This is really interesting to me, since my parents insisted they invented the story on the spot. Several possibilities come to mind - the most likely being, of course, that they were bullshitting me and knew they didn’t make it up. But for years afterward, they would reminisce about telling me that story, congratulating themselves on their cleverness. So I think it’s possible that they THOUGHT they invented the story, inasmuch as memory is imperfect and they might have heard the story but didn’t consciously recall it.
I dunno, though. They would have told me that story in … oh, about 1963 or thereabouts. After they did, they repeated it A LOT to their friends. These urban legends have to start somewhere. I know it’s highly unlikely, but I admit I kinda wonder if it really started with them.
I think it’s one of the ways kids develop a sense of humor, and how they learn to challenge authority and invoke logic. When I was a teacher I used “tall tales” to encourage kids to think for themselves and call me out when they disagreed or disbelieved. It’s the beginning of debating skills. Making it absurd and silly is just embroidery, and helpful in engaging them.
When kids catch on they are, in effect, taking on another person’s perspective and comparing it with reality. It’s also a benign way of demonstrating that other people aren’t always going to be straightforward, and to be wary of BS.
Not saying everyone approaches this stuff in the same way, but I would argue there’s a major difference between what we’re discussing and instilling a belief in Santa Claus.
One of my favorite questions as a dad is “What do YOU think?” It’s amazing to see what it does to her brain. She stops and has to think about it before replying, and she nearly always comes to the right conclusion. When she doesn’t (or often even if she does), we can have a talk about what does and does not make sense and why. It’s great. Seeing her brain working and getting smarter is my favorite thing about being a parent.
I have this “fish face” that I make which cracks my kids up. I’ve told them that I was trained to do that at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island, where I had a summer internship as a fish when I was a teenager.
Exactly. Never too early to start developing the B.S. detector, a useful life skill. In fact, something similar came up on last week’s ‘Young Sheldon’ when Sheldon was playing poker with his grandmother (Annie Potts).
SHELDON: I bet a nickel.
MEEMAW: Hang on there a minute, moon pie. I want to teach you somethin’. Look at your cards, and then look in the mirror.
S: Hey, I’m smiling.
M: Uh-huh. And what does that tell me about your cards?
S: That I like them?
M: Attaboy. Now look at my face. Tell me what you see.
S: That you’re old.
M: It’s a good thing I love you. I’m gonna look at my cards again.
S: You’re unhappy.
M: Which means?
S: You don’t have good cards.
M: Mm-hmm. So I’m gonna see your nickel - and raise you a quarter.
S: Quarter?
M: You can fold.
S: No. I have good cards, you have bad cards. I’m in. Nines and fives.
M: Mm. That’s too bad. Three queens. You lose!
S: What? But you weren’t happy.
M: I made you think I was unhappy.
S: But that’s lying. You lied to your moon pie.
M: I bluffed my moon pie.
S: Do people know about this?
M: Sheldon, what’s on a person’s face is not always what’s in their heart.
S: Well, this changes everything. How do you know who to trust?
M: You don’t. That’s what makes life interesting.
My husband worked nights for years. I told the kids that the reason they didn’t see him at night was that he was really a merman. Every night he turned into a fish and I had to put him in the fishbowl. When the sun came up, he turned back into a human. The reason they all loved swimming so much was that they were actually half-mermaids. Even when they were old enough to realize this was nonsense, they loved the idea of being part mermaid and chose to believe it anyway.
I have no idea why I told them this. Just amusing myself by messing with them, most likely. I had long forgotten about it when one of them reminded me. I think she’s planning to spin the same yarn to her kids.
There’s a toll bridge very near our house, which we drive over all the time. One time we drove over it, with the boy, who was then just starting to learn to drive, in the back seat. Of course he was newly observant about all things car related. We pull up to the basket you throw coins in, and waited a little bit, and the barrier went up – because we locals buy decals to put in the rear side windows, so the bar code reader lets us through at a much reduced rate. But he didn’t know this. He asked why the barrier went up without us putting money in the basket, and I told him it always works that way, it’s just on a timer, and everybody else doesn’t know that so they throw their money in. I asked him if he seriously thought the machine could count all the coins fast enough to open the gate, and he nodded sagely.
We are told that the first time he pulled up to the toll plaza on his own, with his car full of his buddies, he told them all what idiots the other drivers were, and told them to watch how he did it instead. Apparently they sat there for a long long time…
Most of mine aren’t nearly as creative. I answered my kids’ inevitable question, “What are we having for dinner?” with “dog food” for years, though of course they knew I was joking.
I was pretty convincing with the “eyes in the back of my head” thing, though. At my old house, I could see what my kids were doing when I was standing at the stove, which had a highly mirrored black backsplash (or whatever it is called) at the perfect angle where I could see the kids at the table. They’d even test me, and I was always right that they were raising their right arm, or whatever.
I also wouldn’t let them pick though my hair and would cry “ouch!” if they ever went looking back there.
