According to a new study, a lot of parents out there are probably feeling pretty toasty in the pants right about now, due to the massive amounts of lies they've been telling their children. And we're not just talking about the old Santa Claus myth (spoiler alert!). Many parents engage in creative stories to get their children to behave, such as telling them the police will come if they don't stop crying. All this brought up a lot of traumatic memories for us, as we took a trip down the lane of parental lies to remember some of the biggest whoppers our p-units fed us.
Emerald: After my older sister suddenly decided to stop eating peas, my mom still fed them to her, but told her they were "willydaddies." Then she went to kindergarten and everybody made fun of her for calling peas willydaddies.
Laura: My dad said that if we spent our money on video games we would go broke and have to live in our car in the park.
Emily: One summer when I came home from camp, my mother told me that my pet rabbit had learned how to open his cage and hop away. I later overheard my father on the phone saying that she'd forgotten to feed him while I was gone and he'd died. Dick move, Mom.
Susan: "I'm sure he likes you, but he's intimidated by how smart and pretty you are." Not true in sixth grade when my crush asked someone else to the Valentine's Day dance and not true now. (If only we'd had "He's Just Not That Into You" way back when.)
Julie: My parents told me if i swallowed gum I would grow a gum tree in my stomach.
Andrea: My mom told me if I continued to only eat only the green apple jolly ranchers, my tongue would stay that color.
Julieanne: The first holiday season after my parents divorced, I really, really wanted a horse and kept haranguing them for one. On Christmas morning, I came downstairs to find my dad standing by the back window. He told me that Santa had brought me a horse, but that he hadn't tied it tightly enough to the tree, so it ran away. He went on to suggest that it might still be there if I hadn't overslept ... It was a dark time for my dad.
What lies did your parents tell you?
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Wednesday 30 September
By Sherryn
When I was in first grade I asked my dad to read me a story...and he told me deadpan that he didn't know how to read. When I brought up the fact that he was reading the newspaper just fine he said he was just looking at the pictures.
So I told all my teachers for the next 2 years that my father didn't know how to read. That'll teach him.
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Wednesday 30 September
By Erin
For several years i was forced by my cheap father to wear my grandmothers old hemmed old-lady elastic banned waisted pants while I was in middle school. To make things worse the "in" fashion was actually carpenter pants or bell bottoms. We (dad and grandmother and myself) went to the mall, Sears, to get me new jeans one night and I found some nice cool jeans that I wanted. My father told me not only were we too poor to afford them I was too fat to fit into them, and to try on the "new" jeans they were going to buy me, they were more grandma jeans.
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Wednesday 30 September
By D
When I was younger, I would come home with notices and fliers from the school usually informing parents about an upcoming event. When I would hand them to my mom, she would just look at for about 2 seconds, and tell me she read the entire thing. I almost always believed her.
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Wednesday 30 September
By DT
I lie to my kids all the time. My favorite: that the ice cream man only played music when he was out of ice cream. They believed this one for...well long enough to make me question their intelligence.
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Wednesday 30 September
By M.J.
Easter morning at the ripe ol' age of seven, my father sat my sister and I down and said that overnight he killed the Easter bunny and as a result, we wouldn't have any goodies. I didn't find out until I was in high school that the reason we didn't have any candy was because my mother (who did all holiday shopping) was in jail and my father didn't know what to buy for us.
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Wednesday 30 September
By Raine
My father and I were at my grandparents' farm for summer vacation and my dad wanted to show me how to shoot the fence posts with his new gun. I hit the post as commanded then saw a HUGE hare which I promptly mentioned to my father. He said, "Yeah, he's the Easter bunny!", took the gun away from me, and shot it. I never cried so hard in my life. He thought it was hilarious. It's one of the reasons I went vegetarian at the age of 10.
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Wednesday 30 September
By Matt
Back when I worked at a hospital, I'd often hear moms telling their kids that, if they didn't behave, the Nurse would come and give them a shot. Idiots.
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Wednesday 30 September
By Shannon
My mom used to tell me and my brother that bad kids had to go live inside water towers. That if we were bad we'd have to climb up that ladder on the outside of the water tower and then go in through a hole in the top and swim around in the dark forever. We totally believed her.
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Wednesday 30 September
By Ash
My parents once told me that when I was born, my spine was too long for the rest of my body and I had a tail, and that as I got older and my body got bigger, my spine went back to being normal. I actually went around school telling people I was born with a tail. Urgh.
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Thursday 01 October
By carah y watkins
whenever I was a kid and my dad would promise me something cool and then never deliever (and i would remember and remind him for years) my mom would tell me that sometime parents said things that they meant to do but they just couldnt or that we didnt have the money and daddy had just made a promise without looking at the money.
Yea later I realized me dad is just a jerk, and didnt care.he always had money for his new gun.
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Thursday 01 October
By Megan
My mom used to tell me that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, you would wind up with a watermelon growing in your belly. For the longest time I thought pregnant women had swallowed watermelon seeds.
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Monday 05 October
By ashley
I actually thought the same thing, when all my cousins would get get pregnant i would say haha u swallowed the seed!! lol.. they still make fun of me
Thursday 01 October
By Myriad
My mom told me that there were dinosaurs on the playground across the field. I would squint out the window and swear I could see them moving around.
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Thursday 01 October
By scott
My mom told me if I didn't cut my fingernails, that my veins would grow into them.
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Thursday 01 October
By bobbie jo
My mom always told my sisters and me that those little white marks people sometimes get on their fingernails were "lie marks", and you got them by telling lies. She'd check our nails for them, and if we had them, she'd ask us what we had been telling lies about. I always got really nervous when I had one and tried to keep my nails hidden from her. My sisters and I are all adults now and still jokingly refer to them as "lie marks".
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Thursday 08 October
By Eight
When I was bad, just before I could read, my parents looked up Santa Claus in the phone book, phoned him, and cancelled Christmas. They also used the phonebook to cancel my birthday one year. I would grab the phonebook, sobbing, and try to find the number they used so I could call him back, but to no avail.
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