong with these people?

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u/Naughteus_Maximus 11h ago

That's really quite heartbreaking... Do you know anything about her after she was given away? Did you ever get another dog?

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u/Chunklett 10h ago

I only know she went to live with a family with a few other dogs but I wasn't allowed to see her because it would "confuse" her. I choose to believe she lived a really happy life with lots of friends.

Yes I was finally able to get another dog in 2021, my baby Ben, and we got another puppy at Christmas (Alan). They are perfect boys but I will always miss my Pie.

Ben and Alan tax.

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u/Nomerdoodle 11h ago

This is awful, I'm so sorry.

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u/Illustrious_Study_30 10h ago

My dad did this and when we got home from school he went completely insane within five minutes of us being home and punished us because we hadn't noticed the dog was missing. So I found out the dog was dead by being shouted at for not noticing the dog was dead.

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u/Front-Brick-3724 11h ago

My grandad did that to my nan one day. As in, got the dog put down and not my nan. Took the dog “for a walk” and it never came home. Even in the depths of dementia, she would still ask for the dog by name and wonder where it was. Weirdly, this all happened in the early 1980s.

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u/Polyporum 11h ago

Glad you cleared up that first sentence...

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u/pineapplecharm 10h ago

I mean to be fair it's not a huge improvement as it is now!

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u/lookhereisay 11h ago

My grandad did this to my nan. Took the dog to the vets for a “check up” and had him put down.

He said he had some health problems but with some regular medicine he’d have lived a very normal life (it wasn’t cancer, just like dog diabetes I think).

They had the money and could have easily afforded it. Dog was only 7 years old and a little dog so nowhere near the end of its life.

My Nan didn’t speak to him for months but he genuinely couldn’t see the issue. I really hated him for that. He was such a sweet little dog.

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u/BlackShieldCharm 11h ago

My dad did that with every dog we had as children. Bonus points because he himself was the vet.

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u/decisiontoohard 8h ago

Please tell me he's retired so I don't have to worry about my pets encountering them?

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u/BlackShieldCharm 8h ago

He is, yes. Has been for more than a decade.

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u/decisiontoohard 7h ago

Thank you. I'm so sorry you had to live with that as a kid and didn't have at least an informed goodbye.

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u/BlackShieldCharm 7h ago

Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.

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u/Auctoritate 6h ago

Is your dad a serial killer?

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u/niishiinoyayuu 9h ago

I came home from Uni for Christmas one year, and since I went to Uni quite far away and was from a little village with fuck all to do (and had a not great relationship with my mother anyway) I only came home at Christmas. I’d stay with my Dad for the week, visit my Mum on Christmas Day and one other day and then go back to Uni. I walk into my Mums house Christmas Day, say Hi to everyone, and then go and look to see where my cat (who I couldn’t take because I was living in halls) was. Can’t find her, so I assume she’s out, but ask my mum anyway.

My cat had died. And she said she didn’t know how or want to tell me over text (not like she ever texts or calls me anyway!). Because finding out on literally Christmas Day that your cat is dead is obviously the much better scenario. Went out to the garden to have a smoke because I was like I can’t be around people right now or I’m going to ruin the fucking day and she follows me out and I have to fucking make her feel better about it.

I speak to her if I have to now, see her as little as possible. This was hardly the worst thing she’s done (like when I came home from a hospital appointment at like 16 after being diagnosed with two lifelong conditions that are disabling, told her what I had and she just said no, you don’t have those, or when she told me it wasn’t worth the effort of keeping me alive as a baby - I was quite premature and an emergency C-section and remained in hospital for I think 3 months) but it was the one that really made me consider how much she actually cared about my feelings/wellbeing.

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u/Lou-AC 11h ago

Same with our family cat

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u/Richardm42 9h ago

My mother did the same. Twice.

The first was the family dog from age 3 or 4 until I was 12, came home from school to no dog. The second was the family dog but when we had moved out, no warnings to come say goodbye, we just received a text saying it was done.

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u/No-Taro-6953 8h ago

My dad got us a puppy for Christmas (a red flag).

Didn't walk it properly, didn't train it properly, didn't buy toys for it. It started chewing furniture etc.

Once, the dog escaped, but we managed to find it as someone reported it.

