Parents and other family members always want their children to grow up as wise and generally good human beings. Well, if there’s one thing we know about parenthood — raising kids is no easy task. That’s why moms and dads have to get a bit creative to push them in the right direction, and, sometimes, that involves stretching the truth and saying innocent white lies.
Kids will believe pretty much everything they’re told. So a few months ago, user AfterIsIsIsIsIsWas decided to find out what silly things people thought were real when they were younger. When they asked fellow Redditors, "What were the dumbest lies you believed when you were a kid?" thousands of people chimed in.
Bored Panda has selected some of the best answers from this thread to make up a hilariously relatable collection of childhood myths that some people believed a bit too long. Continue reading, upvote the ones you enjoyed most, and share your own stories in the comments!
#1
Lost my stuffed animal (a white dog) in the airport in Miami when I was 5. It was my favorite and I was really sad about it. A few weeks later my mom presented me with a brown dog that otherwise looked exactly like the white one I’d lost. She said the workers at the airport had found it and mailed it to us, but he got a tan because he was in Florida. Bought it hook line and sinker for a few years. Tan dog is now my son’s and he’s a big fan :)
Image credits: thallomys
#2
I could not understand how all the deaths scenes in war movies seemed so realistic. So, I asked one of my older brothers how they did it. He proceeded to tell me that they empty out state prisons in the area the movie is being made, dress them up and give them guns and tell them that if they survive the filming then they get to leave jail after. I was told that at around 7 and I believed it till I was around 10.
Image credits: DocBak1
#3
If you swallowed the black watermelon seeds a watermelon would grow in your belly.
Image credits: Kitchen-Commission47
#4
When I was a kid I asked my dad if reading enough books really could give you Telekinesis... (Matilda)He said yes. I spent many years after that thinking I just wasn't doing enough.
Image credits: seeyouinthesun
#5
That adults know what they're doing.#6
When I was a kid my dad told me it cost 25 cents to change the radio station to keep me from f*cking with the radio in his car. I believed that until I was 14.
Image credits: loipoikoi
#7
The button on your armrest on airplanes is the eject button.I found out it reclines your seat embarrassingly late.
Image credits: Nrd4Life
#8
The ice cream van played music to let everyone know he was out of ice cream.
Image credits: Coza1990
#9
My older brother pranked me once. I had watched a kids' TV show (I think it was "The Electric Company") that featured a guest star who was a tap dancer.My brother convinced me that tap dancers made their tapping sounds -- not with their feet -- but with their mouths.
I spent the next several weeks trying to tap dance with my mouth noises before my mom made me quit.
Image credits: Hysterical_Realist
#10
My sister told me that if you count all the stones of Stonehenge you will die. I still don't know how many stones there are in Stonehenge.
Image credits: Sardonnicus
#11
That our entire house was covered by cork-sized security cameras and that my parents could see my every move.
Image credits: exeL4n
#12
My grandmother told me that pinching gave cancer. I got pinched once at recess and yelled at the person because I thought they were going to give me cancer.
Image credits: ivumb
#13
Eating too much sugar will glue my a*s cheeks together.thanks mom
Image credits: Quit_Naive
#14
ATM gives free money.
Image credits: Phyromanic
#15
That women's periods stop in water to avoid sharks smelling it.
Image credits: Hullaba-Loo
#16
That the hazard button in a car would blow the car up.
Image credits: -sstudderz
#17
As a kid I had a strangulated hernia, which left me with one testicle. My dad told me if I ever had kids they would be all boys or all girls cos each testicle is for each sex. Believed it for years.
Image credits: rev667
#18
You know how Barbie feet are on tippy toes so they are shaped to fit into a high heel shoe? Well when I was a kid, I thought that when girls grew up into women that their feet would be shaped like that. Despite the fact that I lived in a house with 4 grown women, none of whom had Barbie feet.#19
I was told by my dad, when I was around 8-9, that 'The people at the sewerage plant have been examining your poop, and need you to eat more fiber'.
Image credits: cowtownman75
#20
That the draining sound of the water in the bathtub was a monster that would suck you in as well. A lie made to get me out of the bath.
