We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us which lies their parents told them as kids that they actually believed until adulthood. Here are the hilarious results.
1. "My mom didn't want us to eat food in bed, so she told us that if we ate while lying down we'd turn into snakes."
2. "My parents didn't want us eating too many sweets, so they convinced us that ice was dessert. Ice! Smh."
3. "My mom was mad that I didn't wash my hands after playing with Play-Doh, so she told me I was going to die the next day. She even took me to the mall and bought me Mary Jane shoes and said 'these are the shoes you will wear tomorrow when you are dead.'"
4. "My best friend growing up didn’t like beef, but she loved chicken, so her mom would make beef and call it 'brown chicken.' It was her favorite, and to my knowledge she never discovered the secret."
5. "My parents told me that I couldn't play outside after dark because bats would try to grab my hair."
6. "My mom lied to me and said if the ice cream truck played music, they were actually out of ice cream."
7. "My mom told me that if I fell asleep with headphones in, my ears would explode."
8. "My mom used to tell us that she knew when my brothers and I were lying by looking at our tongues because purple spots would appear that only grown-ups could see."
9. "When I was a kid I accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed, so my mom said a watermelon was going to grow inside me. I believed her for years."
10. "My mom told me it was illegal to see a movie at the movie theater more than once."
11. "I guess I liked playing with the light switch as a kid because my parents lied and said that flicking the lights on and off would signal for help and the police would show up at our house."
12. "My parents used to tell us they were going to take us back to the kids store when we misbehaved. They even pointed to a random warehouse and said 'that's the kids store' when we were driving home so we knew it was a real place."
13. "My mom told us we'd get canker sores if we didn't eat enough vegetables. I didn't know she was lying until I was in college."
14. "When I was little, my dad said eggnog was made out of eggs and chicken brains (hence the nog). He tried to gross me out so he wouldn't have to buy it."
15. "My father told me that leaves didn’t fall off the trees... They jumped to avoid squirrels."
16. "My parents told me that looking at the microwave while it was on would make me go colorblind."
17. "My dad told me that the hazard lights button in the car was actually an eject button, and if I pushed it the seat would shoot me out of the car."
18. "My dad told me it was illegal to move the air vents in the car. I believed him until I started driving."
19. "My dad told me that crust was the healthiest part of the bread. I always thought my classmates were weak for eating Uncrustables. I believed this until high school."
20. "I was devastated I could never get my face painted at my school’s summer social because I was allergic to face paint. Turns out my mom just didn’t want to wash it off. I didn’t figure it out until well into adulthood."
21. "My dad used to tell my sister and me that there were hidden cameras in the house so he'd know if we did anything bad while our parents were out. We used to look around for hours for those nonexistent hidden cameras!"
22. "My mom told me it was against the law not to have a pillowcase on your pillow. When I confronted her about it years later, she simply responded, 'Well, it’s against my law.'"
23. "My parents told me that chicken grew from the ground so I wouldn’t think that we actually killed and cooked live chickens."
24. "When I was about 7 or 8, my dad told me that pastrami was giraffe meat. I totally believed it until I was in my twenties."
25. "My mom told us there was a Christmas elf named Jerry that watched my brothers and me year-round to report back to Santa. Every time we started acting out, she’d point at the window or door and say, 'Uh-oh! I just saw Jerry looking in here at you!'"
26. "My mom told me that mice controlled street lights and were responsible for changing them to the next color. Whenever we stopped at a red light, she'd say, 'Let's go, little mice. Turn the light green for me.'"
27. And "my friend's mom told her there was a Booger Fairy and you had to leave a booger under your pillow every night for her to collect. If you didn’t, the Booger Fairy would take a knife from your kitchen, cut off your nose, and leave a note explaining why there was a huge bloody wound on your nose. When my friend told me this, I spit out my drink."
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.