Strollerderby

14 Lies Parents Need to Stop Telling Their Kids (Part 1)

Posted by Cole Gamble
 

You have the eat vegetables because big kids eat their vegetables. 

 

If you've ever told your kid they couldn't leave the table until they finish their carrots while you ate ice cream straight from the carton, don't worry. You are not a hypocrite; you're just every other mom or dad in the world.   

You are the prettiest girl/most handsome boy in the world

Can't be true.  The law of averages makes it mathematically impossible.  Are they very handsome and pretty?  Sure, why not.  But yours can't be the most handsome or pretty.  Mine are. 

Go to bed or I'll call the police

No wonder kids grow up to become adults with big problems with authority. Personally I never had the cops take me away as a kid (because I went to bed). But when it came time for me to call the cops on my kids, guess what? They didn’t come. CPS did though.  

The cat “ran away”

No cat ever runs away, unless you mean running away to kitty heaven. This is a lie you can almost justify in your head because it sounds so close to the truth. “Ran away”…“ran over,” almost the same thing.

 

Santa, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy

The big three. The Legion of Doom. Yes, these on the face are sweet pillars of youth and magic, but take a moment to examine what you are really telling your child when you pass on their legends:             

Santa

Breaks into your house, eats all your food and maybe leaves you some tainted toys from China. And that's if he deems you as “good.” If not he leaves you coal (which with today's fuel prices might not be the worst gift). And how does he know whether you are good or not? He's been watching you. He's always got his eyes on you. You know who else watches you all the time and decides whether you are good or not? Buffalo Bill. If you get a stocking full of skin lotion, I’d move.            

Easter Bunny

So there is this bunny. No, not a normal sized bunny. A seven foot tall bunny. A bunny who could dunk on Shaq. Anyway, this is an anthropomorphized bunny.  He can talk and stuff, although all he wants to talk about is marshmallow. Not that you'll be able to pay attention to what he's saying, you'll be fixated on those six inch incisors and asking yourself, “what exactly does a giant bunny you have to do with this holiday?”            

Tooth Fairy

Oh how these three love breaking and entering. This time a tweaked-out lady wants your teeth. Why does she want your teeth? What is she doing with all those teeth?  Making human jewelry? Here's another thing to consider, what happens if TF shows up to a kid's house to find there is no tooth and she made a mistake?  She doesn't just toddle off. This lady has gotten a jonesin' for teeth and she needs a fix. That's why she carries around a set of brass knuckles. Sweet dreams, kids.

Click here for part 2

More by this author: The 26 Most Disturbing Kids Movies Ever

Baby Cages: The 5 Baby Products that Should be Illegal

5 Ways to Not Go Broke (with Kids)  

 

Invisible Fence for Your Child 

 

7 Ways to Make Your Baby to Sleep Tonight

+ DIGG + STUMBLE

Comments

 

Dad said:

The police? Really? Do any parents actually stoop to this level? I know my DAUGHTER has threatened to call the police on us when we don't let her eat candy in the morning.

July 15, 2008 3:07 PM
 

Niobe said:

I can think of a bigger one than Santa, Cole.

July 15, 2008 3:55 PM
 

Cole Gamble said:

Who would that be, Niobe?

July 15, 2008 4:05 PM
 

K said:

Bad: Omniscient guy at the north pole in a red suit who rewards you if you're good and punishes you if you're bad.

Good: Omniscient guy in the sky with a long beard who rewards you if you're good and punishes you if you're bad.

I'm sorry, that last compare/contrast was not PC. Remember, only things you don't believe in are bad to teach your kids. That's the important part.

July 15, 2008 4:20 PM
 

akapluto said:

umm you forgot about "GOD", the biggest/most destructive mythical figure since the sandman...

July 16, 2008 10:42 AM
 

Billy said:

Sorry, akapluto, but you are TOTALLY WRONG!  If it were not for God in the first place you wouldn't be here (which may not be a bad thing now that I think about it) and there would be no kids!

July 16, 2008 3:37 PM
 

mombo said:

When I worked in retail as a youth, I heard parents frequently say things like, "Stop crying or that lady [me] is going to yell at you." I was always like, "Um, no I'm not, because that's not part of my job..."

I really dislike parents who constantly either want someone else to be the bad cop or NEED someone else to be the bad cop.

July 16, 2008 4:30 PM
 

Sam said:

We will be praying for you, akapluto....may God have mercy on your soul!!

