Lies Parents Tell

Joey Daytona
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 10:52 am: [report]

They told me that thunder was giants in the sky bowling…

writergirl
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 10:59 am: [report]

I was told that you can go blind from sitting to close to the tv, my eyes were going to snap and stay that way when I crossed them, that if I didn’t behave my mother was going to take me back to K-mart for a new model.

I’ve told my son that babies can only come out of their mommies bellies by being cut out (hey, really didn’t want to explain how Aunt Rose’s baby was coming out) But I guess that’s technically not a lie, just one version of the truth.

I’ve also told him that he has to go to (pre)school otherwise the police would arrest me if I didn’t send him.  I told him I was putting him up for auction on ebay if he didn’t behave. (he didn’t care).  I have also told him that Santa was only going to leave him reindeer poop if he didn’t
start listening.

The look thing doesn’t work for me all the time.

SCRMOM
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:03 am: [report]

I rarely mislead or lie to my kids, but the “biggie ones” are Santa, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.  My oldest is the only one who knows the truth, and he was so mad at me for lying to him.  For several weeks, he questioned everything because he wanted to know “what else” we were lying to him about.

AlisonNoelle
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:04 am: [report]

Ok here’s one my dad told me and I believed forever….. The holes in swiss cheese have poisonous gas in them so you have to eat around the holes. @writergirl- I have told my rascally boyos much the same things. Only not Ebay. I told them gypsies. They never care. I’ve found that they do care when you start taking things that are important to them. Like DS’s and ipods. They listen then.

novavariations
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:04 am: [report]

That I would go blind from sitting too close to the television, or from reading in too little light. That my ears would sag from getting a second piercing in them. That she has to check the presents to make sure Santa came before we can see them otherwise they will all dissapear. (She actually continues this one, even though I’m in my early twenties)

GreenAura
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:07 am: [report]

Well, I was pretty much left to raise my bro & sis on my own, so I’ll share a lie that I told my sister…
When she was around 2 or 3, she was a nightmare to put to sleep every night.  So I started telling her that every night, a giant bird flew around the world.  And if he caught any kids with their eyes open, he would pluck out their eyeballs and eat them.  That girl not only kept her eyes closed, but kept her hands over her eyes as well. I never had a problem putting her to sleep after that.  I’m going to hell.

Perceptible
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:08 am: [report]

I guess I’m an extreme truth teller. I don’t believe in lying to my children on any level. I don’t tell them that the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus is real, just fun stories to enjoy. I don’t make up lies to get them to behave, the eyebrow/look thing works well for me, I guess I’m a disciplinarian. But I believe that lying to your kids, even on a small level, sets them up for questioning you later on. I want them to always know I’m telling the truth because if they can’t rely on me for the truth, who can they rely on? I don’t ever want them to be suspicious of me. I do believe in telling simpler versions of the truth so that they always understand on a level that makes sense for them.

(Yes, I get a lot of flack from EVERYONE on the Santa Claus thing. I’m used to it. Fire away.)

writergirl
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:09 am: [report]

@AlisonNoelle—yup.  TV and Wii are the first thing to go in our house.

skywalk
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:24 am: [report]

Oh yeah, my daughter was very upset when she found out I had been lying to her for 10-11 years, about Santa, Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.  I was never upset they lied I was upset it wasn’t true, I think I was like 13-14 when I found out I was the oldest but wtf!

Lynn
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:35 am: [report]

My mom used to tell me that if I ate the crusts on my pizza/bread/whatever, I would be able to whistle. And that the more crust I ate, the sooner it would happen.

I can barely whistle now.

Riley
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:37 am: [report]

@GreenAura - Easily the best lie I’ve read.  Bonus points.

bumbler
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 11:39 am: [report]

My parents only told me the fun lies like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny etc.  One year I wrote a letter to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and received a reply courtesy of my mom.

