21 Times Kids Accidentally Ruined Someone's Life

It's a known scientific fact that children do not have filters. They're also incapable of keeping secrets, telling lies, and generally having enough situational awareness to know when to not say something.

That doesn't change the fact that kids are absolutely awesome (most of the time), but it does mean they inadvertently get a lot of people in trouble.

Something that's made abundantly clear in this AskReddit thread.

I was on a family vacation in Europe, at a train station and I was like 13. On the platform, a European man asks me, a 13-year-old lil American boy, if this is where the train to Paris will be arriving. I tell him yes. Train to Paris arrives, we get on and find our seats. Suddenly a few people show up and have the same seat numbers as us. Oops! We got on the 10:50 to southern France somewhere, we want the 10:55 to Paris. The whole family gets off the train. As it pulls away, I make eye contact with the man who asked if the train went to Paris. I hope he had a nice vacation.

- lesserantilles

I was like 8-9 years old and I found my cousin's porn. Since I didn't know what it was I asked my aunt, she ask where did I find it and if I could find more she would give a surprise, I found like 9 magazines, the surprise was ice cream and money for the arcade.

- MLZHR

I accidentally caught my uncle cheating on my aunt and apparently fessed up at the dinner table on Thanksgiving. I was about 6 and I don't remember the event. I remember everyone being in a rush to leave and ultimately not seeing my uncle again.

- Notmycacao

When I was 14 I was at my friends house. His dad had a really nice late 60's early 70's Chevelle (I think). My friend and I were sitting there looking at it and talking about it and being at that age when cars just seemed so cool I wanted to see the engine. We popped the hood and looked for a while and then slammed the hood and moved on. Well the hood didn't latch properly and the next time he drove it the hood flew up and he crashed the car. It was a 30+ year old car at the time and a complete time piece. His dad was going through a divorce at the time because his mom cheated on him. So this guy was just trying to enjoy his nice classic car after his wife cheated on him and it got destroyed. I still feel $#!*ing terrible about it.

- SeeYouOn16

I'm not really sure if it screwed up his life, more I think it just brought up a past he wanted to forget, but there was a kid I was friends with in middle school named Mike and he would flinch really bad if you pretended to almost hit him.

Me being a kid and not understanding how bad the world can be, I thought it was funny and messed with him all the time by pretending to hit him.

Fast forward five or six years and I found out his parents beat him as a kid and he was forever traumatized by that. I'm sure I was triggering his PTSD every time I made him flinch, and ever since then I've felt so bad about it.

I haven't seen him in over five years, but I really wish I could apologize to him for my ignorance.

- Viroking

For whatever reason I took a big dirty dump on the bathroom floor at school when I was 7. The teachers asked me later what was up and I blamed it on my best friend. For some reason he admitted it was him. The administrators sent him to be mentally evaluated and he ended up on ritalin for the next 15 years.

- Alottathots

When I was around 8 or 9, me and some friends decided to make a corn maze in some random farmer's field. We didn't ask him. Didn't know him. Didn't think about the fact that he didn't want a corn maze in his field. We just thought it would be awesome fun.

Poor guy. We probably did hundreds of dollars of damage.

- thudly

Dug a hole in my parents' backyard. Got several feet deep, and happened upon a cable running thru the ground. It was in our way of digging to China so we cut it. To this day I don't know what it went to, but I'm sure it made someone's life suck

- menstropy

OMG I have a great story for this.

3rd grade I had a bathroom graffiti phase. One day I wrote some girl liked some boy all over every stall in HUGE letters in pen. The next day I notice someone traced over it with a marker. I was like “hey imitation is the greatest form of flattery”. Felt like a badass.

Later that day the disciplinary lady came in and asked all girls to take out their pencil boxes. Then asked who had black markers. Myself (and my crayola marker) accompanied boss lady with two other girls with black markers to the bathroom. Had us all draw a line on the stall. Mine and another girls wiped right off as they were washable. Girl #3 though had a sharpie.

She burst into tears and got suspended and blamed for my crime, and they pinned her for the previous months of bathroom graffiti. I watched it all happen and didn’t say a  $#!* ing word.

She even admitted to tracing it over and they were like “yeah right, you’re outta here.”

- BowlingBong

Went fishing with my family near a river where some would float with their tubes and ice chests of beer. Well, there is a really famous cliff over this river and kids love jumping off into the river for fun. Well, a couple who were just married were floating down the river minding their own business when I was given the 'OK' to jump. When another kid gives you the 'OK,' you don't second guess, you just jump and have fun. Turns out this kid didn't see the couple. I took off, jumped, and my knee directly hits the Woman who was just married right in her nose. I come back up from under the water and she's seen screaming with blood rushing down her face and into the water.

I'm pretty sure I broke her nose.

- ItalianMeatSauce

Mine is pretty mild... I have no recollection of it honestly. I've only heard the story from my dad.

When I was four, going on five, I got my dad a ticket. He got pulled over (I think for speeding?) and I was sitting in the front seat. Back then, the booster seat laws were a lot more lenient. You needed to be five, or over a certain weight, to not be sitting in a booster seat. Welp, I was in the front seat, not in a booster, and just barely not five yet.

The officer asked my father how old I was, and he says that I'm five. Being the little  $#!*  I was, I scream from my seat "NO I'M NOT, IM FOUR!!!". Yeah.

He did get a ticket. No guarantee it was because of my big mouth, but I'm sure it didn't help.

