Have you ever looked back and realized your parent(s) lied about something in your childhood?

My mom told me that if I didn’t read every day that my arm hair would grow too long. WTF?! That doesn’t even make any sense.

You mean other than things like Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Tooth Fairy?

Well, when I was very little, we’d pass by McDonald’s, and I start crying that I wanted to go. She’d tell me “McDonald’s is going nuh-night”, even if it was noon.

A better example, and one that demonstrates not only her deviousness but my childhood-gullability: I used to pretend to be asleep a lot. I don’t know why. I just did. I’d pretend I’d fallen asleep on the couch watching TV or whatever. Eventually my mother told me “I always know when you’re faking, you know. When you’re actually asleep, you always stick your leg up in the air.” From then on, every time I pretended to be asleep, of course I’d stick my leg in the air! It didn’t dawn on me until years later that she’d pulled one over on me.

@ubersiren. Mama’s sorry here you go.

My mom used to tell us if we weren’t good she could drop us off at Father Bakers, which was a home for orphans. It actually did exist at one point, but it was before I was born. The building she pointed to was closed down which of course meant it looked haunted and scary. We did not want to be dropped off there.

It wasn’t true that my mom’s bed was more comfortable than my dad’s. He had other reasons for trying to sleep in the same bed with her.

They used to tell me I pretty lol. I definitely was not.

Also, they lied about what they did with my hamster after she bit me…still are.

I grew up on a farm. Lots of cows, chickens, and pigs. Well, I had a pet cow I named “Taxi” after my favorite TV show at the time. One day Taxi was gone and my mom told me she had been slaughtered. But, she said that Taxi was traded for another cow.

About five years ago my mom informed me that they didn’t trade her and I ate my pet cow. I’m still pissed off about it.

My parents used to flip houses, we moved at least once a year because we’d move in, renovate and then sell. Each time, my parents would let me pick out paint and wallpaper for my room and we’d all embark on revamping the yards and such. I was always led to believe we were going to live in the houses we worked on. After a bit I got really angry and not being able to enjoy all the plans we’d been making and they finally told the truth about their business which seemed no big deal to lie about in the first place but it did have an impact on me not giving a damn anymore to help fix the houses up. They tainted their free child labor ;)

@MrItty I think your mom must have loved you v-e-r-y much to have protected you as she did from the evil McEmpire…

I caught my mother doing this, so it’s not really a lie.
I woke up one day to my hamster lying in her cage, struggling to breathe. She was dying. So I wrapped her in a washcloth, and held her. I had to go get something or go to the bathroom, I think I was like 8 or 9. I came downstairs to my mother trying to smother my hamster, to “put it out of it’s misery”. I think it really traumatized me. My mother still thinks I overreact about it.

When it was finally time for me to give up my bottle (I was pretty old, mind you, 4 years old maybe?) my parents took me to a toy store. The idea was that I got to “trade in” my bottle for any toy in the store (I’m sure there were limits). I picked this little blonde talking doll. I remember very distinctly my dad handing the bottle over the counter to the salesewoman and me walking away with my new doll.

Until I was probably 14 I actually thought we traded in my old bottle for my new doll. Hello! Of course my dad paid for the doll! He just didn’t let me see that.

@aviona aww, that’s actually pretty cute.

@casheroo I think that is a rather traumatic thing to see. I would of taken it to the vet, but I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to animals. I drove an hour to the fish store to take in one of my fish who got attacked by another fish. I wanted them to save him. Yes, I knew he would probably die, but if I didn’t have to see it I could pretend they saved him and sold him to a new family.

I guess it is @casheroo, gosh, especially compared to your story. That is pretty scarring.

Some of these are hilarious!

This is kind of depressing…but when I was a kid my mom used to talk about her first baby. My parents had a girl, born premature, who lived for one week. I remember asking my mom how the baby died, and my mom told me this whole story about how she put the baby down for a nap, but she never woke up. It was such a sad and beautiful story, the way my mom told it, but it freaked me out a bit. For a long time I was scared to go to sleep (I was maybe 5 when she told me this).

Then, when I was maybe 10 or 11, I overheard my mom talking to a neighbor about how the baby had been born early, had never been able to leave the hospital, and had died when she was only a week old. I was shocked, but never confronted my mom about why she’d told me that other version of the story. Maybe she didn’t even remember telling it to me that way, because she never referred to it again, but stuck to the truth whenever she did talk about the baby.

I just remembered a funny one. My dad used to tell my brother and me that he had money between his toes. If we looked hard enough, we could find the money and keep it. I can just picture us now, spreading my dad’s hairy toes apart and trying to find some money. We never found so much as a penny, the bastard. ;)

does my dad not telling me he was gay count?