Image credits: Roefl
#21
I was 7 years old. One of my teachers wanted us to write a letter to a family member or friend or someone. I wrote the letter. Got the envelope. Got the stamp. My mom had worked at the county jail at the time and she suggested I write one of the inmates who never got mail. So I did. I wrote something along the lines of "I'm sorry you're arrested but I hope you get out." I even signed it with my 7 year old signature.While I was writing the letter my mom had left to get to the store. I asked my older brother what our address was because I needed to put a return address. He said:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington DC 20500. For those that dont know, that's the address to The White House.
I wrote it on the letter and put it with the mail my mom was sending out. Mind you, I grew up in Michigan and never left the state but I wasn't smart.
Years later I went to pick my mom up from work and one of the CO's called me Mr. President and I asked why he said that. He mentioned the letter I wrote years prior and how it was a joke in the jail any time my mom mentioned me.
#22
"You won't get in trouble if you tell the truth"Bullsh*t
Image credits: throwawaypatien
#23
I once thought academic scholarships were only given to dumb students so that some of them could still attend college. I even told my older brother that he was so stupid, he had to get scholarships to go to college. He went to the Ivy League.
Image credits: mywifemademegetthis
#24
On my 5th birthday, my older sister gave me a pack of gum. It was my first time trying gum, and I swallowed it. I told my sister, and she told me that because I swallowed the gum, I would die in 7 years.I was so sad. I never told my mom, because I didn't want to make her sad. So I lived the next 7 years of my life awaiting my death.
My mom couldn't understand what my problem was on my 12th birthday. I was just sad. Finally, before bed, I told her how much I loved her and that I hoped she would miss me.
She said "What are you talking about?" I told her that I was going to die before she woke up. My sister got yelled at, and my mom assured me I would not die before the morning.
So yeah, I thought I was dying for 7 years.
#25
When I was 6 my parents told me that when you flush from an airplane toilet, the waste gets dumped mid air into the ocean. I believed that and told all my friends. Parents then told me they were joking and I became the class fool.#26
Well… My grandpa and i went to forest when i was around 12years old and one of my cousin came with us too. He was 16 that time and told me that a creature lives in the woods which has male and female genital organs, when it is night time it gets out and f*cks whatever living thing he grabs. Ofc i didn’t believe my cousin i am not that dumb but when my grandpa seconds him i cried like a little baby to go home. RIP Grandpa you crazy old f*ck.#27
That everyone in our town had some connection to my mum.She told me everyone knew who she was and was looking out, so any inappropriate behaviour, actions, etc would eventually get back to her.
I didn't do anything ever for fear her contacts would tell her.
Yes, I went crazy once I moved out of home.
Realizing I wasn’t actually being observed was too delicious, I over-did all the things I’d missed out on. I indulged in every vice.
Yes, I’m now an insecure, anxious, perfectionistic, insomniac, surprise!
#28
When I was a child, I got upset after a button came off of my shirt. My mother told me not to worry and that if I placed the button under a rock in the yard, the button fairy would replace it with a quarter.I believed it, and to my mother's dismay, she discovered I had pulled the buttons off of every shirt in my closet. To this day, 40 years later, shirt buttons can still be found under random rocks in my parents' backyard.
#29
The teachers in my school told us if you pull the fire alarm, ink shoots out on your hands that doesn't wash off for a few days so they know who pulled it. I was 26 when I found out its all a lie.#30
As a kid, I thought that girls get pregnant from kissing. Yes, 6 yo me was very smart.#31
One time I was at my dad's (parents separated) and him and a friend were hanging outside sipping beers and smoking cigarettes while I was decapitating dandelions with my sweet a*s plastic ninja sword.My dad never let me have soda when I was a kid. His friend left and my dad went inside to do dishes. I saw a 7up can on the deck table and sprinted towards and and took a huge swig. Turns out they had been asking and putting their cig butts in there.
I run inside and throw up and my dad goes what happened what happened?! I lied and said nothing but he figured it out.
So, he told me all the soda he buys tastes like that even if they are unopened.
I believed him for a few years til I was like 9.
#32
My father doesn’t cook almost anything, except french fries. The thing is he really makes great french fries, the best I’ve eaten.When I was around 7 or 8 he made me believe his secret ingredient was the oil he fried them in, which was made from kangaroo poop. He made it believable, because I recently heard about that coffee that the monkey-things eat then they sh*t it out.
