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38 Lies Parents Just Told Their Kids, Without Realizing How Much It Would Mess Them Up
When I was a kid, the adults often told me that if a dog bit me, I would’ve to get 40 injections in my belly, supposedly to avoid rabies. Now I understand perfectly well that this was just a horror story for kids of that time, but back then, I developed a full-blown phobia of dogs, which I managed to completely get rid of only in my thirties.
As it turns out, adults often say things to children, seriously or jokingly, which then have a significant impact on them, one way or another shaping their outlook on life. So today's selection of stories, made for you by Bored Panda, is dedicated to exactly these supposedly “harmless” lies ever heard from adults.
More info: Reddit
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#1
My dad was named after my grandmother's brother that had died shortly before he was born. I was always told this and it seemed perfectly harmless. Later in life I learned that my grandmother had a sort of mental breakdown and thought my dad was her brother reincarnated. She not only named him the same name, but dressed him in his clothes and referred to him as her brother. In fact, her 'nickname' for him my whole life was Brother. It kinda f****d me up and I never really saw my grandmother (or my dad for that matter) the same. I had so much more sympathy for my dad and some of his oddness. Can't be raised that way and not be a wee odd.
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#2
When you hear the music playing on the ice cream truck, that means they are all out of ice cream!! D**N YOU MOM!!!!
#3
My parents would daily inform me that they were going to "take me back to the hospital and trade me in for a better kid." But don't worry guys, it was just a joke and definitely didn't leave any lasting damage.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 4 months ago
I'm adopted and was regularly told by my mother that I was "gutter trash" just like my bio mom and if I didn't do what she (adoptive mom) told me to, she was going to give me back and I was going to end up on drùgs just like my bio parents. She started telling me this probably around age 6-7. Hilariously, her nonstop abùse of me (in literally every way you can abùse someone) in my childhood/adulthood is one of the reasons why I eventually ended up ON drùgs/an add!ct. Thanks, Mom! Nurture (or lack thereof), not nature, you b!tch!
A few days ago, a thread appeared in the AskReddit community, the author of which, the user u/GrowthVanta, asked netizens: "What's a 'harmless' lie your parents told you that low key messed you up?"
The result was 4.7K upvotes collected over just 4 days, and almost 2K different comments. God, I could never even imagine that adults could say such things to their children! Well, even if it was just a joke...
#4
That if I ate a hot dog I would die. My dad didn't want me to choke and die so he just told me I was terribly allergic.
It wasn't a big deal until I went to my first sleep over and ate a hot dog and told my friend I was happy it was going to end like this and that I had a lot of fun on my last day.
I tried to commit s*****e via hot dog and scared the s**t out of my friend and her entire family. I was probably 6 or 7?
#5
"good girls don't want to marry..." and then she'd list off whatever the current issue was to try to make me behave. Good girls don't want to marry guys who spend all their money on bicycles, who don't put dishes in the dishwasher, who don't have a career plan by 16, who don't go to church, who talk to girls at the park, who don't shower before every meal, who quit jobs for better jobs, etc. She was a very Christian woman trying to raise me right from a young age, I think I was 11 when the good girl guilt started.
I grew up really insecure, convinced I was unlovable and that any girl I liked would never like me back. Looking back, she had points. Personal hygiene is important, but to tell your son he's unlovable because he came in for lunch after working all hot summer day in the garden and stunk is wrong. It's important to learn how to co-exist with a woman in the same habitation, but telling him he'll never get married if he doesn't perfectly follow her changing kitchen rules is dumb. It's important to teach fidelity, shaming a boy for talking to classmates is harmful. And so on.
#6
"Mr. Yuck" lives in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, and if we were to ever open the cabinet, he would eat us. I was terrified of that cabinet for years.
Eventually I realized the household cleaners were all kept under the sink, hence "Mr. Yuck" to keep us away and safe lol
Edit: I had no idea it was a thing with a commercial and stickers! I just assumed my parents made it up themselves. Wild what Reddit comments can teach you lol.
Some parents "seriously" promised their kids that if they misbehaved, they would be “exchanged” in the maternity hospital for another, more obedient child. Someone came up with horror stories related to the use of household appliances without permission. Often, interestingly, many of these words contain a rational grain - to prevent the child from doing something potentially dangerous.
In fact, just imagine - you need to prevent a curious toddler (and they are almost always incredibly curious) from taking, for example, some electrical appliances. What to do? Tell them what the real possible consequences are? There’s a very high probability that the kid simply won’t get this. And even if they do understand, they won’t assess the danger correctly.
