20 Innocent Lies That Got Parents Some Peace but Probably Need an Explanation Now

It’s not always easy to get a small kid to behave — it’s common for them to refuse to eat their veggies or fight sitting quietly for a bit. Some parents battle this with some tiny white lies to help them go about their days in an easier way. After all, we were all told that the “bad man” would come if we didn’t want to go to bed, but some parents got even more creative than that.

• My parents said that if we jumped while on a plane, the plane would keep going and we would go flying backward and slam into the rear wall. It worked for years and kept us sitting quietly in planes until my older brother made me try to jump. bigredfaithful / Reddit
• My mom had her 6 kids trained to only buy things that were on sale. I believed that if an item wasn’t “on-sale” it wasn’t “for sale.” jacksonjeep / Reddit
• Parachutes are formed by keeping backpacks closed for a long enough period of time. If it as opened, it would disrupt the process, like a caterpillar’s cocoon being prematurely opened. I waited for 4 months. I guarded that backpack with my life and screamed at anyone who ALMOST opened it. I found out that my dad was not to be trusted on all matters parachute when I jumped off a playset with my finely aged backpack. iaiftw / Reddit
• My mom showed the video of me being born in reverse and said that that’s what happens to children who misbehave. lawlsquid / Reddit
• When I was little, my mom told me that boogers were tiny pieces of my brain and I would get dumber and dumber each time I picked them. Cats_are_just_ok / Reddit

• There was a factory near my home that gave off this billowy white smoke. My mom told me it was the cloud factory. Weeks later, I asked her, “Is Sunday called Sunday because the cloud factory is closed?” iammucow / Reddit
• My friend’s mother told him that he was allergic to Coca-Cola from a very young age. He didn’t try it until he was in his late teens... The_Weakend / Reddit
• The street lights were there to tell kids all around the world that it was time to go inside when they lit up. PeteRusso / Reddit
• My husband was sticking his hand out the window, and I told him not to do that because the cars coming the other way on the road would cut it off. He told me I was ridiculous because there was no way another car would come that close. It was only then I realized my parents had been lying to me. JosiePye / Reddit
• That if I ate spinach I would be as strong as Popeye. I would then eat it, try to lift the table, and it would lift almost a foot and a half into the air! They were lifting the table up with their knees. I still love spinach to this day some 20 years later. letsbooboo / Reddit
  

• When the ice cream van plays music, it’s to let everyone know they’ve run out. SimonsRusbridge / Twitter
• The cashier forgot to put your candy in the bag! Time after time...ugh. Totesmcgotes702 / Reddit
• Do you know those big hair-dryer contraption things that women sit under at some salons? My father told us that if we misbehaved while he was getting his hair cut, he’d stick us under one of those things and it’d shrink our heads. According to him, we sat pretty still and quiet. two_bit_trevi / Reddit
• They told me that if I whistled inside, the house would burn down. gunnLX / Reddit
• If I didn’t stop biting my nails, they would get infected and I would have to get tiny needles in my fingers. I hated needles. Still do. squidwillis / Reddit

• The Infrared motion detectors for the home alarm system are “Santa’s cameras,” xawul / Twitter
• I grew up with “the TV doesn’t work between breakfast and dinner” until I was left alone for a bit in the pm. It backfired on me tho; it’s always on now. jfs211 / Twitter
• My mom would always tell me that a blue dot would appear on my forehead when I was lying. She called it the “mommy dot.” There was no clever trick to it though; I was just a terrible liar as a child. katmaniac / Reddit
• My mother told me that there were spiders the size of my head in the basement to keep me from going down there. To keep the act up whenever she had to go down there, she always made lots of weird scary noises and came running back up disheveled and out of breath. I am still wary of unfinished basements to this day. kaptspshsh / Reddit
• My friend babysits some kids till their parents get home from work in the evenings. The mom has convinced them to do their after-school reading by telling them she can see what they’re doing on Google Earth so she’ll know if they don’t do it. Yuber20 / Reddit