Dad went on to explain how he owned a kangaroo farm in Australia, the kangaroos being bred for the sole purpose of sh*tting, just like this coffee. The farm had a dozen employees which would process the poop into oil, which they would proceed to send all the way to Romania, just for him to make french fries.
I don’t remember for how long I believed him.
#33
Dad told us his dried apricots were monkey ears so we wouldn’t eat them.#34
My dad told me that the reason why police officers spend so much time at donut shops is because the shop owners actually need them there to shoot the holes in the pastries to provide them with the classic donut shape.I found out this was a lie when my dad caught me trying to get behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts one time because I “wanted to see the shooting.”
#35
When my sister and I were kids, our mom lied and told us that she was a Grammy nominated and winning singer. She said that all of the trophies were in our attic, knowing that neither of us would ever go in and check for them. My sister and I bragged to all of our friends about it for years, only to discover that our mom isn't a very good singer at all... We've held this lie over her head for nearly 20 years now, so this past Christmas, we gifted her with a fake Grammy that has her name engraved and her favorite music category citing her as the winner of it. She laughed until she cried#36
I’m black and my dad is very very light skinned, like to the point where he’s actually pale. When I was probably about 5 or so I asked why he was so much brighter than my mom and he told me a bucket of white paint fell on him one day and that’s how it happened.He also had me convinced that my older sister went into a hat everyday, so I’d peer into a beanie trying to find her when I wanted to play. She was at school. I was probably like 3 when I thought she was hanging out inside a hat for a few hours everyday.
My kindergarten best friend also convinced me she used to hang out with dinosaurs and rode around on them like a horse. Aaaand another friend in 1st grade convinced me she had short hair because it retracted into her head everyday because of the sun. Those are probably the most absurd lies I can remember but I’m sure there are a million more cause I was a ridiculously gullible kid.
#37
My mother once said to me when I was about 2 years old “you have a little Indian in you” by which she meant, I have some Native American ancestry. Well my a*s had just seen The Indian in the Cupboard so I thought there was literally a tiny man that lived in my body.#38
That my father wrote the count of Monte cristo...He had started the book and loved it so much he would read a part, and then recite[retell] it to me as if he was the one who had come up with it.. When he reached the point that he was at in the book, he would say to be continued while I whined for the rest.
This lasted a week and a 1/2.
#39
I always believed the whole “they went to a farm” about dogs. I knew my boy would love running around a big paddock, meanwhile he’s laying under one :’(#40
I used to think that saliva or mouth taste (something like that, I’m not sure) would transfer through the water of water fountains.I was young, in 1st or 2nd grade, so whenever I’d go to get a drink I’d let it run for a few seconds before I actually drank anything. Especially when a kid I disliked drank before me.
Funniest part is, if my crush at the time had just taken a drink from the fountain before me, I’d drink right away.
I have no idea why or how I started believing this.
#41
My mom took me and my little brother Christmas shopping one time when I was four and he was three.She had to pick up a few items at a department store and we really wanted to hang out in the toys, so she said 'If you're not ready to go when i get back, I'm leaving without you.' Just a common mom warning.
After we played for a while and looked for her for about 10-15 minutes (it was really busy) I assumed she left without us. She said she would, and I believed her. I told my brother she left and we just had to walk home.
It was about 3 miles and so began our little version of 'There And Back Again.'
We were fearless, walking along Highway 66 and collecting all sorts of roadside bits like a wooden soda bottle box, a discarded muffler, an umbrella, an old shoe and various interesting rocks.
About 1/2 mile from our house my Mom found us, cut across three lanes of traffic with the car and stopped us. She ran out of the car crying and half livid.
I thought it was nice of her to come get us since we had misbehaved, but didn't know why she was so upset.
A number of people at the store parking lot and driving on the road had told her of the little kids hiking down the road with their Christmas treasure.
It was 1965.
#42
I have three that were really dumb: 1. My older brother told me that if you put your Pokémon cards in the microwave then they become real. I started a fire doing this and ruined cards that would now be worth a lot of money.My older brother told me that aliens lived in my shoes (I had the ones that would glow up when you walked). I got scared and never wore them again.
My older brother told me that if I wrote down a wish on a kite and flew it up high enough - the ink on the kite would disappear and my wish would come true. I spend hours trying to make this happen.
