Parents lie to their kids constantly - whether it's a purposefully malicious lie or "just messing around" it's a think that happens in almost every family.
Regular readers will know my family had me convinced that I was the "Moon Princess" until I was well older than I'd like to admit. They told me that the moon followed me around because it loved me, so I spent most of my childhood talking to the moon reassuringly, like it was my space-puppy.
I never stopped to think about perspective or celestial distance or the fact that it meant the moon followed everyone. My family never fessed up to the truth. It took a blindsiding realization in sixth grade to crush me and my poor moon-puppy.
I not-so-secretly still talk to the moon and I'm almost 40.
Reddit user lphillips5 asked:
What's something completely false that your parents told you as a child?
One Million Drops
My dad told me that the windshield wipers would count the raindrops on the windshield and when it reached 1 million then they would wipe the rain away. If it was raining harder they went faster because it reached 1 million faster.
- finaldi
The Truth Comes To Light
"TURN OFF THE LIGHTS IN THE BACK SEAT BEFORE WE GET PULLED OVER!"
Wait that's a lie?
- Sp00py_g
My dad always told me this too! It wasn't until a few months ago that my sister and I found out this wasn't true.
My dad would always say this. Funny enough, now that I can drive I can see that I can't look out the rear view mirror properly with the light on, he could have just said that and young me would've went "Oh, ok".
Considering how annoying/difficult it is to drive with the interior lights on, I was surprised when I found out it wasn't outright illegal.
Having a light on means you can't see out your rear view mirror, and it can lessen visibility out your windows. It may not be specifically against the law. But it does fall under other laws like distracted/dangerous driving. I'm sick of how everyone just doesn't question the statement that it's not illegal.
- Zendei
Moo
Giphy
That my mum, who worked in the chilled department of a supermarket, would have to milk the cows at the back of the shop and bottle the milk before taking it to the shop floor. There aren't even any fields at the back of the shop.
Save For Something Special
Birthday and Christmas were only a month apart so I would tend to get some money instead of presents from family and relatives around that time of year. My parents would always tell me I had to learn how to save my money, so I was never really allowed to use it, just save it for something "special".
Usually my money would go missing and I couldn't find where it was, only to find out my father, who smoked a pack a day, took it to buy cigarettes, or also would use it for drinking money. Frustrated by this, me and my brother asked our parents if we could get a bank account, so instead of leaving our money laying around, we would deposit it somewhere where it would be safe and would be able to be saved for a long period of time.
After saving after a year or two, we wanted to get either a new game console or game, and adding up what we knew we had, we determined that together we had enough. We go to the bank.
I had a balance of $0, my brother had a balance of $-10 (yes negative). Appears since parents signed us up for the account, and cause we were children, they had full access to our account. When we confronted our parents about it we got the whole, "You're the child, we're the adult" speech or, "You take money from us everyday just by raising you".
The only lesson we learned was if you save your money you will never get to use it. So we pretty much stopped saving our gift money and tried to spend it asap.
Oranges For Scurvy
I read Treasure Island and asked my older sister what scurvy was. She lied and said it's when pirates and sailors spend too long at sea with no women and become gay. I didn't question it because I was like 10 and apparently dumb.
Then we were watching a TV show about the colonies and how scurvy was rampant and killing people. I was really confused at how scurvy could kill and even more confused when my mom said oranges prevent scurvy.
Suffocated Angel
Mom and I moved in with my (now) dad, I was around 4 years old. Christmas rolls around, he had this light up skeleton tree topper in lieu of an angel. He takes it out of the box, I asked why it was it was a skeleton. He got this horrified, shocked look on his face. "Oh no! We must have forgot to poke holes in the box last year!"
I thought my angel suffocated and we were putting her dead body on the Christmas tree. Cried for hours.
- adawgie
The Japanese Toys
Not a single, but a string of lies.
Lived with the family in Japan for a year at the end of the 80's. Time comes to go back to the home country, and the number of toys I amassed as a kid in Japan was not small. They were also very, very cool toys, them being from Japan and all.
