Lies, Lies!!

We were all lied to as children, whether it was Santa Claus or that if we didn't eat our veggies we would never grow. As a parent I am discovering that sometimes there just isn't an easy explanation for some questions.

One lie I remember my mom trying to pass off on me was that Neon Tetras (freshwater aquarium fish) were handpainted to be so bright. She refused to buy any for our tank so as not to support this animal abuse. I was about 7 years old and just could not buy the visual of someone painting live fish...

Focus: Tell us about any fictions your parents tried to pass off.

Alt Focus: Do you lie to your kids? About what?

 

So your mother was a Cheap Trick fan?

 

My mom told me that there was this place known as the "Bad Boy School" that would come and snatch up troubled, mischeivous young boys who misbehaved and be sent away. She actually would pretend to call them up on the phone whenever I threw a fit or had a type of tantrum. At that age, of course I believed her. I was terrified. Not cool to pull that type of shit parent's, not cool at all.

 

Ah yes the fake phone calls, always a clutch move by any parent. I had actually forgotten about them, though I feel my children may call that bluff as they like the phone and will likely ask to talk to them as well.

When we were first going to have a kid, since I'm a picky eater my wife asked what I would inevitably say to my children when they pull the "Why do I have to eat it and daddy doesn't?"

Simple reply - "Daddy's allergic" (don't want them to turn out picky like me, I miss out on good foods but just cannot eat them.)

Her reply "You can't just lie to your kids"

I proceeded to laugh my ass off.....now that the boys are 4 and 2 she has learned that lies are an integral part of parenting....unfortunately she not great at it, the 4 year old busted her the other day...ha ha her mess I made her clean it up.

 

Focus: Tell us about any fictions your parents tried to pass off.

My parents made me go to sunday school every week and occasionally church when I was a kid.

 

I did when they were younger, and about a lot of things, but most significantly, about my drug use. They never suspected I used, never found any of my stashes, but asked if I ever did drugs growing up, or in college and of course I lied and told them no. When I got clean, I came clean with them, told them my history with alcohol and drug abuse (including some, but not all, of the sordid deeds and details) so they could see what kind of impact substance abuse can have on a person. Having nearly lost their father as a result of addiction, they're very aware of the negative consequences that can result from substance abuse. I just hope that awareness doesn't wane in the ensuing years.

Oh, and I still tell them their mother is the only woman I've ever slept with.

 

My mother is a saint, and I love her dearly. However, she has this evil, angry streak in her. Whenever she would get fed up with me or my sister, she would sit us down and very seriously explain that our actions were slowly killing her, and because of that, she needed to leave. She would go so far as to set off the car alarm, and when the horn honked tell us "That's my ride. I'm going now, unless you can act more appropriately."

I fell for that until I was about 8. I was a gulliable child.

 

My parents made a point to lie as little as possible. They never did fake phone calls, or bluffed about any punishment, they just got mad if/when we misbehaved. In fact, all my mom had to say was, "I'm going to count to 3," and I'd jump 'cause she counted fast and there were freakin' consequences, man. It was no hesitation: "onetwothree!"

The only lie I ever caught my parents in was about football. At 8 years old, we went to visit some of their friends an hour or two away. I played with the friends' son all day and found out he played pop-warner football. My parents had always told me that there were no football leagues for kids my age. I spent the rest of the day pleading with them to get me into pop-warner football. They just smiled and said, "We'll look into it."

Of course they never did. And I was a space-case, so I forgot about it. Except maybe once a year I'd suddenly remember and beg them to sign me up again and they'd always say, "We'll look into it."

Occasionally, I bring it up now that I'm an adult, the one lie my parents told. And my mom says, "Over my dead body, you were going to play football!"

 

Orgasms. Bear with me here. I was a super curious kid. I heard someone at school at like age 6 or 7 say that word. I had no idea even what the context of it was. But new word and my mom kept a pretty open door policy and wanted me to always ask her questions before anyone else. So I went home and asked:

'Mah. What does the word orgasm means?'

Now mind you, I have never seen a black woman blush before and my mom is high yella (ask your black friends or your lynch buddies what that means) so she turned a weird pinkish color. As a single parent her word was law and she never stumbled over her words or decisions.

(stammering) "Uh, um. Uh. Uh. Uh. Well, its an exchange of fluids between a man and a woman"

"Wait, like spit? Who wants to exchange fluids with a woman? Why would they do that? I mean who starts it? Do I walk up to a girl and say "Hey, do you want an orgasm?""

All she'd say was "It is between a man and his wife and the two exchange fluids."

No more explanation. So on a visit I asked my dad what it meant. That was the first time I saw Playboy and got a thorough, wide-eye producing explanation of the term from my father.

 

Not a lie, but perhaps some odd lesson.

I used to be convinced that I lost things all the time. I would of course as a child mis-place a toy, and then find it later.