July 16, 2008 4:33 PM
 

J said:

Only if you actually believe in a 'god', which nowadays many have moved on from this fantasy.  Of course there would be children without 'god'.

July 16, 2008 4:40 PM
 

Sydney said:

I'm with ya "akapluto"!!!

July 16, 2008 4:52 PM
 

adh said:

LOL!  The part about the cat running away does happen!  I remember a number of summers ago my sister had seen our kitten several blocks away, while riding the school bus, and that was the last that cat was ever seen.

Our othr cats have gotten trapped in neighbors garages, or elsewhere and have come back after awhile, although recently our one neighbor's year old cat suddenly disappeared, presumably he either ran away, was taken in by someone else, taken to Angels For Animals, or most likely died somewhere else.

July 16, 2008 5:33 PM
 

AuntB said:

1) It wasn't until I was seventeen that I realised that my pet mouse wasn't released into the country because he was lonely while my family was away on vacation when I was six... I was a pretty gullible kid, I guess, and while I was reminiscing with my family about him it suddenly hit me.  He died.

2)My grandmother used to tell a story about a lady friend of hers who used to tell her son he had to eat his veggies to grow big and strong.  In the midst of a fight, in a crowded restaurant, the frazzled lady called over a HUGE policeman who was standing nearby and asked him to tell her son what she wanted him to hear.  The policeman's response: "Want to grow up big like me?  Well, I NEVER ate my vegetables.  I hate them!"

July 20, 2008 2:45 PM
 

Former try-harder said:

You forgot one: the lie that goes "Don't worry about fitting in or attending your peers' parties.  Just stay home, do your homework, try real hard in school, and you'll be having the last laugh someday when you get a big paying job...you can be an astronaut! A doctor! A lawyer! A banker!  You'll be laughing in the end, while your popular classmates will be fat and working for min wage at a gas station!"

NOT TRUE.  The "geeks" tend to be the ones that cannot find a decent job due to their lack of charisma, social skills, and (most importantly) networking.  This leaves them with no choice but to work "min wage jobs" like at gas stations or grocery stores as they desperately try hard to apply to better jobs.  I've seen this happen with one of my best friends and also with myself.  My best friend was a nerd in school, behaved and went to college to please his parents, and today he is a 27-yr-old bitter virgin college grad struggling to support himself working at a grocery store and whatever file room/customer service temp job will hire him.  He jobsearches like crazy but to no avail.  These days, unfortunately it takes more than good grades or "trying real hard" to get a job...you must compete against a pool of applicants that not only have good grades but also have social skills and likeable "cool" personalities as well.  I think parents tell their kids this lie just to get them to do their homework, since doing so will make the parents look like better parents.  It's also less work to keep an eye on your kids if they're doing homework on a Saturday night as opposed to staying out late and perhaps getting into potentially dangerous/unfavorable activities.

July 21, 2008 11:56 AM
 

Former try-harder said:

Oh yeah one other lie that my parents told me that's similar to what AuntB already said: "Drink your milk if you want to grow breasts!"  I hated the taste of milk but my mom made us drink it.  When my mom said this, I was already secretly self-conscious of being less developed than most other girls in my grade.  My mom's saying resulted in me obsessively eating lots of yogurt and dairy products throughout my teen years.  I grew up to be 5'7" with disproportionately tiny A cups.  Shows how much truth was in THAT.

July 21, 2008 12:02 PM
 

Former try-harder said:

Dad said: "The police? Really? Do any parents actually stoop to this level? I know my DAUGHTER has threatened to call the police on us when we don't let her eat candy in the morning."

Yes Dad, some parents actually do this.  Heck, my parents threatened this when I was TWENTY ONE, after I tried to use their house phone(my cell phone was malfunctioning at the time) to call my friend past 9pm!  Yes it was a bluff.  But unfortunately parents are not the only ones that threatened me with this...seems that a LOT of peers/bullies also used this line, probably because I was known as an arrest-free goody two shoes, so it was an easy way to get me to 'bug off'.

July 21, 2008 12:08 PM

About Cole Gamble

Cole Gamble’s writings on the crimes of Willy Wonka, man-eating beds and tales from his cringe-worthy life appear here on Babble, the humor site Cracked, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post and Salon. He is working on a book entitled, Conquer Everything! A Self Help Book to Destroy All Other Self Help Books and Grant You Mastery in Everything.

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