As a rabid Calvin and Hobbes fan, I’ve always loved Calvin’s dad and how he “explains” some of life’s more difficult issues with blatant lies like ‘solar wind’.
Anyway, this morning I was watching the traffic report on WGN and they spoke of the Des Plaines Oasis. And I remembered a case of true Calvinized Parenting when I was small. We used to drive up to Great America once or twice a summer. And I always used to beg my dad to stop at the McDonalds (it used to be a Wendys) that was built OVER THE EXPRESSWAY. I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. That you were in a McDonalds IN THE AIR! I begged and begged and begged and he always said no. Every time.
Finally, one day I decided to be sassy and say “why not?” (I was a mild mannered child). He turned slightly and said,
“that’s where the gorillas live”
and I never asked again.
Anyone else remember any Calvinized parenting from their youth?
My parents didn’t do anything like that, no sense of humor. However, I did tell our kids that if you push your bellybutton, your butt will fall off. They still don’t really know whether to believe me or not.
As someone who firmly believes the holy trinity consists of Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, Scott Adams and Charles Schultz (alright, so I can’t count) that thread title was absolutely irresistable.
D’you remember that Christmas strip?
*Dad: This year I thought we’d just keep the tree in the garage…you can go out and look at it any time you like, and it saves all the trouble of decorating it…if we get you a present–
Calvin: IF???*
My dad did that.
Lest ye think he was just an unfeeling bastard, he was also kinda like Calvin’s dad when I broke something [sub]sorry about that Dad…[/sub]
tav
“Calvin, go do something you hate. Being miserable builds character.”
I can’t recall any specific incident, but in response to my childhood queries of why I was being asked to do some job or chore I hated, I often heard my Dad say, “Because it builds character.”
Now that I’m an adult, Dad and I can laugh about it, and he usually throws in something like, “See, it worked!”
My parents weren’t malicious about it. They usually were more than honest when I asked questions. (“Why is the sky blue?” “<explination of light scattering here, get out prisms and lasers and flashlights and colored gels…>” “Why are you yelling at the newspaper?” “<explination of city politics and the stupidity of said official>”)
But they would let me labor under my own misconceptions for years just to laugh at me. I mixed up lables for things. (brownies were doughnuts and vice versa, tomatos and potatos were another set) they let me do this for ever! Thinking it was cute! Not to mention mispronouncing words. (Ambulance, animal…)
So if I asked, I learned, if I didn’t they’d just let me wander around looking retarded.
My dad used to pick random days of the year (well spaced, so I’d never catch on), and wake me up at about, oh, five thirty am or so, and whisper,
“jbird! There’s a family of deer in the backyard! go look!”
And I would scramble out of bed, stumble to the window on the other side of the house and he’d just burst out laughing, because of course, there was nothing there. never, not once.
He thought it was a riot.
I fell for it every single time until I was about…oh, twenty.
My mom told us kids that if we picked up a guinea pig by it’s tail, it’s eyes would fall out. We all wanted her to take us to the pet shop, right now!, to try it out.
Now that I’m a grown-up (but not necessarily an adult), when I drive I sometimes honk my car horn when I’m bored. Ralf Jr. used to ask me why I did that. I told him it keeps the polar bears away.
None that I remember, but I have it on good authority that my uncle was weaned from his pacifier in the following manner: When he accidentally lost it, he asked for another, but he was told that sadly, that wasn’t possible - because “The typesetters’ union is on strike”.
My father told me that if I swallowed a cherry pit, a tree would grow in my stomach. Ditto for watermelon seeds, except of course a vine would grow instead. Imagine that big ol’ watermelon hanging out of your nose!
My birthday is the day before his, and when I was very small he’d ask me how I got to be older than him, just to watch the look on my face as I tried to figure that one out.
Did you know that the stork delivers new babies to the hospital, which is why mom and dad have to go there to pick up their newborns? That’s what my dad told me!
