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Parents Admit The Most Elaborate Lie They've Ever Told Their Kids

Little White Lies

We say honesty is the best policy, but are we practicing what we preach? When it comes to dealing with children, quite often we aren't. Whether it's Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy or fibs to get them to eat, adults actually lie to children quite a bit.

Reddit user ballabate4 asked "What's the most elaborate lie you've ever told your children?"

Here are the answers from the liars and some of the children who were lied to.

The Sweet Spot

My dad used to tell us that the brown spots on bananas were "sugar" - my brother and I would peel our bananas and literally brag to each other about how much sugar ours had.

"Mine has 3 sugar spots!" ... "So? Mine has 4!"

Now that I'm a parent, I think my dad was a - and I can hardly wait to start using this on my daughter.

You're So Vain

My mother lied to me about her age until I was 14. She told me she was 10 years younger then she actually was. When I was 6, she said she was 22.

The mental gymnastics I played to figure out timelines of where I was when my mother was away at college and other events was mind-boggling.

Eggcellent

"Eggplants grow from eggs"

They didn't believe me at first because I mess with them way too much.

So I "planted" an egg and a week later replaced it with an eggplant.

1,000 Words

I told my youngest cousin that he had a limited number of words a day and after 1000 words he would not be able to talk. Got my siblings and all the other cousins to play along since we were on a family vacation. He believed us for a solid week. We would all pretend like we were counting our words to make sure that we didn't hit our quota because then we wouldn't be able to talk for the rest of the day.

He went from the loudest most talkative little kid to silent because he couldn't remember how many words he had said and didn't want to reach his quota.

Bovine Bedtime

My son would always wake up with a cow lick in his hair from sleeping. I turned this into an elaborate story about a cow that would sneek into our house every night to try and lick his hair because the cow thought it was a carrot (hes a red head).

Managed to convince him to sleep with a carrot for a few nights because I said the cow would eat that instead of his hair. Then each night either me or his dad would take a bite out of the carrot to prove the night cow had been by.

Multi-Functional

My parents told me the ice cream truck was a music truck and it worked until one day I found out and ran inside and told them

"DID YOU KNOW THE MUSIC TRUCK SELLS ICE CREAM?!?"

Dad Joke, Wait 10 years for the Punchline

When I was but a young child, my father told me about the Gride. At home we used the Gride for one thing, to pick up dust piles off the ground, usually with a broom to help. I grew up and always assumed that tool was called a Gride and never learned different.

It wasn't until my sophomore year in high school that I learned the truth.

I had gotten into an argument with my girlfriends mother about what a dust pan was when I was helping her clean up. I went home later and asked my dad what the deal is with this thing. He told me it always made sense to call a dust pan a gride. Because you have a groom and a bride, therefore the broom must be accompanied by the gride.

Still call a dust pan a gride to this day, just makes more sense.

Leavened Lies

My nephew wouldn't eat whole wheat bread so his father buys him white bread instead. We buy whole wheat, but in a different wrapper than his parents.

Once he asked me what it was and I told him "it's chocolate bread".

He was convinced, and now he loves it.

Our Neighbor to the North

I had my nephew convinced that Canada wasn't real for like a week.

He's 11.

Wrigley's Baked Ham

My mom used to call cut up ham "bubble gum" so I would eat it because I was such a picky eater.

I would try to blow bubbles and she told me she could see them.

Interplanetary Explorer

Back when my youngest son was in elementary school, they were studying astronauts and the space program. One day my son comes home all excited about the astronauts that had visited the moon. This was a time when I was still a hero in my son's eyes and I wasn't about to give that up so, I nonchalantly said, "That's nice son but, I've been to Pluto".

The next day he showed me a drawing he made about his dad going to Pluto and told me he was taking it to show his teacher. I had to quickly explain it was such a great drawing that I wanted to keep it. We put it on my closet door where it hung for years.

He turns 27 this year and I still have the drawing which we joke about quite often.

The Color Purple

Without missing a beat, after breaking open a nest, my wife told our 3 or 4 year-old daughter who was wearing purple that "bees won't bother you if you're wearing purple. They hate purple."

They calmly walked away, our little one in her favorite color, without a sting.

Finally told her the truth at 12.

Fowl Play

Had family over for Thanksgiving. One of the little ones refused to eat turkey.

