30 People Who Realized Their Parents Were Cooler Than Them

Could you believe that the stout gentleman in your backyard grilling burgers in a Hawaiian shirt and white sneakers was once a cool dude riding a chopper across Europe or wrestling Chuck Norris himself? We couldn’t either – if it weren’t for the photographic proof.

Bored Panda has compiled a list of people who realized their parents were cooler than they thought after finding some awesome vintage pictures of them. From crazy skateboard tricks to fishing off of nuclear submarines, looks like they sure knew how to have fun back in the day!

See the cool vintage pictures of peoples’ parent in the gallery below and check out more here !

h/t

#1 My Favorite Picture Of My Mom. She Was The Only Girl In Her Welding Class In 1984. Byrd High School, Shreveport, Louisiana

#2 My Mother Doing A Handstand On Two Skateboards (Circa 1980’s)

#3 My Mom Flew Helicopters For The Army In The 80s

#4 Chuck Norris Pinned By My Dad

#5 My Dad At His First Job At Nasa!

#6 My Dad Diving Off The Starboard Fin Of A Submarine And Into The Pacific Ocean In The Summer Of 1983

#7 My Dad And His Veterinarian Mother, With Their Pet Lion Which They Raised For Two Years, 1959

#8 My Dad (Front) In Vietnam In 1971. He Didn’t Know This Photo Existed Until I Came Across It Randomly On The Internet. He Cried When He Saw It

#9 My Mom Holding Myself Whilst Writing Her Master Thesis On The Macintosh Classic II (1991)

#10 My Friends Parents Are Celebrating Their 47th Anniversary This Week. Here’s Them Being Badasses In The 70’s

#11 My Mom, Age 15, Smoking At An Allman Brothers Concert With A Broken Arm. Watkins Glen ’73

#12 My Mom In The Police Academy, 1984

#13 1969 Vietnam: My Father’s Version Of A Selfie Before Selfies Were A Thing

#14 My Mom Was A Homicide Detective In The 80s

#15 My Parents In 1972 In Front Of Their Store In Paris

#16 My Dad A Zoo Keeper In 1992

He was the only one at the time who could call the rhinos by name and they would come running like dogs. They enjoy a scratch behind the ear like dogs too.

#17 My Pregnant Mom At Gunpoint Trying To Get Home – May 1969 Berkeley

#18 My Father Who Shipped His Bike Over To England And Rode All Over Europe On It – 1973

#19 My Dad’s Graduation Photo. Circa 1970’s

#20 Mom Spinning Records At Kwkh, Shreveport – 1977

#21 My Mom As A Red Cross Volunteer In WWII. She Had Her Own Radio Show In The Pacific Theater To Counteract Tokyo Rose. 1944

#22 One Of My Favorite Photos Of My Parents In The Late 70s

#23 My Mom Fled Saigon In 1975. By The 90s, She Had Joined The US Air Force

#24 Pretty Rad Picture Of My Dad When He Was 22, In Texas, Taken In 1987. That Ghettoblaster Is Epic

#25 My Dad Taking A Smoking Break While Fighting Saddam Husseins Army In The 80s

#26 My Mom Said She Gave This Up When She Had Me. I’m Pretty Sure She Stopped When I Was Old Enough To Want Some (1970’s)

#27 My Hilarious Father (With The Magazine) And My Grandfather, Grandmother, And Uncle At His Bar Mitzvah In 1972

#28 My Father Halfway Through Motorcycling Across Africa – 1980s

#29 My Dad Fishing… On A Nuclear Submarine 1966

#30 My Mom In The Hospital After Giving Birth To My Sister. Canada 1978. Smokes And Roasted Chicken

Aušrys Uptas

One day, this guy just kind of figured - “I spend most of my time on the internet anyway, why not turn it into a profession?” - and he did! Now he not only gets to browse the latest cat videos and fresh memes every day but also shares them with people all over the world, making sure they stay up to date with everything that’s trending on the web. Some things that always pique his interest are old technologies, literature and all sorts of odd vintage goodness. So if you find something that’s too bizarre not to share, make sure to hit him up!