- EmanResuFignewton

When I was younger, my best friend's parents were a gay couple and I spent a lot of time with them. One time, we were like 7 or 8 years old and I was with my friend and his parents, and they took us to an event at a restaurant and beach club. I don't remember exactly what the event was, but it was specifically meant for the gay community so there were a lot of gay couples there.

Anyway, the next week I went into school and said that my friend's parents took me to a gay club. I guess by the time it got to my friends parents, the story became that I said they took me to a gay STRIP club. They took some flak from the school and other parents and I was made to apologize to them. But I didn't say anything in a negative way, I had a wonderful time!

Anyway, there was no love lost between my friend and I, we're still amazing friends 15 years later. However, his parents and my parents were very close friends before that incident and have hardly spoke in all this time, and my relationship with them is still a bit strained.

- TheWayfaringDreamer

When I was little, my dad was a stay at home and my mom worked. We were immigrants living in practical poverty (most meals coming from food pantries, parents digging in recycling bins weekly to find cans to recycle for the return money). There was a day when I decided to clean my room, and I did it by just pulling everything out of the closet onto the floor (by kid logic, this makes total sense). I found a broken purse, surprisingly heavy. stuffed with cash. STUFFED. Obviously, I was excited as heck and ran it directly to my dad.

Turns out my mom was saving up to leave us. whoops.

- plasticpeonies

Wouldn't say I screwed someone else's up.. but when I was in maybe grade 4, my friend told me that her dog got "put to sleep" the day before. I didn't understand what it was and responded with "So? It'll just wake up.". I still feel terrible about it, especially now having dogs of my own and knowing how hard it is to let them go, nevermind trying to talk about it with a friend and them being a  $#!* .

- millykins

There was an event at the community centre where volunteers were helping kids sign up for summer camps. The tables were placed right in front of the vending machines (remember this, this is important).

Anyways, me being the impish 6-year-old I was, I had a habit of sticking my hand into every little nook and cranny on the vending machines, hoping to score a sweet quarter or something.

Imagine my joy when I stuck my hand into a machine and scored an unopened pack of Tropical Starbursts (yeah, the green pack). For 6 year old me that was the  $#!* ing jackpot.

Anyways, went back to my parents with my haul and they were a bit surprised but hey, the packaging wasn't open. So they let me keep it.

As we were walking out the community centre I recall seeing a very distraught teenager banging against the machine.

It dawned on me a few years ago that he probably paid for the Starbursts, turned around to help an impatient parent, and then found out that his Starbursts ceased to exist.

Pretty sure I ruined that guys life, and subsequent faith in vending machines.

- lasteclipse

I got obsessed with spies and the idea of people infiltrating the country. Some innocent trucker pulled up on my block and I slid down the grassy hill by the road, and set up some home made nail strips in front of his tires and burst them.

Heard more cuss words that day than I thought one human could produce.

- instanding

When I was a kid, two of my cousins on my mom's side babysat me a few times.

One of the cousins was 11 years older than me. She would hang out with me if she took me to her house after school (because her mom was there). But, if she took me to my house (where there were no adults present), she would just watch TV the whole time and ignore me until my parents got home.

I eventually told my mom that all she did when she was there was watch TV, and she got really mad and fired her.

The other cousin was about 5-6 years older. When he babysat me, he played with my dad's guitars. I remember just sitting there while he played with them and we talked a bit. He apparently left one of the amps on, and my parents noticed it later and I told them that my cousin had played with them. They again got mad and fired him from babysitting me.

- mynameisnt_katy

I don't know if this is relevant to the question, but here goes...

When I was in middle school (2003-2005) I was into Magic the Gathering and had a few friends who were as well. They'd come over after school and we'd all play. Coming form a better off family I had a lot of good cards for that time.

One day after they had been over playing, I noticed quite a few of my good cards missing. Later that day I also noticed $100 missing from my wallet. It'd just been my birthday and was a gift from my grandparents.

I got the police involved and they were pulled into the office at school and questioned. Ultimately they confessed after trying to deny it at first. One of them received community service and had to work to pay me back the $100. They other one though..... he ended up having a psychotic break from the whole ordeal, destroying a bunch of his mom's furniture in a rage, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and was shipped off to a mental facility for awhile.

He's got his life together somewhat, but last I checked he's still a cashier at the local grocery store.

TLDR: "friends" stole from me in middle school and one of them ended up having a complete meltdown and ruining his own life.

- alphalegend91

Kicked a football while playing in the backyard with my silbings when i was 10, ball flew over fence.

Our neighbour was a middle aged lady who had her mother and some other person sitting outside drinking tea.

When I saw the ball fly over I started worrying, which was right. All I heard was the sound of glass and plates shattering. I then ran inside since I had this gut feeling that I just screwed up on a massive level.

5 minutes later, that "someone else" rang our bell and said they just sent the neighbor's mother to her funeral.

I still feel like crap.

- beefsquidder_op

As a very young child I was asked to be a flower girl in my aunt's wedding. I told her over the phone "Nah, but maybe next time you get married." I just assumed that was how life worked (people marrying and then splitting and remarrying), and apparently it really hurt my aunt's feelings that I was so dismissive of the permanence of her upcoming marriage hahaha

Guess that's 5 year old for "congrats on the nuptials"!

- WitchyWaifuu

Didn't screw up a life, but my Dad takes anxiety pills and my mom takes pills for medicine. CPS interviewed my little brother (Over an issue with my older brother) and he said that they did a lot of pills. 

- Dangercritter