"I hate turkey".

Ok you don't have to have it. We have some chicken, you want that?

"Yeah, I love chicken."

He gobbled that turkey down and was just so proud of himself for getting what he wanted.

Fairy Funds

My daughter dropped something heavy on her toe and killed the nail. I told her that when it came off that the toenail fairy would bring her money if she saved it and put it under her pillow. My wife was not amused, but the toenail fairy pays a lot.

Later she told her kindergarten teacher that the toenail fairy came and gave her 20 bucks. Heard about that one in a parent teacher conference...

Red or Green Though?

My parents used to tell my brother all the time that "if you do [insert chore/behavior of choice] now, then I swear when you turn 18, if you still want to go to Power Ranger school then I will send you!"

He literally did everything they wanted like a grade A suckerooni.

Easter Switcheroo

When my daughter was 2 or 3, it was easter and my in laws had cooked a ham.

My daughter wanted nothing to do with the small pieces of ham we had cut up.

Around the table were some of those chocolate eggs in the foil wrappers. She knew what those were, but wasn't allowed to have them. Someone grabbed an empty wrapper and wrapped up a piece of her ham when she wasn't looking. Then said "here, have this"

my daughter unwrapped it and happily ate the piece, we then handed her another wrapped piece of ham. To her, this was a treat and she didn't clue in until the 5th or 6th piece.. I can just imagine her brain "heeeeeeeeeey wait a minute, THIS ISN'T CHOCOLATE!!!"

Illegal Lighting

I always thought turning on lights in cars was illegal. I didn't figure out it wasn't until a post on Instagram making fun of how we were all told that. I'm 23.

Solid-Liquid-Gas

My sister would call water "ice juice" to get her kids to drink it. They hated water but loved ice juice!

Ear to the Ground

We told our daughter when she was 3-6 that her ears wiggle when she was lying. She walked around covering her ears up all the time.

Picture a 4 yr old earnestly telling you something with their ears covered and elbows straight out. Yes, I washed my hands. Nope, that's not my popcorn on the couch.

Optical Illusion

I work at a bank, and we've got a big jar of lollipops in the back table behind the teller line. It's very clearly visible. So when parents come in with their kids, the kids will always ask for one. Here's my favorite exchange that I've seen:

"Mommy, can I have a lollipop?"

"No honey, they don't have them."

"But they're right there."

"No honey, they're not real."

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Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Now that college has become a standard requirement for so many jobs and careers, there is a massive push by high schools to get their graduating students accepted and enrolled at an undergraduate college.

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911 Operators Describe The Most Unnerving Calls They've Ever Received

Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay

*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.

The person on the other end of a 911 call has a truly remarkable job.

For those who don't play that professional role, we hope to never encounter the 911 call interaction. But if we do find ourselves making that call, the moment is an anomaly in our lives.

The chaos, the panic, the racing heart, and the desperation are all emotions we, ideally, don't experience on a regular basis.

But for the operator on the other end, our call is one in a long line of calls they've received all day, and all the workdays before that one.

It's difficult to imagine being embedded in those uniquely urgent, emergency moments all the time.

Some Redditors who are on the other end of that call shared their experiences on the job.

WhimsicalxxButcher asked, "911 dispatchers what has been your most creepy/unnerving call?"

For a few, the most unnerving moments were the calm callers.

There was something just so eerie about how level-headed the faceless human being on the other end could be through such a desperate, tragic moment.

Almost Clinical 

"I had a friend who worked as a 911 dispatcher and he always said the worst call he ever had was a ~20 year old kid who committed suicide by mixing a bunch of chemicals together in his car to produce hydrogen sulfide gas."

"He said that the most unnerving part was hearing him calmly listing off the chemicals, the type of gas produced, and the effects of hydrogen sulfide on the body (namely the almost instant death it causes at high concentrations)."

"He ended the call by providing the address of the parking lot he was in and saying that nobody should approach the vehicle without hazmat equipment."

"Apparently after that there was a whooshing sound as he dumped the last chemical into the mix, and then the line went dead silent aside for a quiet fizzing noise."

"I know that call screwed him up because he almost never talks about stuff that happens to him on the job. He quit a few months later to go into construction management, and frankly I can't blame him."