However my mother reinforced this. I couldn't be trusted with anything important. If we were on a school trip, the teacher would hold my wallet with money, so if I wanted to buy a trinket, I would have to try and hunt them down, and usually they were off doing teacher shit, so I couldn't buy shit like my friends.

Even with my parents, I could never have more than 5 dollars, as I would lose it they told me.

Think was, I had never lost anything before. Never had lost money, or a wallet. Nothing. I have a memory that allows me to step back, and remember where I put things, and have always been careful. However my mom had convinced me that I couldn't keep track of anything, and so I was paranoid about ever having anything valuable on me. I can't even wear my wedding ring without fear of losing it.

It finally changed when she had everything important for my in her purse. A copy of my birth certificate, my Dependent's ID, my Social Security card. Everything, and she lost her purse. I started giving her so much crap that from then on, I was able to keep everything on me. And to this day, the only thing I have ever lost was my DL when drunk.

 

I was told that you needed to register for hockey when you were five, and because I was seven I'd have no chance and would have to settle for soccer.


I'm still bitter fifteen years later I didn't get to play hockey (though I'm in a ball hockey league now)

 

In my town, there is actually a school for delinquent girls. My mother would always threaten to take me there if I didn't behave. I don't remember what I did, but once she actually went so far as to put me in the car and drive up to the school.


My father also used to tell us that we have to beep the horn every time we go under a bridge, otherwise the trolls will jump on the car and take us away forever. It was a harmless game, but I still get the shivers every time I go under a bridge in my car.

 

My aunt and uncle used to live a block from the Oak Park Heights, MN state prison (I'm pretty sure its maximum secruity). If I was bad when we were swimming at my aunt and uncle's, my parents would drive by there, and start pulling in saying they were going to drop me off. I would freak the fuck out, start crying, and plead them to keep me if I acted better.

My friends and I used to play ditch in my neighborhood until I was about 10. My parents used to lie and tell me that if I was out past 9 pm that the police would come and take me away. So of course, my dad got one of his cop buddies to drive down the street flashing his lights at 9:30. They even started pushing me back to the street to get picked up when I was 2 minutes late. Funny, I never put two and two together when the guy was over two nights later having a beer with my Dad.

Wow, they were assholes sometimes.

 

I lived next town over from a Boy's Village for troubled kids. She would threaten me and my brother to drop us off. The worst was when I was around 8 she pulled in the parking lot and made us get out of the car. I remember breaking down crying because of that.

 

Here's a doozy: My parents told me that when a child lies to their parents, a red light appears in their eyes giving it away. They milked this for about as long as I believed in Santa Claus.

Assholes.

Another (and this one works hilariously): My dad said there was a species of animal known as a "Drop Snake". It's called that because it lives in trees and will jump on unsuspecting pedestrians (no human, of course, has ever seen one). The prank was: when we would be walking on a sidewalk that had trees shrouding it, when I wasn't looking my dad would reach up and grab a low hanging branch then violently shake it and yell "DROP SNAKE!!!!!" and scare the piss out of me every single time.

I loved that one. The shake-scare part (not the mythology) even works great on adults to this day, especially women.

 

Focus:
When my parents divorced, my mom would tell me that my dad only wanted custody of me to get back at her; and of course my dad told me the same about her. That went on for years in its various forms.

It was a nice childhood, thanks mom and dad.

Alt-Focus:
Maybe this reveals my naivety as a non-parent, but I hope to lie to my children as little as possible. Maybe I'm an exception but as a kid I could always tell when adults were bullshitting me, and it was infuriating to have enough mental faculties to notice this but not enough to understand the motive behind it (or the truth they were hiding). Again, I'm sure parents will laugh at me for thinking this, but I think it is easier to appeal to a child's eagerness to please, curiosity, and impressionable nature than to rely on their gullibility.

 

Focus: If you masturbate, you'll go blind, then to hell.
Luckily I found out there is no hell.

Seriously though, I have been pissed at my mom for this huge lie: If you don't save your virginity for marriage, you will go to hell. She told me as soon as I knew what sex was that she was a virgin when she got married, and I believed her.
About 10 years after she died, I was drinking with my dad (who I know for a fact started fucking girls as soon as his dick started working), and I asked him if she saved it for marriage, and he laughed in my face. He told me that when he met her, she was fucking some other guy, and he stole her from him.

The reason I'm pissed about it: my mom was extremely protective to me about anything sexual. There were a LOT of movies I coudn't watch and music I couldn't listen to when I was growing up. I guess you would just expect that from the daughter of an ordained minister, but I was just livid when I found out about her past.

There is no way in hell that lie (saving it for marriage) would work on my son, since his mom and I were never married.

I don't know how I'm going to explain to him the whole lie that is Christianity (or any other religion); his grandmother on his mom's side has been forcing him to go to church and get his communion/confirmation (despite the resistance of his mother and I [one of the only things we can agree on]). He has asked me a few times if I believe in God, and I lied to his face and told him yes, because I didn't want to explain why I don't.

 

It wasn't explicity, but my parents certainly implied that my father was heterosexual.