They never told me that I was adopted.

Similar to @elijahsuicide‘s story, my mother claimed that if I didn’t mind her, she was going to send me to the Mennonite Farm where they’d “lay me over their laps and whip me into obedience”. I was scared to death. I became a much better kid after that little speech…

On a more serious note, about 2 years ago, my mother shared with me her best kept secret considering I know her better than anyone this came as an appalling surprise.
She’d been married once before, to a man I’d never even heard of. She shared a life with him… It was side of her I’d never seen before, even though I’d asked her multiple times if she’d ever had any other relations previous to my dad. I still think of it as a dream sometimes. Those types of things… they just take a while to sink in.

@MissAusten : That’s both a really sad story, and a really funny one!

It reminded me of something else my mom lied to me about. 2 Christmases ago, she revealed that her two sisters (my two aunts) were really only her half sisters. They were both fathered by 2 different men, and my mom was fathered by a 3rd man, who I called Pap Pap. My Grandma was a ho! And, my aunts are… half aunts? Wtf! And my Pap Pap was also a ho because there are something like a dozen more illegitimate children out there who are my half aunts and uncles as well.

@poofandmook : YES!

My parents are very religious, but I never could understand why anyone would believe in all that nonsense, and I still don’t.

My parents have always been very very honest. I’m talking about Santa Claus isn’t real, yes that is a dead dog in the road, your grandmother left your grandfather because he was cheating on her- type of honesty.

I don’t remember being lied to about much anything.

Do lies of omission count? My mother divorced when I was 4 or so – apparently it was quite traumatic for me. She remarried when I was 5 and we never spoke of my natural father at all. She has still never mention being married before to me, never mentioned his name, never told me what happened. My sisters never knew we were half sisters until one of them found my birth certificate as a teen.

Do you remember those rides they had in front of grocery stores? You know the ones shaped like cars or rocket ships or carousels? Well in my world every single time I asked to ride one they were broken. Every single time. My parents also refused to take us to the carnival that came to town once a year because the rides were “deadly” and the carnies took little children.

@SuperMouse Haha, that’s great! Wish I’d thought of that…

My mother claimed for years we were dirt poor which is why we rented, never owned a house, never went on vacation, couldn’t help my grandmother when she was sick. Years later, they couldn’t help me pay for college or give my wife and I a wedding gift for the same reason. No money, barely scraping by.

My father backed her up, so I believed it.

Last year, before my father died, he tells me they have oodles of money and planned to retire beautifully. My mother made him swear to keep his mouth shut or she would leave him.

Now he’s dead and she has a new 64” TV and is dripping in gold.

@syz ; Have you made any effort to find him now?

@syz: That’s terrible. I’m sorry to hear that.

it amazes me the shit parents do to their children out of selfishness

@cprevite Wow, I bet you can hardly wait for your inheritance!

@YARNLADY ; Sounds like she’s planning on spending it before she gets to share it.

@Judi yes, some parents can be soooo selfish.

@YARNLADY: I have no interest in her money. I would have preferred a truthful relationship with my mother.

But thank you for asuming and your sarcasm.

@cprevite You’re welcome and right back atcha

@cprevite: That’s terrible. I don’t think I could speak to my mother after that. It’s not about the money… it’s about her selfishness and the very principle of the thing.

@YARNLADY : I think it is selfish to not help sick family members and your own children, while you’re secretly counting your stacks of money, then flaunt your gold around to those who needed you. My grandmother did a similar thing to my mom and aunts. Only they knew she had the money. If you can’t count on your own family, who can you count on?

@poofandmook: Thank you, thank you. That’s exactly my point.

@ubersiren: Agreed.

When I was little my dad used to tell us when we lied our tongues would turn black!! Thinking about it, his tongue should have been black while telling us that.

@Judi No. I waited for him to show up for many of my birthdays, and then high school graduation (I stayed in contact with his parents, my grandparents). By college, I had decided that if he didn’t want to know how I turned out, I had no interest in getting to know someone who cared so little.

@syz;
I had a friend who was a bit odd. he absolutely could not stand confrontation. When his wife wanted a divorce, he gave it to her. When she demanded that he let the children be adopted by her new husband he gave in. I can tell you though, that a day didn’t go by that he didn’t think about them and that he did sneak around to take a glimpse of them on the school yard and at sporting events. Your dad may very well have been the same way. It doesn’t excuse his lack of willingness to fight for his children, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t love them just the same.

They told me I was dumb

When my mother was angry at me when I was young she always threatened to go away and never come back. It made me shit bricks and that threat always made me behave but looking back I know that she never would have done it.

Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy….but that is about it.