1. “Don’t make me turn this car around!”
Your parents never turned the car around, and neither will you. Why do we bother saying this?
2. “If you don’t stop it, your face is going to freeze that way!”
Now we all know this isn’t true.
3. “If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you, too?
Did we somehow forget how annoying it was to hear jumping off a cliff being compared to wanting to go the mall with your friends?
4. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
We still don’t know how many parts of “no” there are, but we say it any way.
5. “Because I said so.”
We promised ourselves we’d never give this half-assed answer, but that was before all of the “whys.” So many “whys.”
6. “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll do as I say!”
Remember how hard you rolled your eyes when your Dad said this? That’s how hard our kids are rolling theirs.
7. “When I was your age, we didn’t have all these crazy toys.”
Once you say this, it won’t be long before you’re talking about walking to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.
8. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
We put the emphasis on “times” just like our parents did, too.
9. “Close the door. You weren’t raised in a barn!”
I never understood this one. Don’t most barns have doors?
10. “I have had it up to here with you!”
Had what up to where? Does anyone even know?
11. “Just wait until your father/mother gets home.”
I wonder if when our parents said, this they really meant they were over it. Because that’s what we mean.
12. “I hope that someday, you have children just like you.”
This is a pretty passive aggressive thing to say to a kid, and yet here we are.
13. “There are starving children in the world!”
Really? After all this time, we couldn’t think of a better way to get our kids to finish their food?
14. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
We know this is B.S. as much as our parents did, but it’s a lot easier to say than to change ourselves for the better.
15. “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it!”
“Sure, you will,” says your kid (which sounds eerily familiar, because you retorted the same thing when you were their age).
16. “I will give you something to cry about!”
“Ha, ha, ha!” — your parents overhearing you say all of this stuff.
17. “Some day, when you’re older, you’ll understand.”
And if they don’t, well, they’ll probably have forgotten all about it by then.
