Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed community about times their parents or guardians told them things that later turned out to be a fat lie. Here are some of the best responses!
1. "I once found a tube of lube on my mom's dresser and asked her what it was. She told me it was cherry chapstick and then rubbed it on her lips."
"I was like 12 and read the label afterwards 😂."
2. "My mother told me that energy drinks kill your eggs so you can't have babies."
3. "My mother told me if I made an 'ugly' face, the wind would change and I'd get stuck that way forever."
"Joke's on her because I said 'is that what happened to you?'"
4. "My aunt and her friends told me their cigarettes smelled funny because they were American cigarettes, but it was weed – they were smoking weed 💀."
5. "There was a deer farm a couple of miles from my house in rural Wisconsin. Knowing that I was an animal lover, my parents told me that the farm raised deer for their antlers for medicinal purposes – that soothed my young little heart."
"Fast forward to myself at 16, I decide to take a new route on my way to work and I go past the farm. Out by the road is the sign 'venison for sale'. I arrived at work and immediately called my mom. I told her, 'you lied to me'. After a brief pause, my mother responds with, 'you still believed that!?'"
6. "My parents told me that policemen know about ~everything~ you do, and that if one ever came to speak to me, I was in BIG trouble."
"I ended up becoming really scared of the police. I had a weird moment a couple of years ago when a policeman knocked at my door and I instantly thought, 'fuck, what have I done?' I then realised I'd done nothing, and the officer was looking for a missing kid."
7. "Looking into a microwave while your food cooks will make you throw up."
8. "When the bell from an ice-cream truck is ringing it's because all the ice cream is sold out."
9. "When I was really little, my uncle grew a moustache. He shaved it when I was about 4, and when I saw him for the first time without it I asked him where it was. He told me he washed it off!"
"I believed that facial hair could be washed off for years after this 😂. I still give my uncle a hard time about it now 25 years later."
10. "The cracks in sidewalks were from when the dinosaurs were around."
11. "Whenever my mom went Christmas shopping for me, she would tell me she was going to the lamp store so I wouldn't want to go with her. She used this excuse for years, and finally told me when I was older."
"I should've known, she never actually bought a lamp when she went to the lamp store!"
12. "My mother used to tell us that Santa knew if we were bad because he was watching us through the light in the smoke detectors."
13. "My mom has a fear of water. Whenever we went to the beach on vacation, she would tell me that if you go in the ocean past your knees, the waves will take you out to sea, and I believed it!"
"Fast forward to senior week, I went to the beach with my friends and they all went in the ocean way past their knees. I started freaking out that they were going to be swept away, but they promptly showed me that swimming in the ocean is not an automatic death sentence."
14. "If I popped the pimples on my nose I would get gangrene, my nose would fall off, and I'd end up looking like Michael Jackson!"
15. "When I was a kid, my parents always told me and my brother to never go home with strangers or take candies from them because they were trying to kidnap us and feed us to lions or tigers or something."
"I'm glad they made that up because we were so afraid of being eaten by wild animals that we took strangers very seriously and never went home with anyone. I'm still careful to go home with guys I just met!"
16. "That Toys 'R' Us required a membership like Costco."
"Sorry kids, we don't have a membership."
17. "My gran used to tell me that if I was telling a lie, a red line would appear on my tongue."
"It worked really well because I was perfectly willing to show her my tongue when I was being honest, but if I refused or was hesitant, it was fairly obvious that I was lying! It took me ages to catch on that it wasn't true."
18. "My mom told us if we swallowed our gum, our butt cheeks would stick together."
19. "My mom told me as a kid that I don't like pickles so she could always have my pickle at restaurants."
"Years later, at college, someone brought in food one day and I was given a pickle and I thought, 'I know I hate these, but everyone says they are so good, I'm gonna try one'. Turns out I love them! My mom later admitted that I never actually disliked them, she just wanted my pickle one time and said it. She would've kept the ruse going on for years!"
20. "My parents told me if I slept with tights on my legs, they would come off, wrap around my neck, and strangle me."
"It took me years to realise how dumb that was!"
21. "I used to be scared of spiders as a kid, and if there was one in my bedroom at night, my dad would tell me not to worry because they don't move in the dark."
"I always wondered how they were in a different place when I woke up, but I still believed him."
22. "My dad told me that crossing ladies wore nappies and I had no reason not to believe him."
"I wondered how they went to the toilet because they had to help kids cross the road all day."
23. "My parents always referred to the cardboard tube inside of paper products as the 'doo-doo tube'. Likewise, our family had a habit of saving the tube for crafts. Later on, I remember asking my sister-in-law and my soon-to-be husband if they save the doo-doo tube."
"Confused, she asked why I called it that, and I responded by putting the tube to my mouth and going 'doo-doo-doo'. Turns out, doo-doo tubes are just a thing in my family, not an everyone thing!"
24. "My cousins lived in a Mormon area, and my uncle told them that Mormons shot lasers out of their eyes to stop them from answering the door."
25. "My dad would take my brother and I out fishing a lot. He would always tell me that if I talked it would scare the fish away – he was definitely just trying to get me to shut up!"
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.