So then stories about, for example, monsters and beasts living inside vacuum cleaners and toasters, blenders and microwaves come into play... No, often this lie really does bring results, and the child doesn’t touch objects that are dangerous for them. But there is always a risk that they will develop a phobia, isn't there?
#7
My mother told me that eating until you feel very full stretched your stomach out, which is why you got that feeling. She said that if you kept doing that, you would get fatter and fatter as you continued to stretch your stomach out. I was terrified to even feel slightly full as a kid/adolescent and ate very small meals. Ended up badly anorexic. I'm almost 38 and still have an unhealthy relationship with food.
#8
As a kid I had a small allowance of 5 bucks every week, the only thing I bought for myself was a video game once or twice a year, so I saved most of that money, but when my parents noticed how much I saved they always took it away. At first I believed they where saving it for later but eventually knew better. Not sure what kind of lesson they wanted to teach me, but I learned to burn the cash as soon as I got it or it'll be taken away, it really messed me up once I became independent.
#9
My grandma went blind around when I was born. My dad used to tell me it was because she looked at me.
A separate category of such stories is the attempts of parents to wean children off some bad habits. For example, biting their nails. A "real" story is always invented about a boy or girl (depending on who this story is told to) who did the same thing, and everything ended up very sadly for them. In the best case, with a painful surgery. In the worst case - no, it’s better not to talk about it.
#10
After my parents split up, my mom came to visit. We visited her at our uncle's house, and at one point my dad went out for cigarettes and didn't come back.
For 20+ years I thought my dad had abandoned us and didn't come looking for us.
Turns out our mom kidnapped us and when our dad got back our uncle met him at the door with a shotgun and told him to leave.
#11
“We beat you because we love you.” I used to hide my black and blue bruises under my school uniform at 8 yrs old. Perfect. Trauma and affection in one neat package. What a combo.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 4 months ago
I got this from my mom as well. Along with "I only hit you because you didn't LEARN the first time!" except there was always a next punching session even if I DID "learn" whatever she said I hadn't learned, because there was always something else she felt I was "doing wrong".
#12
"If you vacuum over the cord to the vaccum you will be electrocuted to death and the house will burn down"
Great. Now vaccuming lowkey scares me.
Sara Frazer 4 months ago
I'm still scared of running over the cord but it's probably because I was traumatized by "The Brave Little Toaster" 🙂
By the way, this is where numerous "bloody" plots of medieval fairy tales actually come from. For example, the original text of the fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t have a happy ending at all - after all, it performed a function far from literary entertainment. No, this story was told to kids on dark evenings, when the wind howled under the roof, and it seemed that wolves were running around.
So the main goal was for children to never, under any circumstances, go out into the forest alone. Well, it really worked - at least it contributed to the survival of the whole community. Adults didn’t think about the fact that such horror stories could break the children's psyches. In those distant and terrible times, there was actually no time for that...
#13
Had a bad habit of chewing on my nails when i was in the 6th grade. Mom told me a "story" about a girl who chewed on her nails and accidentally swallowed a small piece. The nail continued to grow in her stomach until it poked through her stomach and cut her open from the inside and she had to have surgery.
Never chewed on my nails after that.
Ellinor she/they/elle 4 months ago (edited)
I used to bite my nails for years until I met a girl who had done that so much that her nails had stopped growing normally and she just had a bit of nails in the middle of her phalanx. That made me stop immediately and now I have really long nails !
#14
I was apparently not good at drying off after showers as a child. My mom told me that not drying between my toes could lead to gangrene. She just wanted to get me to dry off more thoroughly, but I was terrified of my toes getting infected and falling off for way too many years.
detective miller's hat 4 months ago
My father told us that if we stayed in our wet bathing suits for too long, mushrooms would grow out of our bųms.
#15
My mom told me when I was mayyybe 9 that she would “just know” when I lost my virginity and it made me paranoid as hell about her being able to “sense” things about me without me telling her.
But the Middle Ages are long gone, and today parents still need to be more prudent, and think not only about what is convenient here and now, but also about what will happen to their offspring and their psyche when they grow up, and household appliances, for example, will no longer be a danger to them.
"So what is the alternative to yelling, screaming, and threatening? One of the most effective tools I have found to get kids to do things they should do is to let them know what I will do, rather than tell them what they will do," Arizona Family Therapy Group website quotes Shiloh Lundahl, LCSW. “Parents can let their kids know what they will do by using enforceable statements.”
