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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
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
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
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?
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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
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.
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Great. Now vaccuming lowkey scares me.
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
Never chewed on my nails after that.
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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?
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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.
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