Well, Skybum, I haven’t seen/spoken to my father in years and I keep my mother at pretty much arm’s length.
Revenge doesn’t really work for me in this case. Even if I wanted to my father would just see it as justification that he is the martyred victim of an ingrateful daughter. :rolleyes:
Oh and the sibling story reminded me:
My father had 2 sons from a previous marriage. He didn’t confess to them until their mother shipped one over to live with us one summer because he was getting into trouble. Then again I haven’t been able to get the truth out of anyone (and now the participants are dead/people I am no longer speaking with) because there is some discord as to wether the younger of my half brothers is really my brother or my uncle.
My parents did okay in the truth department. Their policy was to embrace the folklore of Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc, but they decided they would fess up immediately if one of the kids ever asked a direct question, like “Do our presents REALLY come from Santa.” I think I intuited this somehow, because I didn’t ask until I was about 14. My little brother threatened to ask once when he was younger, and so I sat on him and pinched him until he 1. bruised and 2. promised not to ask. Ah, the sweet innocence of childhood.
On the sex talk, my first (and only) “where do babies come from” led to a detailed, medical explanation of human reproduction, so that also went on my Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell list.
The only thing that led to “lies” is that both of my parents have an abnormal love for planning elaborate surprises, resulting in the creation of cover stories of mythic proportions. I can’t figure out if this is lying or not. I remember being told we were going on vacation to Cleveland to visit my aunt and uncle, but when we got off the plane, we were in actually in Florida, on our way to DisneyWorld. Clearly, my parents thought that Mickey Mouse would be the BEST SURPRISE EVER, but I was traumatized by the thought that some evil had befallen my aunt and uncle. Another time, my father spent hours in the basement building a playhouse for us for Christmas, and we were told we weren’t allowed to go in the basement because there were deadly fumes coming out of the sump pump. Christmas came and went, the playhouse was great, and I don’t think I went near the sump pump for about 12 years. I think the surprises might have been a little less traumatic had they been better on the follow up.
When I was a kid, my aunt had a big black dog named Pepsi. My aunt was still young enough that she lived with my grandparents, and when she went off to college the dog stayed with them for a year or two. Eventually, he was sent off to a farm to live out the rest of his life, because my grandparents didn’t want to care for him.
A couple years ago, I had an “Aha!” moment, and realized that they must have put Pepsi to sleep and given me the ol’ “he’s living on a farm” story. I confronted my mother. She told me “No, he lived out on so-and-so’s farm until he died a few years later.”
So much for that. He really did go live on a farm!
My parents did flat out lie when asked a direct question about Santa. They never came out with the truth, it just became accepted that we kids had figured it out on our own, somewhere along the way.
The only other lie I can think of was also a pet issue. When our dog had puppies, they promised we could keep one of them. We had one picked out and everything… then one day we came home from school and all of them were gone. Dad had “taken them away” and they were very tightlipped as to exactly where he took them. Just “away.”
My parents used to lie to me all the time when I was a little kid. I remember once, when I was probably four years old, as I was coming home from the zoo with my father he told me an elaborate story about a childhood friend he had who never brushed his teeth. It seems that, one night, all of his teeth fell out at once and he was doomed to spend the rest of his life wearing dentures. Needless to say, after arriving home I began to fervently brush my teeth out of fear that I would meet the same fate.
My favorite “Dad’s lying and I can see right through him” story:
It was my 16th birthday and I had my first date that night. My dad had taken me to the DMV to get my driver’s license that day. I just barely passed the driving part of the test.
So Dad tells me that he is going on the date with me. Yes, he’ll sit in the back seat, he’ll keep quiet, it’s just that since my driver’s test did not go so well, that he feels he needs to be with me.
Of course I hit the roof. I told him off in any way I could think of, that he was stunting my social growth, that I was responsible enough to take the car, blah blah blah. Nothing changed his mind so I resigned myself to Dad being the third wheel.
While getting dressed Mom calls me and asks me to come into their bedroom. Dad’s in bed, with his bathrobe on, and tells me that he suddenly has taken sick and I would have to go on the date without him, so please be very very careful.
I did not wreck the car, I had a wonderful time on my first date, and Dad was fine the next day.
Maybe this should be entitled “Mom makes Dad back off on his threat, Dad fibs to save face with his 16 year old son.”
My parents were married in February and I was born in September.
I was told for years that I was two months premature.
Now my sister, who was an Rh baby, was born one month premature, and it was rather touch and go for her for awhile. So, when I was 14-15, I confronted my mother, since I had never heard tales of how ill I was, being two months premature.
She finally admitted, that yes, she was pregnant when she got married.
That ticked me off that she would lie to me. So, when my husband and I had our son, I told him when he was old enough to understand that yes, your father and I were engaged when I got pregnant. I also tell him that’s not the best way to do it. I would have preferred a year or two of marital bliss before the kiddos came along.
Funny this is brought up. Just this weekend Dad confessed to me and The Duck Sisters that 27 years ago our Weiner Dog, Mitzi, was not taken to live with his buddies, but she was really put to sleep because she was old and had back problems. I was only 2 at the time so I don’t even remember the dog except from pictures. But my sissies were kinda pissed at being duped.
Nice one, Dad.
I’ve told this pacifer story in another thread, but my mom and grandma told me that my pacifier was stolen by a black squirrel (the one that always played around in the back yard at my grandma’s house) And until about 15 years later when I saw it in my grandma’s drawer, I really DID believe the squirrel had it.
Most of what my mom lied to me about I understand, and if I had been in her position I would have done the same thing.
She told me she was a virgin until she married my dad. (when I was little, I honestly believed she had never even touched a guy in a slightly innapropriate way until she married at the age of 32:p )
And the biggie was she told me she had never had an abortion. When I was older, and asked again, she told me the truth.
So, my mother told half-truths about these things. Damn, next thing you’ll be telling me is that a stork was involved in my arrival somehow.
I’ve accidentally left light-switches in between on and off before without seeing anything. Does this always happen or only under certain circumstances?
Hehe, it’s a fine art plain_jane. There’s the narrowest of margins to see the nifty blue lights. It only happens in the worn out and loose pre-1980’s light switches, and only if you make a conceited effort to electrocute yourself
Oh another lie from my parents:
If you treat others like you would want to be treated, then they’ll do the same to you :rolleyes:
Another one for non-lying here. They allowed me to believe in Santa (rather against their will) but it wasn’t them who told me.
They also told me the turtle (a creature I barely remember with the unfortunate name of Adolph) disappeared because he went off to look for a lady turtle, and later on I suspected that was a lie. Turns out the vet told them that.