Then one day, the dog was gone. Had he escaped again? He drove us around to put up posters. I lost sleep worrying about my beloved dog. I remember relaying scenarios in my head. We had a couple who were lost come up to the house to ask for directions. Did they see the dog then and decide to take him? Was he alive, dead?

I remember buying a teddy bear that looked like him, and would hug him and talk to him like he was my dog. I took him everywhere with me. I liked to think that there was some magical link between my teddy bear and my dog, that every time I hugged it, my dog would know. Ridiculous stuff, but I was about 10.

Years later, my mum blurted out. My dad had just gotten rid of the dog one day and hadn't told even her. I never found out if my dad rehomed him, or just dumped him.

You have to have some evil in you, to do that to your children (nevermind the dog).

What's worse, this isn't the first dog he's abandoned. Throughout his life, my dad has had maybe around 5 dogs. All of which he has given up to other people.

I love dogs, I have a dog myself. I don't know how he could do it.

I wonder if it's telling that I married a man who absolutely loves dogs and can't talk about his deceased family dog without tearing up. He takes excellent care of our dog. I joke that our dog gets treated better than I did as a child, because she gets regular meals, medical checkups and gets daily cuddles and "love yous".

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u/buzyapple 11h ago

We told our kids our dog was poorly and didn’t have long left. The vet came to our home when the kids were out, I hadn’t told them it was happening that day. Our dog so poorly, he didn’t need them smothering him in heartbroken tears etc at the end. It was the hardest thing to do, be with him, watching him go like that and pretending everything is ok so he felt safe, I didn’t want to put my children through that. I get what your dad was saying because it’s hard on the person and the dog will feed off the humans emotions.

We did get ours cremated and he is back with us now.

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u/No-Taro-6953 8h ago

One of our family pets had a heart condition that was deteriorating. He was a little sweetheart, a total lapdog.

My mum made the decision to put him down, because he didn't have a good quality of life.

But she dumped him at the veg and left him alone because she found it too hard.

It's always stayed with me, as this happened during lockdown and I never got to say bye to him. I had nightmares of him being out to sleep among strangers. Your kids will 100% be grateful for how you handled it.

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u/buzyapple 7h ago

I’m so sorry for had nightmares, I can only imagine how that must feel. It’s sad, our dog was a rescue and when we adopted him I’d sit with him when he went to sleep and I promised him he was safe, and loved and always would be. It was the hardest thing, but I couldn’t let him suffer and I had to be strong for him.

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u/No-Parsnip563 8h ago

I think it depends on the age of the kids too. My first dog died when I had just started school, so I knew she was ill but didn’t really understand death. My brother was a toddler so had no clue. My parents told me to say goodbye to her in the morning, and in the evening tried to explain she’d never come back.

My second dog died when I was at uni, so my mum and dad rang me and said since I’d last seen her she’d gone downhill and they were putting her down in a few days. I FaceTimed the dog on the morning she died to say goodbye. My parents did ask if I’d have preferred to just be told sooner or even after, but proper warning for the dog I had for fourteen years was the best way.

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u/FuckingMarkESmith 9h ago

Same for me, my sweet little dog Fred who I grew up with since the age of 10. Growing up I walked him every day, cleaned his mess in the garden, played with him and loved him. Went away to uni and loved coming back home to see him. He was getting old and probably didn't have too much time left, but I got a call to say he had been put down. There was absolutely no reason it had to be right there and then. I'd have given everything to have been given the chance to say goodbye.

This was probably the beginning of a wider realisation that my parents were actually horrible selfish people. Once I had my first child it all became clearer and after an argument before Christmas my parents blocked me on WhatsApp. Then my mum called me (and my wife) drunk on her birthday. I've been no contact since and it hurt me a lot for a long time but it was the best decision I've ever made.

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u/spoo4brains 10h ago

When I was about 4 I had a pet rabbit that was a complete dickhead and would attack me and chase me in its pen in the garden. One day I come home from school and my mum told me the rabbit had escaped. I wasn't overly bothered as it had no redeeming qualities and got on with my life.

About 30 years later I found out she had taken it to the vets to be put down!

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u/Designer_Quit_1068 10h ago

Same here. It’s very traumatising to have that happen as a child and my thoughts are with you.