Brooke
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:05 pm: [report]

Toys-R-Us was only open for Santa on Christmas Eve

kr070707
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:16 pm: [report]

My dad loved to tease, so here a few of the lies I was told:
-My parents bought me at Sears and would return me if I was bad.
-People from Iowa have 3 eyes with the third one in the middle of their foreheads (I have NO idea what the point of that one was).
-My dad always told me if my mom arrived home late that she ran away with the circus.
-Finally, my dad informed me when I was first learning to drive that the tires on my car had to be deflated in spring to let out the “winter” air and filled with lighter “summer” air or the tires would pop when I was driving at full speed. Luckily I didn’t believe him and called his bluff.

notquitelolita
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:18 pm: [report]

Actually…. sitting too close to the television, or any object for long periods, leads to near-sightedness and therefore farsightted blindness. It’s not just TVs - spend years reading magazines right in front of your face for the same effect.

impoddity
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:22 pm: [report]

I read way too many books as a kid to have the wool pulled over my eyes at any point. 

But i used to tell my sister that we found her on the highway when we moved to Orlando and took her home.  She believed that story until she was 12.  It worked because she didn’t look like anyone else in our family until then.  The worst part was that my mom went along with it for years before finally showing my sister the birth certificate. 

I still joke about it five years later. And my sister still gets upset about it.  God, those were the days….. :D

skywalk
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:25 pm: [report]

@impoddity:  Now that is a funny story, LOL

cymbelene
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:26 pm: [report]

my parents told me this HUGE lie when I was, well - born, basically- and continued to tell it to me every day until, well- now, actually.
It was this lie about this guy, Jesus. and heaven and HELL. and the scary scary devil. and how you would be punished for all eternity if you made some big mistakes.
hey, it worked. I was a perfect angel from day 1 to about 18 when I realized that it was all a lie. I was so scared about the evilness of sex I was a virgin until 25 even though I didn’t believe in jesus anymore.
I will never tell my son this lie.

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:30 pm: [report]

@cymbelene I worked that one out myself.

bogart4017
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:36 pm: [report]

When i was little my mother told me this music coming out of the radio was played by a little band and the actual artist would sing in front of them. I couldnt figure out why James Brown came to our house every day or how he fit in the radio. My father, who never missed a day of work in his life, was too lazy to lie so he put me in the know-how.

bumbler
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 12:49 pm: [report]

Oh I forgot that one time my mother bought us new panties and my father told my sister and I that they were a new style of hats.  We put them on our heads and he still has the pictures.  We were very young and very gullible.

retro chic
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 01:47 pm: [report]

O dear. My parents’ lies: I was little and if I discovered something I wasn’t supposed to, like walking in on them…huh-hm… and anything else they were too emBARErASSed or lazy to explain to me:
“You’re just dreaming… forGET about it” That one messed me up a little. Always thinking, “how could I imagine THAT!? yuck!”

My lie, er, whopper – no FAIL, as a parent: [sighs, shaking head in disbelieving shame]
My lawyerly, just-the-facts, 12-almost-13yo daughter who now attends 7th grade MS: STILL believes in Santa Claus. I do NOT know how to tell her… Too many years of orchestrating fairytale holidays. For the past 3 Xmas I thought each was going to be the last and she would out me in triumph, the way I did with my mom – I recognized her handwriting on the gift tags. Nope, not here. Amazingly she is a true-believer, even tho she is a girl who loves science and facts. I don’t get it. Now I’m forced to drive a little stake thru her childhood’s heart before the “cold, cruel world” gets to her. So, for the reality junky that I am from the so-called “imagined” things as a kid^^^, I am staring down the barrel of major parental retribution with this one. Help!!! :/

Everything else: unvarnished truth.

SCRMOM: How did you spill it to him?

amy1285
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 01:57 pm: [report]

My parents told me Kids R’ Us sold kids. The conversation went something like this:
My parents: They sell kids at Kids R’ Us.
Me: No they don’t! I don’t believe you!
My parents: What do they sell at Toys R’ Us?
Me: Toys?
My parents: So what do you think they sell at Kids R’ Us?
Me:...kids?

