Remember the complete and utter trust you had as a child? Growing up, I believed everything and anything that came out of my parents' mouths to be true. Whether it be to protect us, to fuel our imagination or simply to appease the nuisance we all once were, looking back at what my parents used to tell me, I realized how much of it was just a flat out lie.
When I was young, my family always took 22-hour road trips to Florida. About every five minutes or so, one of my siblings or I would ask, "Are we there yet?" The answer to this question was always "Almost!" even if we were a solid 18 hours away.
In those 22 hours of driving, saying we were almost there wasn't the only lie we believed. We'd make faces at each other simply to entertain ourselves in the backseats of the minivan, which I'm sure irritated our parents. Our faces quickly fell back to normal when they swore if we held our faces like that too long, "it will get stuck that way." We truly believed our noses would forever be upturned like a pig or our cheeks permanently stretched out.
Other types of lies our parents told us were probably to get us to do something we threw a tantrum about. Until about the age of 10, my diet consisted strictly of chicken, plain pasta and other bland things that were usually only yellow or beige colored. My parents always tried to get me to eat fish or some other mysterious meat by claiming "It's chicken!" When you're a kid, everything they feed you is "chicken."
Not only did they lie to encourage me to expand my palate, they lied to prevent me from eating certain things too. I remember being afraid that a tree would grow inside me if I ate the seeds from an apple. This fib scarred me to this day as I still carefully pick through fruits to avoid the seeds.
If all else failed, my mother's go-to strategy to get my siblings and me to behave was to warn us that we better do what she said by the time she counted to three "or else." As a kid, this scared the hell out of me. Never would I ever let her reach three. After using this trick myself as a camp counselor, I realized there was nothing "else." Nothing happened after three, but I was petrified of the possibility.
The most creative lies our parents have told us — and the most difficult to accept as myths — included pretty much any magical creature that sneaks into your house when your sleeping: Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. All. Elaborate. Fabrications. My parents would go so far as to leave cotton on the chimney as if it were from Santa's suit. But, hey, at least we got gifts out of these lies.
Some lies our parents told us were to protect us or to spare our feelings. I know of people who still believe that their childhood dog was taken to a farm where it could "happily run around the open land." R.I.P. to all the pets that ended up at the farm.
