When my oldest girl was a child she fancied herself a vegetarian. The only way to get her to drink her milk was to tell her cows had to be milked or they’d explode.
It’s not particularly clever and I probably got the idea from someone else but it worked.
My best friend told her when she was little that the birthmark on her ear was an angel’s kiss so she grew up thinking that’s what it was. It was such a disappointment when she discovered there’s no such thing.
When my oldest daughter was three we told her Santa Claus didn’t make enough pacifiers and needed donations for all the new babies in the world. We went and collected all we could find, left them in a bowl for SC. The next morning the pacifiers were gone.
Somehow my son got the idea that people can’t have kids until they are grown ups, at age 20. (I am fine with this idea, or would like to change it to age 30) He then deduced that since he is six, I must be 26.
I love him, but Im the only 26 year old I know who is seriously thinking about reading glasses…(sigh)
WHAT???
No such thing!!!
When my brother was little, Dad told him there was ant poop in the vanilla (bean) ice cream.
I can’t wait to mess with my kids!
I still have a grudge against my uncle (though I suppose I should let it rest now, seeing as how he is no longer with us), but once when we were kids he told my mother “You’re letting the kids read in the car? Don’t you know that it’s very bad for your eyes: the car motion will detach your retina and you’ll go blind?” For months after that my mother forbade us any reading in the car, until finally he heard her tell us “close that book before you get in the car” and he told her “You knew I was kidding, right?”
If he wasn’t my mom’s favourite I doubt my uncle would have survived.
I used to tell that every time they asked, the destination city got picked up and moved 5 miles further down the road.
No wonder so many people have trust issues. . .
I don’t get why it’s funny to lie to a small person who believes in you.
Yeah, tell it to this guy.
Well, I don’t know if most of these are all that bad. I can’t imagine someone having lasting trust issues from them. Or if you do, maybe you’re the kind of person who would have issues even with perfect parents?
I think no matter what you do, something can be wrong in someone’s eyes. On another site, people were saying that getting a kid’s ears pierced was wrong because you could just wait till they got older. And that young (4 or 5 year old kids) who start crying after theirs are pierced seem pretty traumatized, and people seemed to think I was callous for saying that that’s not real trauma.
I love this. I can just see the chaos and bedlam that led up to it.
Heh! I guess it depends upon what part of the country you’re from. Here’s it’s “right sided” mountain goats and “left sided” mountain goats. The ones with the short legs on the right side can only circle the mountain one way, and the one’s with the short left legs could only circle the mountain the other way. Giggle. And yes my kids bought it.
Not sure that these count as “lies” but the whole Santa, Tooth Fairy etc thing. From a magazine article I got the idea to put tiny gold sparkle footprints going up to and away from my daughter’s pillow for the “tooth fairy”. Proper little girl awe occurred the following morning. VERY cute.
Well, it’s sort of true. If I recall, not getting milked properly and on time can lead to mastitis and other issues. And as any nursing mom knows, it’s a big OUCH! So you weren’t totally lying. 
Why yes, dear daughter. Your mother is a wonderful, upstanding citizen who will always do only what’s in your best interest.
Absolutely not! Why would you ever think your mom is living off your child support that I pay? Why, of course she contributes her fair share of the costs raising you.
She just can’t get a job because it’s been really, really hard for her to find one in the past 15 years. Of course she’ll pay you back when she cashed in your piggy bank. She probably just really, really needed some cigarettes.
Nah, I’m not going to file contempt on your mom again. Eight times is quite enough. I even got sick of calling the police on her after the fourth time.
I could go on and on and on and on…
I was watching an old black and white movie on TV . My son was about 5 at the time. He asked if everybody wore black and white clothes in those days. I was telling him it was the law and the color police went around checking people out ,especially their socks to see if they were breaking the law.
My wife yelled down from upstairs ,not to tell him that. She spoiled everything.
She did not lie.
God, Santa Claus, and/or Jesus is personally responsible for everything, like the sun rising or the wind blowing. When something bad happens, I say they’re teaming up like the Power Rangers to fight monsters, which causes thunderstorms. Usually, Santa’s sleigh is the body/head piece, and God and Jesus are each arm, and they tie the reindeer together like nunchukas to fight evil.
My mother was pretty straight up with me, but I do remember one summer she told me you could catch a bird if you put salt on his tail. Then she said she’d give me FIVE WHOLE dollars if I caught one.
I spent the next week chasing birds with a salt shaker. Looking back all it did was keep me out of her hair for a week. Pretty smart huh?
I got caught putting money under a pillow in exchange for a tooth when I stepped on a leggo (I cussed and fell down), then pretended to be knocked out by the tooth fairy. After my “recovery” we told the kids that I was trying top catch her so I could get some fairy dust and fly. Now every time a tooth is lost (often around my house; 5 kids between 12 and 7) I have to make a big production of trying to catch her or they do not believe she actually came.
I think that’s one of the oldest ones around; they even reference it in old cartoons. It really is a brilliant way to get the kids to run around outside for a while, giving you and your spouse some private time. “Really, it works. Go on, try it out. Your mother and I will just wait here for you.”
One that’s actually partly true: you have to sit in your seat with your seatbelt on, because if the police see you unbuckled, they’ll take you to jail. When we see someone pulled over, I point them out. “Look, they weren’t wearing their seatbelts, so now he’s taking them to jail.”