But by far, this is the worst story I’ve heard about parents lying to their kids: A friend of a friend was teaching kindergarten, and one little girl had her colors all mixed up (she thought blue was red, red was blue, etc.). Come to find out her father had taught her colors wrong because he thought it would be funny.

bethlynn00
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 02:05 pm: [report]

My mom used to tell us she would sell us to the gypsies and they would put us in the circus all the time when we were bad.  One time she actually put us in the car and drove around saying she was looking for the gypsies cause we were getting on her nerves, I don’t remember ever crying so hard and begging not to be sold.  She still laughs about that!

bumbler
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 02:15 pm: [report]

@bethlynnoo When my uncle and cousin went to Egypt (she was around 8) a woman actually offered to buy her.  My uncle pretended to consider it and she was frightened of gypsies for years later.  I don’t know if the woman was joking or not.

dudette
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 02:39 pm: [report]

haha my dad used to tell me and my brother stories about one of my uncles all the time.  We lived out of state and only saw him once a year and we believed all of it.  He had to share a room with my uncle even though he played with barbies (ewwww), and was dirty and hat rats and insects actually living in his “afro”.  My dad told us he built a wall out of legos to divide the room lol.  We figured out eventually when we grew older and moved closer.  One of the funniest things about this story is a different uncle had been telling his kids lies about my dad the whole time too.

Jenbug
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 02:43 pm: [report]

For some unknown reason my mom tried to convince me the moon was made of green cheese. WTF?

SCRMOM
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 03:07 pm: [report]

@retro chic: He had heard a neighbor boy say there was no Santa, so he asked me.  He was in 3rd grade at the time.  I told him the truth, as well as the historical person who Santa is based on (or at least the person that I have read he was based on).  I didn’t go any further than Santa, but he immediately made the conclusion himself that the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy must not be real either.  He wasn’t upset about there not being a Santa/EB/TF, but was upset that we lied to him.

Mags
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 03:14 pm: [report]

I got the regular holiday lies, but my parents did some origional situational fibs. Once at an amusement park, it was dark and close to closing and my mom wanted to ride a water ride. I told her I didnt want to get wet, and she told me that water was heavier after dark, so it won’t splash as much. Sounded scientific.
I also got taken SNIPE HUNTING. fun.

Sofjna
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 03:22 pm: [report]

My grandmother always told me she was going to sell me to the gypsies.

Also, I live on an island and my grandmother never wanted sand in the house from the beach (she lived with us) so she would tell me that the sand sharks would eat my toes.  I was a senior in high school when I asked my marine biology teacher if that were true.  It’s not, but I’m still deathly afraid of the beach.

@Retro Chic: I was just like your daughter as far as the just the facts and science stuff goes, and yet even though I would find where my holiday presents were hidden every single year, I still believed that Santa came to the house to put them under the tree.

Karmatir
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 03:28 pm: [report]

When I was a kid my mother told me about my older brother Stephen. He wouldn’t straighten up and act right so she took him out - she brought him into this world and she always threatened to take him out of it too! This STILL goes on…except now I have a stepbrother named Stephen so it isn’t as funny.

I should mention I am the oldest, and definitely an oops…my parents were married at 19 just 6 months before I was born and I always knew that.

kr070707
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 03:32 pm: [report]

@bogart: Your story about the radio makes me think of what my dad told me when I asked how the light in the refridgerator worked. He told me that little green men live inside the fridge and that they are very fast and that they turn on the light and hide when the door opens. I spent quite a long time as a three-year-old opening refridgerator doors suddenly and quickly to try to catch them in the act.

writergirl
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 03:42 pm: [report]

@kr070707—I remember getting that story about the men in the fridge, too, not that you mentioned it.

@retro chic—one of my nieces is VERY gullable.  At 13 she still believed in Santa.  At 14, she announced there was no Santa.  My SIL said to my husband, “How did she discover that?”

To which my husband replied, “Her boyfriend told her.”  (Keep in mind, this was a very strict household where boys at 14 were simply not. allowed.  ever.)

Shocked silence, followed by, “She has a boyfriend!”

It is all in the family….

I was six when I made the conncections….my son will be six in January. 

I go out of my way to wrap his gifts in special “Santa only” wrapping paper (red and white stripped with a green ribbon, like in the Polar Express.  I started this when he was 2.  I have an entire warehouse full of stripped wrapping paper because it is very hard to find) every year and the child isn’t dumb.  He remembers EVERYTHING.  And I mean, EVERY.  THING. 

He’s seen the red and white paper under my bed or in my closet…but hasn’t put two and two together yet.  Or, he’s jerkin’ my chain.