-- iunoyou

Planned Out 

"A woman called me, saying she was going to kill herself. She was gassing herself. Gave me her name & address then said she was just going to lie down and 'go to sleep.' And stopped responding to me."

"I kept the line open, trying to get her to speak to me, and eventually heard officers forcing their way in to find her body. I guess she just wanted someone to find her body."

-- mozgw4

Before It Set In 

"When I got a call from a 6 year old who got home from school and laid down to take a nap with his dad. His dad never woke up."

"The kid was so calm when calling it broke my heart."

"I ended up leaving dispatch shortly after. I was good at compartmentalizing the job for the year I was doing it, but it would've broken me in the long run."

-- tasha7712

Other 911 operators were unfortunate enough to receive a call from the very last person they wanted to hear from: a loved one.

These dispatchers' unique position gave them the unexpected access to a family member or friend at their most dire moments.

No More of That 

"My family member is a long time first responder, and 'retired' into doing dispatch. He heard the address (someone else was taking the call) and realized it was his daughter's house."

"He rushed over there just in time to see them wheeling her body out. Overdose."

"Five months later, he was called to his ex-wife's place because his grandson (son of the daughter who recently passed) had his door locked, lights on, but wasn't responding to his grandma."

"He broke the door down and found him deceased in bed. Overdose."

"He's very stoic after years of all sorts of traumatic situations but my heart hurts whenever I think of what all of this must have felt like. Like sand through your fingers."

-- bitchyhouseplant

Knowing the Address

"Not me, but my grandma. I was sitting in the dispatch office, (very small one only 2 dispatchers including my grandma) but she put out a dispatch that there was a gun shot from my best friends address."

"My heart sank to my stomach and broke later that day. He committed suicide."

-- OntaiSenpuu

When it Happened 

"My uncle passing away. Worked as a small town dispatcher for a year or so. Had a bunch of messed up stuff happen on shift, but this call came in in the still hours of the night. Small town, so not many calls after midnight."

"I answered and recognized the name and address on caller id. Aunt was in a frenzy so didn't recognize my voice. I remained calm and got ems and fire rolling to them, but by my aunt's own words he was already blue."

"I went thru debriefing and mandated therapy for a couple other things that happened, but never really talked to anyone about this. I just try not to think about it."

"That was the call I figured out I needed to find a different job."

-- dangitjon

Finally, some simply had a front row seat to sudden tragedy.

These operators were flies on the wall when disaster struck. They never asked to witness what they witnessed, but sometimes that came with the territory.

A Holiday Tragedy 

"My mom is a 911 dispatcher. Early on she said one Christmas Eve while working she got a call from an elderly lady who's husband had just collapsed(and died) from a heart attack and in the background Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music was playing on blast."

"The lady was screaming and crying and begging for her husband to wake up but my mom could hear his gurgling in his last breathes. She doesn't listen to or watch Alvin and the chipmunks since."

-- Blueflowerbluehair

What is it About Christmas?

"Christmas night. 911 call with crying child on the other end. A neighbor had run her car over her mom during a domestic."

"The mom crawled to the porch bleeding and the child saw the car coming back. I had her hide quietly in a closet with the cordless phone."

"The 10 year old child was crying and screamed that she hated Christmas. She was afraid of the police when they got there."

"I kept her on the phone until she felt safe enough to give the phone to an officer. I almost fainted after that call was over. Had nightmares for a while."

-- 2FunBoofer

Close to Home 

"Not a dispatcher but I handle radio communications for the Coast Guard. One night I was on the radio and got a call from an 11 year old kid whose boat had started to sink. He was out with his dad and 6 year old brother."

"They had been hit by another boat and his father got knocked unconscious. I remember the entire conversation up until the radio had gone underwater."

"They ended up finding his dad floating on his back alive but the two boys didn't make it. That one really fu**ed with me because my two littlest brothers were around the same age as the youngest."

-- HIRSH2243

A Horrible Clock 

"Another one that stays with me was the man who called in. It was the anniversary of his adult son having hanged himself. He'd now come home to find his wife had done the same."

"That date is always going to be a black day for him."

-- mozgw4


If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Again, we hope you never have to use the 911 call in your life. Nobody wants to be involved in a sudden emergency or a tragic incident.

But hopefully, if you do, an operator like one of these thoughtful, sensitive Redditors is on the other end.

emergency

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