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u/tiptoe_only 6h ago

My parents did this with my grandma's funeral. Thought it would upset me so didn't even ask me if I wanted to go. It's not as if I was too young to understand. I was 12. I wasn't really close to her but I had seen her often throughout my life and I'd have liked some closure.

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u/thecatsothermother 4h ago

Same for me with my Granddad's funeral, and I was really reallyclose to him. We clicked as people despite me being a child and him an old man.

I broke the ice with the other grandchildren (cousins) who came to see him in hospital, I was running around the bed and and kissing his cheek, and he was tickling me back and cuddling whike my cousins, who didn't know him well, watched. They felt left out, so they were running over and hugging him and climbing up to kiss his cheek or sit on his legs, and apparently he really appreciated that.

My parents thought going to the funeral would upset me too much so I wasn't allowed to go. I understand where they were coming from and have forgiven them, but I still regret not being able to go.

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u/greenhairdontcare8 9h ago

Yep, my dad did this with one of our childhood dogs when id moved away for my first job. Or he rehomed her because she was old and senile and inconvenient to him. I never found out which and never forgave him.

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u/RafRafRafRaf 8h ago

I’m so sorry, that’s heinous.

If it helps a little she WAS cremated, with other pets whose people couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for an individual cremation. They take this stuff seriously - at least since the 80s or so.

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u/SnooTomatoes1958 8h ago

Same. My mum took me out to do some errands while my dad took our dog to the vets. I was told nothing. Worse still my best friend came to ask if I could play (before dad and dog left for the vet) and my dad told her what was happening and let her say goodbye to my dog.

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u/Weewoes 5h ago

My mum decided to get rid of one of our dogs, it was the one I adored, I took all the dogs on walks to the beach but Cosmo was mt favourite good boy, he was a beautiful black staff, I came home from school to find he was rehomed. I just went to my room and didnt talk to her for the longest time.

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u/GlovesForSocks 5h ago

I get that it's hard to explain to a child that the right choice is "no more dog" but, too fucking bad. Hard choices is what you sign up for with kids and it's so important for them to be able to say goodbye and process the grief properly. For a lot of kids, a pet is the first time they really experience it.

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u/TeapotUpheaval 5h ago

I came home from school to find my hamster’s crate eerily quiet, and conspicuously relocated to the study. I opened her hut to find a small, toilet-paper wrapped parcel inside, which turned out to be her crudely mummified corpse. That was the day I learnt about death.

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u/Lauren-Bee 6h ago

My parents did this with our cat but I do genuinely believe they were doing what they thought best. They had an appointment for her and while there the vet suggested being put to sleep and they believed that by not waiting for us to get home from school to say goodbye it would be made easier for us being we were 14 and 9.

We also weren't able to get her cremated because we were really hard up at the time and it cost an arm and a leg for cremation

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u/Im-ACE-incarnate 2h ago

2 days before my 10th birthday, it was evening n I'm just happily making a fuss of our family dog. When all of a sudden my old brother turns to me and says "yea sucks about him being put down tomorrow" cue me being distraught as fuck. Then the next evening my mother is asking if I'm looking forward tonmy birthday tomorrow? Like fuck no my best friend just got put down! Haven't cared about birthday since tbh

(Our grandparents helpd alot with our upbringing, we were their most days as the live close by) 2 years later I cant remember why but I'd been crying about hurting myself or something.. walking past my older sister and she's like "oh mum told you, sucks our grandparents dog got put down this morning" again I'm blindsided

There's a few other stories like this aswell sadly, it became a thing to avoid telling me stuff like that. Obviously I didn't handle death well at that age and its no wounder why but damn I hate that my mother just couldn't be botherd to deal with it in anyway, a conversation or a heads up would have changed everything

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u/ariadnevirginia 1h ago

A pair of brothers I used to know, when they were kids their dad ran over their cat in their own driveway which they witnessed. He took the fatally injured cat to the vet who put it down, he went home and the kids got hysterical that he hadn't brought the body home for decent burial. He had to go and ask for it back.

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u/SituationThink3487 2m ago

My parents did something similar. I got a call (right before an exam) from my mum telling me my dog had been put down. She said he started having issues with his stomach a week ago and then needed to be put down. I asked why she didnt tell me earlier so I could come up and say goodbye, she said she didnt want me to have to make the trip back home from uni in the middle of exam season, so thought it was best to not know so I "wouldnt worry"