Who knows, maybe after reading this collection of stories, many parents will actually start to be more responsible about what they say to their kids?
#16
Small one, but that it was illegal to turn the overhead light on in the car at night when someone was driving. To this day I get anxious when someone turns it on. And to this day, my mom swears she never told me that lol.
UKGrandad 4 months ago
Not illegal but also not recommended. The darker it is outside the car the more the interior light reflects off the windscreen, reducing vision for the driver. To appreciate the effect, stand in a room at night with all the lights off and look through a window from a couple of feet away. You'll have a good view of the outside.Then turn a light on and try again. All you'll see is your room reflected in the window.
#17
Watched the news with my dad, the newsreader made a mistake I said to my dad what happens to the newsreader now he’s made a mistake? Afterwards my dad said they’ll take him out the back and shoot him. I was about 7 thought it was very harsh but accepted it.
#18
The cops could come and take me to juvie for any household offense. Messy room, not doing dishes, not watering plants - mom would hop on the phone and ask for the "Chief," so I'd scramble off to get the work done. When I got older and realized she was full of it, she actually called the cops to report I was on d***s. Cops correctly dismissed her.
Beak Hookage 4 months ago
This is just awful. I used to work with children and my boneheaded supervisor thought it would be funny to tell a little boy who'd done something mildly naughty that he was going to call the police, and then get out his phone and pretend he was actually doing it. The kid was terrified and crying. I got super angry and told the supervisor to stop it, then took his phone off him and showed the kid the screen was blank, saying "he's lying. See? He didn't call anybody". Kid calmed down and then got to see me give the supervisor an angry lecture, emphasising to the kid that this was NOT an okay thing to do.
In any case, I do believe that this collection of stories will be of great use for everyone. Both for former kids, who may realize that their parents, telling them all sorts of nonsense as children, were often guided by good intentions, and for adults, who may find it handy in their own parenting.
Well, if you also have stories similar to your parents' and other adults' telling you various “harmless” lies, please feel free to share these tales in the comments anyway. For a good story is always a story to be told.
#19
My dad saying he could lift a car with 10 people in it. Also that he was secretly the hulk, but never transformed bc he was really good at controlling his anger. I remember the next day bragging about it to kids in my class and debating them the entire day about how it’s true and my dad wouldn’t lie.
#20
When I was 6, my dad told me that aliens came down to Earth using meteor showers as cover so they aren't noticed on radar. I lived in the suburbs in Arizona, which has lots of cloudless skies and Dark Sky initiatives (laws designed to reduce light pollution). You basically can't not see meteor showers when they're happening (which is pretty regularly). That's the start of my insomnia.
Philly Bob 4 months ago (edited)
I was more afraid of one coming through my roof. Then I found out it does happen / has happened! Nightmares unlocked!
#21
Not parent but my older brother said he saw the Easter bunny come in to drop off the baskets, and described him as a 7 foot rabbit who walked on two feet upright, and his fur was purple. And that each step he took had no sound. It terrified me.
#22
When I was maybe 5 or 6, I remember my parents talking about something and my mom saying, "why don't you go with your girlfriend?" I thought this was funny and so I turned to my dad, laughed and said, "Yeah, go with your girlfriend!" Well, when I was 11 or 12, my dad told me he cheated on my mom when I was 2. The woman became pregnant and turns out I have a half brother.
Edit: I forgot to add that when my mom was feeling jealous or angry, that's when my mom would tell my dad to go with his gf, aka the woman he cheated on my mom with.
#23
If mum had gone out for the day and I was looking for her round the house, my dad used to tell me she’d had enough of us and gone to America to live with her brother. Wrecked my head.
Lila Allen 4 months ago
WOW... I mean why would you tell a child that? Do you hate your child?
#24
They told me my tortoise that I loved at 5 years old was stolen by a man who collected reptiles...
They sold her. They sold her while I was sleeping and let me believe that a man had stolen her from my garden.
Lila Allen 4 months ago
My mom gave away my cat while I was away at camp. At least she didn't lie about it, but I am still mad.
#25
My parents told me Jewish people don't own dogs and just let me and my brother assume it was some kind of strict religious rule so we wouldn't keep asking for one. As such, long after I realized that was a lie, I still kind of avoided dogs and didn't get one until i was in my 40's, at which point I realized that dogs are the greatest thing ever and that I'd wasted many many years not having one in my life. I don't know if that counts as being messed up, but it definitely makes me sad, cuz I missed out on a lot of awesome years with dogs.
