These old photographs are in color. The world was black and white then.

January 26, 2015 7:39 PM

Animated stories that parents tell their children: How milkshakes are made (really bouncy grass) and why you have to be quiet on trains (beware of bears, they're unstoppable). But if you're grown up now and want to really know if your parents were full of ... molasses, let Ken Jennings share the truth behind 17 things parents tell their kids, and five more excerpts from his collection of such because-I-said-so-isms.
posted by filthy light thief (35 comments total)

Hot damn do I love a Calliope organ.
posted by angerbot at 7:51 PM on January 26, 2015

In general, I have incredibly poor recollection of stuff that happened in my childhood. However one of the few things that is still vivid is something my grandmother told me when I was about three years old and we were walking down the street.

"Don't step on the cracks in the pavement, or else..."
(oh! i know this. bear assault, or possible maternal spinal trauma)
"... you'll marry a negro woman!"

Thanks grandma you crazy fucking racist.
posted by um at 7:51 PM on January 26, 2015 [11 favorites]

I've never heard the “Don’t eat snow—it’ll make you sick!” one, I'm glad it was never told to me. (It was always don't eat yellow snow) I've always loved maple snow as a snow-day treat. (Freshly fallen snow covered in maple syrup)
posted by FallowKing at 7:52 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

My great grandfather used to say that he though black and white moves looked more realistic.
posted by teponaztli at 7:52 PM on January 26, 2015

I remember staying on a farm when I was maybe four years old, and the farmer telling me I needed to hold the cows' tails while he milked them so they wouldn't run away.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:12 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

My mother told me "don't sit on the curb or you'll get piles!"

And then she had to explain to me what piles were.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 8:24 PM on January 26, 2015

My mom was always cautioning us to not pick up random things on the ground, because they might be BLASTING CAPS (never once did we live anywhere near where blasting was going on).

The upshot of those oft-repeated dire warnings was that I was constantly picking up stuff hoping to someday actually find a blasting cap. To this day, I've never seen one.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:28 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've been deep in some food history research lately and found that the "wait 30 minutes after eating before going swimming" rule traces back to Catherine Beecher, educator and health fabulist. Like most of her dietary wisdom, it seems made up of whole cloth.
posted by Miko at 8:47 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've never heard the “Don’t eat snow—it’ll make you sick!” one,

I did hear "don't eat snow, snowflakes form around particles of atmospheric soot and pollution probably containing heavy metals," and that doesn't seem ridiculous to me still.
posted by Miko at 8:49 PM on January 26, 2015

In case you missed the headline reference.
posted by eye of newt at 9:13 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Trees sneezing." -Calvin's Dad
posted by ostranenie at 9:47 PM on January 26, 2015

“Don’t eat snow—it’ll make you sick!”

My dad used to make jello using fresh snow. He'd make the jello according to recipe with less water. Then put it in the frig until it was starting to set and then mix in the snow. It was great - fluffy jello. Of course that was about 70 years ago and the air was a lot cleaner. Wouldn't try it now.
posted by charlesminus at 9:54 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

When my son was about 6, we moved from flat Florida to the mountains of western North Carolina. Inspired by Calvin's dad, when we were driving around one day I pointed out some cows on a hillside and said they were specially bred to have the legs on one side longer than the other so they could graze on hills like that. He actually believed me for a while, until he asked his mom about it - that boring ol' stick-in-the-mud!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:59 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

my dad told me the same thing about goats in the rockys
posted by PinkMoose at 10:53 PM on January 26, 2015

I warned my classmates not to eat the snow as it was covered with little black bugs. Three days later the xenospringtails burrowed out in the cafeteria during lunch hour. Several firefights later the RCMP had the infestation under control, but we were all sent home early as our class hamster had been devoured.
posted by benzenedream at 10:59 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Of course that was about 70 years ago and the air was a lot cleaner. Wouldn't try it now.

Probably the air was more dirty back then; no-one bothered one bit about air pollution from power station and nickel smelters and things like that.
posted by Harald74 at 11:34 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

legs on one side longer than the other so they could graze on hills like that.--Greg_Ace

my dad told me the same thing about goats in the rockys--PinkMoose

I heard that story about mountain goats when I was a kid, so I passed it on to my kids. I told them that there were two breeds of goats--one with the left side longer, and one with the right side longer. Sometimes I'd tell them that if two of each breed met, they wouldn't see each other again until they had managed to travel half way around the mountain.
posted by eye of newt at 12:27 AM on January 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Phillip K. Dick (born 1928) said that, around 1971, some hippie kid asked him "What was it like seeing the first car?" Dick told him: it scared the hell out of my horse.
posted by thelonius at 1:38 AM on January 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I remember sitting at table, having my supper, and I must have been sniffing a lot due to some cold or other. Big time sniffing, practically inhaling the snot. Or at least I think that's why my mum told me that I shouldn't keep sniffing because it would end up in my cheeks and I'd have to get them sucked out, which was apparently very painful.

Now if she'd actually said 'don't do that at table, it's disgusting', it might have worked.
posted by YAMWAK at 2:23 AM on January 27, 2015

legs on one side longer than the other so they could graze on hills

This is of course true of the Highland Haggis.

