Sure, children often say the funniest things. But sometimes their innocent musings can be downright disturbing.
As the Telegraph reports, a thread on the online forum Reddit has quickly gone viral by asking, "Parents of Reddit, what is the creepiest thing your young child has ever said to you?"
Some submissions recount children uttering (unintentionally) evil threats.
For example, as the user psalm_69 writes: "I was sound asleep, and at around 6 a.m. I was woken up by my four-year-old daughters [sic] face inches from mine. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, 'I want to peel all your skin off.' " (As the author of the post explains, however, he or she had been badly sunburned and was beginning to peel.)
Another user recalls a child saying, " 'Daddy sleep,' then pushing my head underwater at the pool."
And yet another writes: "My three-year-old daughter stood next to her newborn brother and looked at him for a while then turned and looked at me and said, 'Daddy its [sic] a monster … we should bury it.'"
Other entries from parents have their children sounding like ghost whisperers or supernatural harbingers of doom.
The highest-ranking submission from user UnfortunateBirthMark reads: "I was tucking in my two-year-old. He said 'Goodbye dad.' I said, 'No, we say goodnight.' He said 'I know. But this time its [sic] goodbye.' "
Is your skin crawling yet?
User thingsimeantobe recalls: "My five-year-old at the time had night terrors and would scream in her sleep. One night I said 'mama's here its [sic] okay.' She looked right at me still asleep and screamed, "mama? But who is that behind you?' "
Meanwhile, CtrlShiftZ shared this chilling moment: "Daddy, remember that time we died?"
Of course, children have incredibly active imaginations, and have yet to develop the kind of social filters that prevent the rest of us from uttering the type of thing that GatorMcGovern reports was said by a child of a friend: "Daddy, I love you so much that I want to cut your head off and carry it around so I can see your face whenever I want."
But there's something about the cuteness and innocence of youngsters that cranks up the terror factor in horror stories and nightmares, causing adults' imaginations to go into overdrive. Just think of the sinister twins from The Shining, the murderous Children of the Corn or the demonic daughter from The Exorcist.
Have your kids ever done or said anything to give you the heebie-jeebies?
Wency Leung