#27
Dad convinced me as a young child (like 4-5) that if you eat only one of two Reese's cups and then put the pack in the freezer, you'll get a second cup/fresh pack.
He spent a lot of extra money keeping that lie up for a bit until I got sick of Reese's cups and didn't eat one for nearly 20 years.
Sara Frazer 4 months ago
Well this one's pretty cute and harmless. I bet Dad had a "dad tax" and ate the single reese cup before replacing it
#28
My mum (not from Australia originally so maybe this was an honest mistake) told me everything was venomous, which made me terrified of the beach (stonefish), snails in the garden, a slug etc
She also told me some German myths that f****d me up like I was terrified of being near the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, like absolutely petrified. Basically German children’s stories in general.
I’m over it all now but it messed me up as a kid lol
Edit: just showed meine liebe Mutter this comment thread and she said she never read me Der Struwwelpeter because she feared it would traumatise me.
PeepPeep the duck 4 months ago (edited)
I had to deal with this when my Filipino family first moved to Australia 😂 it drove me insane as a teenager, EVERYTHING including the ladybirds 🐞 were deadly. Also the rain ☔️ everyone but my stepmum learnt eventually etc
#29
When I was 5 I had several cavities that needed to be filled. Our family dentist allowed my mom to come back in the room with me, but them she said she had to go get a magazine and left. And didn’t come back. Still mad at mom for that, may she RIP.
I haven’t forgotten it, 63 years later.
DaisyBee 4 months ago
Do not leave your kids with strangers. Especially not ones in positions of “authority” (real or perceived). I was physically abused by a dentist when I was 6-7 and it resulted in such terrible dental anxiety that I was like 25 when I finally started going regularly to a dentist.
#30
My mom told me I was part black to avoid me growing up racist. I’m a Ginger, I got a lot of push back in school due to sharing said “fact”. Oh boy I was confident.
JB 4 months ago (edited)
I like the positive reinforcement that one shouldn’t be racist. Even better that it’s true! Doesn’t matter if you’re pale, freckled and fiery haired, that your family is Caucasian for all the generations you can find, go back far enough there is an ancestor who had gorgeous dark skin, hair and eyes.
#32
Touching yourself will make u blind.
20/20 vision here.
#33
ONE DAY i walked home drunk from a friends house, and apparently couldn't manage to unlock the door to the house, and started puking and passed out on the porch.
for years she told me she found me on the porch with a birthday cake on my lap.
later in life she told me she made that last part up, but for years i didn't go to a couple stores that were on the route home cause i was scared i'd stolen a cake.
#34
My whole childhood, my dad was on a “50 year plan” meaning he was gonna die at 50. Every birthday of his I was stressed tf out.
#35
My mom decided I was allergic to milk… I was not. Long story but I lived with at lie my entire childhood… lie may be a bit strong but crazy as b******t yes.
HardBoiledBlonde 4 months ago
Their mom was likely unable or unwilling to keep fresh milk in the house. Mine did something similar. It wasn't until years later that I realized the dichotomy of being allowed to eat ice cream, cheese etc.
#36
If I plucked my n****e hairs, I’d get breast cancer
F**k you mom. I was a fuzzy girl and was terrified of getting grandma’s breast cancer, but I got bullied by all my boyfriends.
#37
Here's a fun one. When I came of age, my mom sat me down to tell me that she could ovulate on demand "like a goat." She was "studied by doctors" and it was genetic so I probably could too. Just came to learn goats don't even ovulate on demand. One way of scaring kids into safe s*x I guess.
*Edited for clarity.
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Rose the Cook 4 months ago
My father's was the sickest I ever heard. "If you do/don't do this or that the government will send the army to k**l us all in our sleep." There were others nearly as weird too.
rumple slunkskin 4 months ago
My parents said I was an alien and someday the mothership might take me back to my home planet. I think they thought that I knew they were joking, but I couldn't be certain and I was quite disturbed by the prospect. To This day I become irrationally annoyed when people start discussing extraterrestrial life
Rose the Cook 4 months ago
My father's was the sickest I ever heard. "If you do/don't do this or that the government will send the army to k**l us all in our sleep." There were others nearly as weird too.
rumple slunkskin 4 months ago
My parents said I was an alien and someday the mothership might take me back to my home planet. I think they thought that I knew they were joking, but I couldn't be certain and I was quite disturbed by the prospect. To This day I become irrationally annoyed when people start discussing extraterrestrial life
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