Mr. romans’ father told him that dragonflies would sew your ears to your head. He also told him that bears live in caves, and then forgot about it. Then the family visited a place in Germany where you can explore a cave and couldn’t figure out why mr. romans burst into tears and started screaming when they tried to go in.
I don’t remember my folks doing much of anything like that (except for telling me a music box I craved cost $100). But, I certainly have done all sorts of stuff like that to my son.
When he was little and wanted to stay up late (we’re talking he was 2 ya know), and I said "you have to go to bed, ‘cause I’m tired and I can’t go to bed til you are asleep’. Why? “well, it’s in the Mommy rule book. when a baby is born, the mommy gets a book of rules that you can’t break”. It was a standard for years. The day came when he asked to see the ‘mommy rule book’. “Well, they don’t let you keep it.” Worked for another couple of years.
we used to also take him on adventures, pile into the truck and go places. Where are we going? we’ll find something. Well, we were always heading towards little fairs (rides and stuff), so he’d see the lights and damn near start jumping up and down ‘look a fair’ !!! “where? I don’t see anything”. worked every single time. We’re talking at least twice a month every summer for years. He’d go nuts.
Hmmm. maybe that explains a lot now, ya think?
This has run in our family for many generations, but I am attempting to (mostly) snuff it out. My clearest recollections are lies my grandparents told me, but there are a couple from my dad as well. I was mainly a naive* lad, now grown into a naive adult.
Examples
[li] Q: Grandpa, where did you learn to speak Spanish? A: When I was young I learned it from our maid. Reality: They were poor and spoke Spanish at home.[/li]
[li] Q: Grandma, why do your lower teeth stick out farther than your upper teeth (underbite)? A: When I was young I had braces. They tightened them too much, so now I have to live with this. Reality: She had dentures since before I was born.[/li]
[sub]Note that the grandparents cited were from different sides of my family.[/sub]
In contrast, I spent an hour last night explaining gravity and other concepts of physics to my five year old daughter, who had asked why things moved toward the floor when she dropped them. This would have been a great opportunity to unload on her my Calvinist theory of electromagnets under the floorboards, but I resisted.
***[sub]*Just noticed that “naive” spelled backwards is “evian”. Coincidence?
I think my Dad is Calivn’s dad’s, dad.
When we were kids, there used to be a place called Kiddieland in Lincolnwood, (just outside Chicago, its now a mall) and my parents only took my sisters and I there on our birthdays.
Whenever we would drive past it, my sisters and I would marvel at how many kids had their birthdays that day. We thought Kiddieland only let you in on your birthday. Mom and Dad never bothered to straighten us out. They knew a good thing, because we never pestered them to take us there unless it was our birthday.
My birthday is in May and my older sister’s is in July. My youngest sister’s is in December. Looking back, we realized
that we only got to go twice a year, because the were closed in the winter, and never asked what Kiddieland did for the kids who’s birthdays were in the winter
Well, it’s not so much a “trees sneezing” type of story, but…
My dad returned from a work-related trip with three stainless steel, 1-1/2" ball bearings. He gave one each to my sisters and me, and told us quite solemnly that they were robot eggs that would hatch in 99 years if we took care of them.
I distinctly remember carefully setting up a nest for mine close to the furnace to keep it warm. What a maroon.
Darn it jarbaby, you stole my thread! Or one I was too chicken to start, at least. I was going to call it “Blatant (but funny) lies you’ve told your children”
Anyway, here’s the background. It’s summer. The kids have been in and out of the water/mud more times than I can count. Along with the water sports comes those blow up toys, (which they love to take the air out of so that you can put your mouth on the slimy little valve and blow them right back up again).