Parents promise we will take them all with us home, all the while putting them in strange big black bags (for garbage?). But since air freight is so expensive, they said, we will simply put them on a ship in order to save some money. There will be home before I know it, they said, but only after we arrive, since ships are much slower than planes.
Got home, and could not stop asking them: when will the toys arrive‽ I want to share them with my new classmates, they were very cool! After a few months of constant nagging, they sit me down and say they have to tell me something.
Proceed to explain that, unfortunately, the ship sank on the way, along with all my toys on it. I was so miserable, and retold the story to all friends, for a couple of years.
Many years later, during a family dinner, I said: do you remember when all my toys from Japan sank? It was so sad and unfortunate! They explained it was a lie all along, and that, yes, those were indeed garbage bags.
Furtles
When I was about 6 years old, my dad convinced me that turtles grow fur under their shells. Fast forward to the 8th grade, I'm in my U.S history class and the topic of turtles comes up, and I explain to my teacher that turtles have fur, he then proceeds to turn on the projector and Google "do turtles have fur" in front of the whole class. They don't... never been so embarrassed in my life. I told my dad this story a couple months ago (I'm 17 now), and he still laughs uncontrollably about it whenever I mention it.
God's Flash Photography
I was scared of lightning. Then my dad told me it's just God taking pictures of me, so don't be scared. So I used to run to a window whenever there's a thunderstorm and pose for my picture.
The McHack
Giphy
My mother had a few McDonald's sacks hidden since I was obsessed with them and never wanted to eat anything but McDonald's.
Every day, before my father would be back from work, she would put what she cooked into the sacks and would place it outside the door for my father to pick up. He would walk in the door pretending he brought McDonald's home. I was fooled every time, man. How would I know McDonalds had no soup?
- daelyon
Happy New Year
"HAPPY NEW YEAR ITS 12 WOW YOU STAYED UP"
It was 9. They pulled this every year until I was like... 12 ... They turned the clocks back and put on an east coast channel. No wonder I always watched the ball drop in NYC on TV... Whilst living on the west coast of Canada hmmm.
Crocodiles
That there were crocodiles in the boarded over pond at the bottom of the garden, so I'd stay off the somewhat rotten planks that could break. Instead I ended up dropping all sorts of things in because I thought they might be hungry.
Instant Death
My mother had always told me that since I had asthma, smoking would kill me right away if I tried it. It did work, never smoked anything to this day.
Unrolling The Sidewalks
My great aunt's parents had her believing that sidewalks were only out during the daytime, and if you stayed up late enough or got up early enough you could see the workmen rolling or unrolling the sidewalks.
Crappy Sex Ed
So when I was like 5 I started getting horny sometimes and I was so confused I asked my mom why and she told me there was a mouse stuck in my vagina.
- Ember_tp
Whistling Muscles
That bread crust could make you whistle. I was like heck, if carrots could help my eyes (they don't), and milk could help my bones, why couldn't bread crust help my whistling muscles? So I suffered through many a sandwich crust hoping to finally be able to whistle. It wasn't until junior year of high school as my mind was wondering on the bus did I sit up and have a holy crap my life is a lie moment.
- hrhkatya
Not Normal
Hate to make this depressing but my parents told me that it's normal for couples to fight (They fought regularly). I even stayed in a nasty relationship because I thought that it was normal to fight so often. I didn't realize that it was wrong til years later in high school. I was talking to my English teacher about some parental issues going on and on way or another I had mentioned what my parents told me. She then said, "So, they lied to you?", and the reality hit me. My parents divorced not to long after.
Booger Eating
My parents told me that if I ate my boogers my penis would shrivel up and flake away.
Islamophobic Dogs
That dogs are attracted to the headscarf, and automatically will chase you. I am big animal lover and my mom hated the fact I pet stray dogs. So for the majority of my childhood I thought dogs were Islamophobic.