SCRMOM
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 04:27 pm: [report]

I really dislike the “silly lies” (for lack of a better phrase) that people tell kids - e.g. give them away if they don’t behave, found them at a store, a monster will get them if they get out of bed at night, etc.  Those have always bothered me, and whenever I hear anyone say them to kids, I get overly protective. 

I also can’t stand the teasing that some adults think is appropriate for kids.  My SIL (who is stunningly beautiful) was teased by her uncles her whole childhood - they always told her no man would ever want to marry her because she was so ugly.

retro chic
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 05:50 pm: [report]

Weeeeeeeeeeeee! We have formatting now! ~angels regaling~ I don’t have a comment – just wanna see what it looks like. ~jubilant~ Looks are so important, you know

Next I want colors, fonts/sizes, graphics, sound… and a latté to go with my formatting…

@SCRMOM: Yeah, that’s what I’m dreading… Her disappointment in me. On the bright side, she’s now requesting I install a video-camera to catch him in action (or not). I may be spared after all.

@writergirl: god, I’m hooting out loud with your niece story. The ending, hahahaha ...And godspeed on your son making the connections. It’s very hard keeping it up year after year.
My daughter, likewise, after staging everything the night before: half-eaten cookies, milk drank from glass, dirty footprints and a sign-in book [uh-huh], spotted the roll of wrapping paper on the table next to the tree. All at once I felt panic and relief: Oh sh*t, and thank god the xmas nightmare is over. Without missing a beat, she said “I guess Santa was in a hurry and left his paper here.” Aaaaaah! [facepalm, shakes head]

Tanderson486
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 08:12 pm: [report]

I got the little green men one too, except they were in the ATM machine. My dad would tell me that if you looked carefully you could see their little hands give you the money and your card. And he also said that a cowboy with a big gun came to take the money, he made sure the little green men didn’t escape.

My parents also told me that eating strawberries gave you freckles. I’m a natural ginger so freckles are inevitable.

abbylyn
wrote on October 1 2009 @ 09:09 pm: [report]

My mom used to tell my sister and I she didn’t have a belly button.  I’m not really sure why.

Abby
wrote on October 2 2009 @ 12:06 am: [report]

no lies really stand out, but my mother and father did tell me that they found me in the bagel bin at the grocery store. even now, when we drive past that store, they point it out as the “place they purchased abby.” they never told my brother anything of the sort, and so he likes to pretend that means he’s the favorite (i just tell him that means that they had no choice when it came to him, but liked me so much that they just had to purchase me…)

retro chic
wrote on October 3 2009 @ 03:39 pm: [report]

@Sofjna: oops, missed this one. Ah, how funny, you, another Santa true-believer; so we’re not alone… As for your gypsy story – switch out gypsies for pirates, here. We’re West coast, so I wondered “why I didn’t read about California pirates before? How come I couldn’t see them on their wooden ships and sails looming toward us?” I hope you grow to enjoy the beach, tho, it’s a shame how some good experiences can be ruined by those well-meaning grand/parents perp’ing damaging stories/lies.

CaleeKay
wrote on October 3 2009 @ 09:11 pm: [report]

@amy1285 - regarding the teaching wrong colors cuz its funny.. my dad actually did something like that to me.
He always said that horses were cows and cows were horses. I even had them right in the first place, but would insist i was seeing them wrong. I actually believed him for a few years and my teacher in elementary realized that. he did feel awful after realizing how bad it was, and he still jokes about it.
But other than that, the usual blind with too much tv, believing in all the santas etc.

but i found out my mom was santa on my own.. i started to realize how odd it was that santa had the SAME exact writing as my mom did.. she still likes to write presents from santa :]

I also found out about the toothfairy when i saw some old teeth of mine in a drawer my parents kept them in.. lol, i was like what the heck, since when does the toothfairy live here..

a good way to break the santa thing though, is to tell them the story of santa being real back in the day. but that you had to carry on the tradition.

sic.itur.ad.astra
wrote on October 6 2009 @ 11:36 am: [report]

@retro chic: you ever think that maybe she knows the truth, but just thinks you get such a kick out of keeping up the charade she doesn’t have the heart to tell you. just a thought.