Crazy things you were told by your parents

[Annpan]

Just kicking off a new thread inspired by this thread


My Mum told me to add coffee whitener to soup to turn it into 'cream of...' soup

[Graye]

My father told me when I was about five that if I ate an apple in bed I would die - instantly. I carried on having a nagging feeling he might be right until I was in my thirties!

He also told me that my two pet mice had packed up their bags and moved out (I never did know what happened to them) and left me some plastic replacements plus a note saying they had enjoyed their stay.

I swallowed all this whole without question so I must have been a very gullible child. I loved him dearly but had to step in when he starting saying "mind the rat..." to my three year old son every time he went upstairs at their house!

[StripyPixieSocks]

Not my parents but my Grandparents... my Grandma in particular!

If you swallow chewing gum it turns into concrete and you eventually die
Don't watch Microwaves because they cook your eyes without you knowing it
Don't sit near microwaves because she heard about a man who died and when they autopsied him he was cooked from the inside out because he used to sit near the microwave when it was on
If you eat apple pipe a tree will grow inside you

... I'm sure there were lots more but they are the ones I still remember lol

I have to say... I dearly loved my Grandma

I forgot about the magical multiplying Guinea pigs... they were in separate cages and then suddenly there were more of them... my Dad told me they were magical multiplying Guinea pigs... I guess it was easier then explaining the birds and the bees to a 5 year old

[Millymollymandy]

Don't pull faces - if the wind changes you will be stuck like that

The worst thing my Dad told me was "when your heart stops beating you die" - I used to lie in bed terrified that my heart was going to stop beating.

[richyboy]

The 2 things that stick in my head are from my mother:


Eat your crusts - they'll make your hair curl

(when passing a farmyard) That smell will put hairs on your chest!


I am of course eternally grateful that after 30years of eating my crusts and living in the country, I now have curly hair and a hairy chest, so I guess they weren't that crazy!

[JulieSherris]

Yep, grandmas fib to the little ones ALL the time..... I'm a grandma!

I tell the most outrageous fibs to my granddaughter - mainly because she believes everything I say

Conversation last week....
Her: Nanny, you grew mummy in your tummy.... then mummy grew me in her tummy.....
Me: Yep, that's right!
Her: Well, who put me there in the first place?????
(Not flinching at all - I've done this 3 times with my girls)
Me: Oh, mummies have eggs in their tummies you know, like a chicken.... then the daddy pops in a seed & the 2 meet... that's what starts a baby & there you go!
Her: Where does the daddy get the seed from then?
Me: Argos.
Her: Can we get a baby donkey after I'm 5?
Me: Sure........ (THEN I breathed....... )

Now all I have to do is hide the Argos catalogue so she doesn't go searching for baby seeds!!

[Rosendula]

It wasn't until quite a few years after leaving my parents' house that I found out you don't have to peel mushrooms.

When I was 15, I asked if I could stay at my boyfriend's house until midnight to watch a Meat Loaf concert on TV. I wasn't allowed because I might come home with a baby!

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I've told my children that watching more than two hours of TV at a time makes your brain melt and run out of your ears (they clock watch assiduously now!).

I feel no guilt about this as I am just passing on what my own parents told me.

But apart from that, I don't recall my two ever telling me anything really silly.

[Rosendula]

Was anyone else told the one where if you go outside with no shoes on the germs will crawl under your toe nails and work their way up your body before eating the back of your eyes and making you blind?

[neilspeel]

.......when you hear the "chimes" of the ice-cream van - it means he has run out of ice-cream !
.......cruel...v.cruel

[red]

Was anyone else told the one where if you go outside with no shoes on the germs will crawl under your toe nails and work their way up your body before eating the back of your eyes and making you blind?

no!

spent an awful lot of my childhood barefoot outside.... survived!

my mum would say 'the wind will change your face will get stuck like that' too - but there is actually some truth in it.. bels palsy.... was thought to be caused by cold air trapping a nerve...

I can't think of much stupid things my parents told me. There as a lot of tricks.. like 'oh look at that lion at the window' we would turn to look, no lion, turn back, egg stolen AND EATEN off of plate...
but that just taught as to be cynical. We could never resist looking, but always took our plates with us....

[contadino]

If you wear headphones in bed you'll strangle yourself in your sleep. At a particular low point in my childhood, I tried it and it doesn't work.

[Millymollymandy]

Didn't have headphones when I was a kid!

Surely somebody else must have been told that you must eat your carrots as they help you to see in the dark!

[Brij]

If you wear headphones in bed you'll strangle yourself in your sleep. At a particular low point in my childhood, I tried it and it doesn't work.

Yep - or a necklace!

Was also told the carrots thing. Never much liked carrots - and I have terrible eyesight.

Also told to eat my crusts for curly hair (I did, and it is), and that the crusts would put hair on my chest. Can happily point out that that one didn't come true.

Was told to not pick my nose, in case my finger went too far and I gave myself brain damage, that babies were made by "special cuddles" - which made me scared for weeks to cuddle anyone, and may explain why I'm now just about the least touchy-feely person on the planet, that rum is made from raisins, that if you don't put a hole through the bottom of an empty eggshell (after eating a boiled egg), a witch will use it to sail away in, that TV makes your eyes go square (which I rather fancied, so I used to sit really close), apple pips grow apple trees in your stomach, chewing gum will stick to your insides, toothpaste will poison you if you swallow too much, as will bathroom-tap water, if you bite your nails, they will stay in your stomach forever, that mushrooms are bad for you, and lamb is meat from an adult sheep.

Either my mum was cruel or I was a really annoying child!

[StripyPixieSocks]

LOL I'd forgotten about the crusts one, the wind making your face stick, the hairs on your chest thing, Square eyes and picking your nose made your head cave in!

I was just reminded just now about my Dad used to rush in and tell my sister and I that "if you go to the end of the street there's a man on the corner with as many noses as there is to the end of the month!"

... of course my sister and I would rush off and come back disappointed as there was no man with 25 noses stood there as there was only one day until the end of the month... fell for that for yeaaaaaaaars!

All these wee stories made me howl with laughter this morning... parents are so cruel and Grandparents double so