20+ Little Lies Parents Have Used to Get a Moment of Peace and Quiet

If childhood is the age of innocence, it is also the ideal time for parents to get creative and come up with fantastic stories to get their children to behave, or to stay quiet just for a minute. If you can relate to this, don’t worry, we’re not judging. But some of those “little lies” turned out to be so credible back in the day that kids believed them for a long time, and today they remember them with fondness and a bit of humor. The topic was discussed in a Reddit thread, where people started telling the most absurd lies their parents told them when they were kids and how they totally fell for them for a long time.

Bright Side compiled several of these little lies that may make you laugh and that will maybe take you back in time and get you to remember your childhood with tenderness.

• I used to wear a bear costume like every day when I was 5. One day, my mom, who was already freakin’ tired of that costume, told me it was “bear hunting season” already and that it was no longer safe to go out dressed like that. The memory of her telling me that is forever locked in my mind now. I still, to this day, remember how reckless I felt for not having considered that... We still laugh about that lie. © ​​​​DasThrowawayen / Reddit
• My dad tried to tell me that cars were run by hamsters on wheels under the gear shift, and they knew to run because the stick ended in a block of ice that would go on their backs. I was 8 and asked him what he was talking about. He had been told this by his uncle and believed it, and was disappointed it didn’t work on me. © ​​​Allredditorsarewomen / Reddit
• A friend told me their parents would take them to “the toy museum,” aka FAO Schwartz, and that nothing was for sale there, they just displayed the toys. © ​​​primalscreem / Reddit

• Our parents used to tell us there was a 5 cent charge every time we touched the light switch so my brother and I were costing them a fortune every time we played with flickering the lights. ©Goldofsunshine / Reddit

• I asked my dad where babies came from. He told me that he found me and my sisters in my mom’s cabbages. All he had to do was flip over the leaves, and he saw our faces and pulled us out. My sisters and I spent hours looking for new babies. ©1BoiledCabbage / Reddit

• My mom told me that she could always tell when I was lying because my ears would turn red. Years later, I realized my ears didn’t turn red but walking up to her with my ears covered with my hands likely gave me away. I use it on my daughters now and it still works! © Yahoo157 / Reddit

• My dad has ridiculous cold tolerance. He’s the kind of guy that will be outside in shorts and a t-shirt when it’s 36°F outside. When I was 6, I asked him how he was able to stand it, and he told me he just absorbed heat all summer long and stored it for the winter. He worked outdoors all summer, so it made perfect sense to 6-year-old me. © Moctor_Drignall / Reddit
• When the ice cream truck was playing music it meant they were OUT of ice cream so there was no reason to go outside. © tohellwithausername / Reddit
• My dad told us we had a word quota and if we reached it before the month was up our voice would quit working, and if we ever got into trouble we wouldn’t be able to call out for help — so it was very important to keep your words under quota. He would reference this, “I think you guys are getting close to your quota...” and we would all fearfully shut up. Now I realize he lived in a house full of 4 girls and had had enough 😂 © StMungosHeartHealer / Reddit

• Asked my dad why most of his hair was missing. He told me that when he was young, his hair was so silky and soft that fairies came in the night and pulled it out, strand by strand, to make silk curtains for their fairy palaces. Also, the reason he had a gold tooth was that he stopped one night to help a witch who was stuck by the side of the road with a broken broomstick. When he mended it for her, she cast a spell and gave him a golden tooth to say thank you. Don’t you dare say my pa was lying to me unless you can prove it. © TOMSDOTTIR / Reddit

• We lived off a dirt road with a lot of potholes. My dad told me that they were made by people sneaking out of the woods in the middle of the night and stealing a shovel full of dirt. © misscuzzi / Reddit
• My parents would tell me that they knew the guy who controlled the TV channels and if I misbehaved they would tell him to remove my favorite programs. © Natinatt / Reddit

• When I was little, I wanted to grow carrots. I put carrot seeds in the ground and the next day I was upset that they hadn’t started to grow yet. The next day I found a full carrot in the ground because my dad had put it there while I was asleep to surprise me. I was like 5 so I believed it. 😂 © _The_Magpie_ / Reddit

• When I asked what SPAM was, they told me they were boneless animals that lived in the rainforest, which is what made it easy to can them. They also added that their fur was rough and that scientists discovered them because they kept getting stuck to their socks, and that this led to the invention of Velcro. I believed it until high school biology when we talked about vertebrates and the teacher said there are no boneless mammals and I was like, “Oh yeah?!” I raised my hand and thankfully it dawned on me that the whole thing was a lie before she called on me. © pentatomid_fan / Reddit

• I used to hate eating roasted chicken for some reason when I was a toddler. To get me to eat it, they used my fascination with dinosaurs and told me that I was instead eating Pterodactyl that my grandfather had hunted in the hills of Pennsylvania. © malagrond / Reddit

What were some of the craziest lies your parents told you?

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