Our son was playing with his belly button the other day and, I don’t know call it payback for making me watch “biker mice from mars” a thousand times, but I just couldn’t help myself. Here goes the conversation:
**Me: ** Willy, stop that. Willy: (with infinite 5yo wisdom): Why? Me: Because if you don’t stop playing with your bellybutton, you’ll get all deflated. Willy: Nuh-uh. Me: Yes it’s true, all of the air will come out. Then you’ll only be able to lay in a heap on the floor. Willy: Nuh-UH! Me: Willy, remember Aunt Alexa? How she was chubby last year, but then she got all slim and now has a piece of metal hanging off her belly button? Willy (looking at me with that distrust/fascination mix): Yeah. Me: Well her mom found her playing with her belly button but caught her just in time. Now she has to wear that piece of metal ALL the time otherwise she’ll deflate too. Just ask daddy. Willy: Daddy!
Heh heh. I can’t wait for puberty…
I’ve told Ralf Jr. that (insert rule/skill here) was something I learned in Dad School. Before babies are born, the dads have to go to school. It’s where we learn why the sky is blue, how to fix broken toys, put the chain back on a bicycle, open tight lids on jars, and set up toy trains.
Missus Coder told him that there was no such thing as Mom School. Moms know all the stuff they need to know already. It’s only the poor dads that need to go to school for this stuff.
My son is currently losing his teeth. I don’t know why, but I told him that he would grow gold teeth only if he never sticks his tongue in the tooth hole, but if he sticks his tongue in the hole, then just regular teeth will grow back. The lie is reinforced every time he sees someone with a gold tooth. I am so cruel.
My dad has a huge birthmark on the back of his neck. He told me when I was 5 or 6 that it was a treasure map that pirates tattooed on him when they captured him. They put it on the back of his neck so he couldn’t see it and made him walk in front of them to find the treasure.
When we were very young, my father pulled the same April Fool’s joke on us year after year. While my brother and I were draped over our cereal bowls, still half asleep before getting ready for school, my father would be standing with his coffee by the window. “Hey kids! Look! SNOW!” We’d both pop up and run over to see. But of course there was no snow. It was April. In Florida.
Eating hot grits puts hair on your chest, according to my father.
My grandfather would tell me in fabulous detail how every tiny red spot on his arm or back was a bullet wound from when he’d been shot by the Germans, somehow saving everyone around him and winning the war. God, he was so funny.
Also, my grandfather had many stories about a murderous, yet unidentified animal from his childhood that wreaked havoc on his community: “THE WANGDOODLE”. (See, according to him, the scientists who’d come to study the animal never was able to find one. Also, they just couldn’t think of a name for it, so they agreed on “Wangdoodle”. :rolleyes: ) Anyway, after a couple stories about how it had attacked horses pulling carriages in the dark or how it had eaten all the chickens on his father’s farm, I found it absolutely impossible to go to sleep within sight of the window. I’d be awake, wide-eyed, looking out for the wangdoodle and his “great big yaller (yellow) eyes”.
My foster brother and sister love ketchup, but I don’t eat it, and one day they asked me why I never put ketchup on my french fries. “It all goes back to one day three years ago,” I told them. “I had some ketchup on my hamburger and I was about to put it in my mouth when suddenly the ketchup JUMPED out of the hamburger and ran away with the pepper and the mayonaisse, and I’ve never seen it since. I don’t eat any of 'em now because you just can’t trust 'em. And I’ve always got my eye out for that darn ketchup that ran away.” So now everywhere we go they look for my runaway ketchup.
There’ve been more, but I forget 'em.
When I was small, I was obsessed with my crib blanket (you know the kind, the ones that have the satin edging) and I carried it around with me everywhere until I was about four years old. Then one day, it mysteriously disappeared. I was distraught. I asked my mother what happened to it, and she said “Oh…packrats stole it.” Great…I’m traumatized by the loss of my beloved blanket, and now not only do I have to worry about its loss, but I also have to worry about mysterious ratlike beasts carrying off me and/or my prized possessions. Thanks Mom. :rolleyes:
[sup]Truth be told…the blanket was so old and grimy, Mom decided she would just throw it out and deal with whatever aftermath came later if/when I noticed it was gone.[/sup]