Also: you put bleach on wounds? Really? You guys are nuts!
posted by alasdair at 4:15 AM on January 27, 2015

The book excerpts have extra day-brightening commentary, e.g. K. Jennings on scissors:
..I found 19 scissor-related cases since 1997 in which "running" was implicated. Those kids' moms and dads must feel like the worst parents in the world!
posted by TreeRooster at 7:28 AM on January 27, 2015

Oh yeah, here's another one I heard growing up: "playing with yourself" causes acne. Correlation/causation/etc.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:36 AM on January 27, 2015

I thought it was blindness and hairy palms. The first just sounded like an empty threat from an angry god, and the second seemed logical enough, if you didn't bother to wash up afterword.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:00 AM on January 27, 2015

I've told nephews and nieces that the reason that bicycles are upside down in a rack on top of a car is that on longer distance drives they turn the car over, the thinner tires make for much better mileage.

I've told them that Harvard University is named after my oldest paternal uncle, Harvey, due mostly to his outstanding intellect but also because of his charming ways with the ladies in his youth.

Geneticists at Texas A&M have engineered cows with no legs, which saves dramatically on the amount of room needed for herds of cattle, totally stops the incidence of hoof disorders, and it is so much easier to control the animals behaviors. They call them ground beef.

I have been known to call clerks or managers to the cereal aisle in grocery stores, holding out to them a box of oatmeal etc, insist with dead sincerity that they touch the box, await with intensity their response, which is "Um ... ?" The length of this following pause is vital -- and then I'll say that "The sign says 'Hot Cereal' -- this isn't hot." which is followed by another pause, the length of which is also vital. Hold their eyes in yours, complete sincerity -- the seconds stretch for hours.

In all of these, it is imperative to keep a poker face, complete, total sincerity.

Calvin's father is one of my all-time heroes.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:16 AM on January 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

"playing with yourself" causes acne.

I thought it was blindness and hairy palms.

The "acne" thing was my grandfather's semi-enlightened admonishment, in which (to his credit) he discarded older outmoded warnings in favor of a slightly newer but still incorrect reprimand. "Progress"...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:30 AM on January 27, 2015

Snow ice cream is a thing, as is sugar-on-snow, which I copped any excuse to make when I was an outdoor environmental educator.
posted by Miko at 11:39 AM on January 27, 2015

I have been known to call clerks or managers to the cereal aisle in grocery stores

All your other stuff was funny but this is kind of a jerk move to pull on someone just trying to do a crap job for crap pay.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:56 AM on January 27, 2015

I get so annoyed when people lie to kids for their own entertainment. I was a curious kid and nothing made me feel more dismissed and mocked than being fed some outlandish story or "Because I said so" non-answer that I didn't have the means to prove wrong.
posted by wrabbit at 12:09 PM on January 27, 2015

I think there's a difference between being "dismissed and mocked", which certainly is not cool, vs. telling your kids a couple of silly tall tales (that you eventually let them in on). For instance, I'd put Santa Claus in the second category. Or have I misunderstood you, wrabbit?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:37 PM on January 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I didn't mean to refer to stories and myths that parents let their kids in on when the kid gets old enough, like "babies come from storks," or ones that are obviously magical in hindsight, like "noodles are mermaid hair," but random little bits of misinformation. Like lying to a kid about what tuna is because you made them a tuna sandwich and they've decided they hate fish, but will believe you if you tell them that tuna is just a kind of chicken. I understand why that is done, at least.

Worse to me is when people tell lies to kids about random, completely inconsequential things just because it's fun when they could just as easily have given a straight answer. Things that the kid isn't necessarily going to discover to be wrong in school, like, I don't know, that purple dye is made from shark livers. Stupid things that get forgotten about until, years later, you think you know a thing and discover it was just a joke. The adult inevitably forgets about it and forgets to let the kid in on the joke, because it was nothing more than a passing fancy to them, but the kid gets to deal with the eventual realization that their parents were just fucking with them and, if their parents did it as a matter of course, the knowledge that there are probably other things that they still believe that are not true. I think I'm unusually sensitive to this. Even now I don't like it when when I'm in the mode of wanting to have a discussion with someone or wanting to know something and the other person insists on something absurd for comic effect.
posted by wrabbit at 2:55 PM on January 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I get where you're coming from, wrabbit, and that's exactly how I feel about Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/God. For me the little jokes--goats with different legs, holding onto cows' tails--were always delivered with a nod and a wink and 'isn't this a silly story,' and not actually How Things Are. To me that makes the difference. YMMV.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:00 PM on January 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the clarification, wrabbit. While I'm more or less in fffm's camp, I agree that what you describe does sound like petty jerk behavior. I can see why you'd have a reaction to that sort of thing.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:17 PM on January 27, 2015

always delivered with a nod and a wink and 'isn't this a silly story,' and not actually How Things Are. To me that makes the difference. YMMV.--feckless fecal fear mongering

Yeah, that's the key. You are having fun with your kids (not making fun of them). My tone of voice was very different than the 'here's an interesting scientific fact' voice.
posted by eye of newt at 8:01 PM on January 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've always let on that I'm pulling my kid's legs after a minute or two. I've tried to be honest with them (explain where babies come from as soon as they've started asking, for example.) But I discovered that not telling small kids that Santa is real is a major social faux pas (I live in Norway, BTW). I had to compromise with the wife, actually: I won't out Santa, unless the kids ask me directly. But the looks I got from other adults when discussing the Santa question, oh my.
posted by Harald74 at 4:03 AM on January 28, 2015

I love the description 'health fabulist'.

My mum told me it's the really sharp prong of a quick unpick that has the little plastic blob on it, for safety.

But then I told my daughter not to play in dirty water because she'd catch a dreadful disease called horseponditis, which is very nearly true. She was grown up before she re-examined the term anyway.
posted by glasseyes at 2:03 AM on January 29, 2015