50 Weirdest Lies Told By Parents That People Caught On To Way Too Late

My parents told me I had to tell the mailbox where a letter was going or else it wouldn't get there.

They would watch and laugh as 5 year old me would talk to the big blue mailboxes.

My dad told me my goldfish ran away.

My parents used to set the clocks back on New Years Eve. For years we thought it was a special treat to stay up until "midnight" to ring in the new year, when really it was only 9 o'clock. I never saw the Times Square ball drop until I was 16!

That the German for windscreen wiper was Flippenfloppenschmerenmachinen. It was a April fool that was believed for about 6 months

When I was little (think six or seven) I was terrified of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It just so happened to be one of my dad's favorites. So, to help my sister and I get over our fears, he used some positive reinforcement. Every time we got on the ride, we would find a silver dollar next to us. Dad said the pirates had given us some of their treasure. It took me an embarrassingly long time to put two and two together. I thought every kid got treasure.

When i was really young, my mum would unplug the bath and told me if i didn't get out before all the water had drained, i would get sucked down and have to live in the sewers...

If I misbehaved, Michael Jordan would retire. I remember so vividly the first time he retired. Then I did everything they told me and he came back out of retirement.

My dad told me that kiwi fruit was actually monkey eggs.

This led to a bunch of rotten fruit under my bed.

In order to get me to stop sucking my thumb when I was really young, my mom told me that if I kept on doing that it would turn red, then purple, and then fall off. I ignored her warning and kept on doing it. One night when I was sleeping, my mom dyed my thumbs red. I woke up freaking out but quickly resumed sucking my thumb. The next night she dyed it purple. I freaked out so bad I never sucked on it again.

One New Year's Eve when our daughter was about five, she decided that she wanted to stay up until midnight. By 9pm, she was overly tired and generally foul. By 9:30, we had enough. We explained to her that since her dad is Swedish, we celebrated Swedish New Year. Which we conveniently decided took place at 10pm. We all made it to bed by 10:30. For the next few years, we celebrated "Swedish New Year" until she was old enough to put the pieces together and realize that she had been lied to.

When I was little I badgered my mom to look at something while she was otherwise occupied and she said "I am looking, I have eyes in the back of my head." For years after that I suspiciously examined the back of her head trying to find those hidden eyes.

If I went outside without telling them where I was going, elves would kidnap me and only let me eat brocoli.

As a way to get me to eat my crust when I was younger, my parents told me that eating it would make me whistle. Unfortunately, I believed this until I was 15 because I’m a dumbass.

When I was a kid I asked my mom what the word was for a female's private parts, and she told me it was "vagola". And then one day we were at a Thanksgiving dinner and my mom was being mean to me in front of my family, so I wanted to get back at her and yell something very inappropriate. Lets just say my family was very confused when I angrily yelled "VAGOLA!!!" to my mom at the dinner table.

When my siblings and I were younger my parents would sometimes (usually weekend mornings) lock their bedroom door.

One of us would almost always want to just come in and say what's up, but they would tell us through the door that they were in there talking about "Christmas presents."

Be it June, August, s**t even January, it didn't matter - That was the go to excuse since it worked. They played our asses.

Anyways, now all grown up, we kind of figured it out and it has become a punchline for our family now.

"Hey dad, did you get mom a good birthday gift? Hoping to have some serious discussions regarding our Christmas presents?"

When I was little, my mom told me that, if I touched a caterpillar, my head would swell to twice it's size. She got my older sister to confirm it as well, saying she saw it on the news. I believed this without question until I was 17 and my friend went to pick up a caterpillar. I said, "Don't! Your head will swell." As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized how stupid I was.

My father didn't actively try but I was convinced that he knew everything. When I asked stupid kid questions like 'why is the sky blue?' or 'how does the sun shine?' he would whip out this long as ELI5-ish scientific explainations about them. If he didn't know he would change the subject, research it later and then would tell me. He f-ed up when he was in a bad mood. I was 6 maybe 7 and asking a generic question like 'what are we having for lunch?' It was the first time I've heard him say 'I don't know' and I was so shocked. I even exclaimed 'But Dad you know everything!' I was 100% convinced that he was omniscient and he could have kept that illusion for so much longer :( Still. Good job, dad, good job...

My mom would tell me there were bugs in my nose when I had a cold to make sure I blew my nose.

I had 7 ~~younger~~ brothers, which kept sliding down the staires and they all died.

I never slided down a stair. S**t is dangerous

My mom once told me that while she was reading at the beach a severed hand washed up onto her foot. I was horrified for YEARS until one day I brought it up and she said "Oh, I wasn't serious." No life lesson involved, just some mom f**kery.