I can pretty much talk to my dad about anything —we’ve always had this amazingly open communication, so I very rarely consider anything off-limits between us. But even though I've shared things with my father that a lot of people couldn't imagine ever telling their folks — for example, my father was the second person I told about my unplanned pregnancy, and he 100 percent supported my choice to have an abortion —there are still a couple of really dumb things that I just can’t tell my dad.
Like that I sometimes still get confused about the rules of baseball, even though I was raised to be a die-hard Red Sox fan. I also can’t tell him that the one and only time I tried to cook lobster, I freaked out, cried, and forced my sister to do it — because as New Englanders, we’re supposed to be able to handle these things. These are small potatoes, in the grand scheme of parental communication — but I still can't bring myself to break them to him, because they'll change his idea of who I am.
I know I'm not the only one who has these secrets. And since Father’s Day is just around the corner, we asked some Bustle readers to reveal the one thing in the world that they keep secret from their dads. From obvious topics like sex, to the hard facts of the father-child relationship, here are 14 things we just can't bring ourselves to tell our dads.
1. Emily, 31
"That I have a tattoo! (We're Jewish.)"
2. Jane, 37
"I love my dad deeply, but I really can't tell him that since Mom passed, I don't know how to have conversations with him. She was a translator for both of us on all the tough talks."
3. Kristin, 22
"That I'm not a virgin."
4. Becky, 32
"My dad and I are very close — he's my only real living family member, and one of the people I love the most in the world — but I am pretty sure if he know that I used to be a stripper or had an abortion, I'd be out of the family. He's old-world Catholic, and I think/ fear those two facts might trump our family love."
5. Jennifer, 28
"That I have had sex, ever. He refers to everyone I have dated, however long, as 'your friend.'"
6. Colleen, 30
"That I'm bisexual."
7. Sean, 35
"That his fear of failure is holding him back from being the amazing person he could be, if he only tried"
8. Sam, 27
"I hate his new wife. That’s the only thing I can’t tell him. And I’ve done a lot of things that would probably disgust him"
9. Jen, 34
"That I know he and my mom haven't had sex in decades. My mom and I are close like that, but she made me promise not to say anything."
10. Becca, 29
"That I am EXACTLY the kind of person his church would have burned at the stake in the not-too-distant past, and that is the root of why we disagree about so many things (despite our similar personalities.)"
11. Ben, 34
"That I used to put cigarettes out in the forest when I went hiking. I know it would break his heart."
12. Angela, 30
"I could never tell my dad how much I love him. It's not word-fodder."
13. Lauren, 33
"That I hate football. I really hate it, but I watch it with him because it brings us together somehow."
14. Olivia, 28
"When my dad was alive, the one thing I couldn't tell him was how much I loved him."
Images: ABC, Giphy (9)