#43
As a kid my whole extended family would go camping and my great grandfather would bring a big a*s salt shaker for every kid. When we arrived he would pass them out to each of us and tell us “If you get salt on a squirrel’s tail it throws off the squirrels balance and he can’t climb the trees anymore, that’s how you can catch one and keep it for a pet” cue all of us running around chasing squirrels with salt shakers trying to catch one of the little f*ckers for hours while the adults got to sit around drinking uninterrupted. Never got my pet squirrel.#44
My older sister told me that brown cows made chocolate milk, and I believed that for years. She also told me that if you run over the cord of the vacuum cleaner it would electrocute you and you’d die. I think this is why I hate vacuuming.#45
That if you sit to close to the TV or computer screen you'll go blind. I was told that during the summer of 5th grade, then got glasses in 6th grade. All I heard was a "told you.." as i tried on my first pair of glasses and was told that my sister (1 yr younger) wont need glasses becuase she listened.She got her glasses less than a year later.
#46
That guacamole was ground up guaca-moles... Dads are great lol
Image credits: KommanderKeen-a42
#47
My Grandad would tell me that the buttons/switches to turn on the interior lights in his car where actually buttons for ejector seats. I would be scared to go anywhere near them incase I accidentally yeeted myself out of his Ford Focus. He was a funny dude.#48
One time when I was 5-6 I asked my brother how French fries where made And he told me: “they inject mashed potatoes into the skins of the fries with a syringe”.I believed that until I saw my mom cooking home fries for breakfast one morning when I was 8.
#49
My dad told me he was color blind to the extreme when I was 8. The sky is green, the grass is blue. Go was red, stop was green. The ultimate: white people look black and black people look white. My mom made him fix that last statement quick when I asked her, “mommy do I look black to you too?” She was livid but I was so gullible at that age lol#50
That Leprechauns were real. I spent many hours and several iterations, designing traps to try and catch one. Because if you caught one, you would get his pot of gold. A few times I tried, I got a piece of gold, and thats what kept the magic going. Turns out my dad was painting rocks with gold paint and sneaking them into my traps at night. It is actually a really sweet memory as a kid, but it fell apart when I started asking other kids, how their traps were going, and no one knew what I was talking about.#51
I believed you bought baby’s from the supermarket for Americans like Walmart for uk Morisons etc my parents told me that#52
My mom told me my birth mark was a coffee stain from when she accidentally spilled coffee on me as a baby. I believed it til I was like 11.#53
That everybody gets a house once they hit 18 or has a kid, whichever happens first.It wasn’t a lie that I was told, just something I believed was true, but nobody tried to correct me.
#54
Sometimes when we asked for McDonalds my dad would say no but turn in anyway and say the car was doing it by itself. I believed him every time and thought the car was just my homie.#55
Hiccups are symptoms of growth spurts…The other day I had hiccups and I guarantee you I didn’t grow any.
#56
Once, this guy on my bus in first grade told me and my friend that leprechauns are real.I didn't believe him. He then told us that HE was a leprechaun, and then proceeded to give us a long and detailed story of how he gets away with being one.
I didn't believe it at first, but he was such a good storyteller that in the end I was convinced that he truly was a leprechaun.
#57
I was “in” on this lie between my mom and younger sister. My sister was about 5 years old at the time, and my mom convinced her that Benadryl was “truth serum.” My mom would threaten to give it to my sister if she knew she was lying. It was so hilarious, but my sister seriously believed it and would get upset.#58
If I said a lie I would get an ulcer on my tongue. I used to lie heaps till I was 11, I got an ulcer at 13 and said to my mum that I hadn’t lied why did I get an ulcer, she looked at me and laughed.#59
When I was a kid, I loved eating watermelon.One day while I was eating, I accidentally swallowed a seed. I asked my elder sister about it. She said 'a watermelon tree will grow out of your head tonight.'
I was terrified about it and didn't sleep or eat watermelon for a while. Nevermind that watermelons don't even grow on trees.
To this day, I think about this whenever I have watermelon (I still love them).
#60
The rumble stripes on the side of the road are there to help people who are blind drive.#61
When I was a little fellow my parents used to told me when you smoke you'll die instantaneously. Unfortunately they forgot this at a campfire organized by our former neighborhood and smoked a cig. I remember I was desperately trying to stop them and cried all the time, because I thought they're both about to die.#62
My mom told me while I was helping mix some batter or something, that if I changed from mixing clockwise to counterclockwise the ingredients would unmixed. I believed this for way too long and still only mix clockwise.#63
I remember when I was 7, someone had told me if you add water to your hair it will grow long like a plant. After hearing that, I used to wash my hair every single day for like 3 years (only my hair). I remember saying this to one of my friends later and he started laughing saying if I was joking and I was being dead serious. I did have long hair but it ended up being annoying and bothering. I much prefer short/medium length hair.#64
I was hiking with my family once when I was about 8 or 9. We were walking along a river when my pops picked up a rock and said, "You know, in the center of every stone, there's a tiny drop of water. And if you squeeze hard enough, you can get it to come out." This guy had me literally trying to squeeze water from a stone the entire hike back to the car.#65
My older brother told me that Bob Barker was over 200 years old.He somehow convinced me that Bob was still alive because of all the Price is Right money. It seemed legit at the time.
He also told me that Bob Barker made all the Price is Right girls sleep with him, I guess that part could have been true.
#66
Walt disney invented colour. watching a black and white show I thought everyone from the 50's and lower had lived in black and white. I asked my father "who invented colour?" Dad looked at me dead serious and said "walt disney" I believed it far to long.#67
I believed the crust in the bread had all the vitamins and the center parts were empty calories.#68
My parents convinced us that the person knocking on our door on weekend nights when we were asleep was our uncle Shiloh stopping to say hello. We don't have an uncle Shiloh. It was the pizza guy.#69
My mom told me 'Dos Equis' translated to 'Two Horses' - being young I absolutely did not understand my mother was pulling my leg.I justified it by connecting Equine and Equis and was like. 'Yep. Must be the truth.'
So I went repeating this information until someone who spoke Spanish corrected me.
She thought it was pretty funny when I told her the story. The Xs all over the bottle make a lot more sense now.
#70
My dad told me he didn't have a middle name because his parents couldn't afford one. I believed this for a shockingly long time. I had no reason to doubt him and I knew his family was poor...#71
Y’all, this made me so mad. I’m from central Kentucky, and growing up we would always see tons of Ohio license plates on the road. So I asked why that was. My father proceeded to tell me that Ohio had a state law that was basically a curfew. Once Ohio residents leave the state, for any reason, they have a limited amount of time to return. If they don’t make it back, they can’t reenter the state. (He told me they could return after a long period of time, but I can’t remember how long that was, something like months or years) So the Ohio drivers on the road were vagabonds, forever driving the surrounding states until they could go home. He told it so well, and with such conviction, that I believed it until I repeated it to friends in high school and finally realized what a dumba*s I was.#72
You can't leave the house after dark because the chupacabra outside will eat you.#73
Probably that if someone couldn't see me then I couldn't see them. It lead me to run around with my eyes closed and inevitably break my arm#74
If you twist your belly button your butt will fall off.#75
My grampa used to eat weird stuff like braunsweiger and other weird sausages. My dad told me his dad ate monkey brain sandwiches too. I told that to people for 25 years. Then I said it in front of my dad. He laughed and said he was just kidding.#76
That swallowed gum stays in your body for 7 years.I swallowed gum and thot that was the reason I was fat.
#77
A college nearby has a cougar as its mascot and they sell cougar cheese. It's delicious. My uncles told me long ago that it's made from the milk of cougars. Made sense to me. But, then I got older (early 20s) and I saw a can of that cougar gold and wondered how they milked the cougars. And, it hit me like a ton of bricks. You can't just have a cougar milk farm with angry cougars hooked up to milking machines. It just isn't going to fly. I got a chuckle out of the image and realized that I was a grown man who believed that they were milking cougars down at the college and turning it into cheese.#78
My dad told me the boogeyman lived inside of the cassette tape deck of his car. I definitely believed him and it freaked me tf out. Now I realize he just didn’t want me messing with his radio.#79
That if you you die in your dream, you die in real life.#80
This kid told me that if your tore open an empty box of Marlboro's and the #'s read 777, you'd get some kind of prize. My 1978 was spent looking, but no luck.#81
100% believed that if I left a pile of rocks under this tree outside our house, a fairy would come visit me.My parents told me that so I would go play outside