Don't know why I was thinking about this, but:

I'm sure that just about every person on the planet was told not to tell lies when they were children, usually by his or her parents or other caregiver.  If we lied, we were bad children, grounded, sent to the pricipal's office.  Parent's do not generally tolerate lying from their children, but what about all of the times that they lied to us?  No fat guy beamed into our livingrooms every Christmas Eve; no Bunny hid multi-colored eggs in our yards; there's no little fairy with a tooth fetish; and a big-billed bird did not deliver your little brother to your doorstep. 

My mother told me all of those things, too, but she kicked it up a notch.  I always thought that she told the truth like she taught me to do, but when I got older, I found out that she is the Queen of the Little White Lie :-P  My personal favorite goes like this: 

I've always liked music and I've always liked food, and as a kid, I used to hum when I ate.  Apparently, my mother found this annoying, and to get me to stop, she told  a little white lie: "If you sing at the table, you'll go to hell."  Needless to say, she scared the crap out of me, and I didn't hum anymore :-P

Was my mother the only one with a sick sense childrearing?  Did anybody else's parents make up elaborate lies when you were a kid?  I'm not talking the normal Santa Clause stuff, but the truly creative stuff.  Why?  I don't know--maybe I'll use them on my kids one day :evil:

"If you sing at the table, you'll go to hell"? That's mean, IB! 

My parents didn't really make up things like that... unless "if you cross your eyes too much, they'll get stuck that way" counts. That also apparently worked for making any kind of face my mother disapproved of. And yet, here I am, 23 years old and still with fully functional facial expressions.

Oh, and "try it, you'll like it" in relation to most green vegetables. Total, utter lie.

lol omg so true!!

I don't remember any white lies my parents told me, but a friend said her mum used to say to her and her sister that when the ice cream truck was playing music, it meant that they were all out of ice cream... lol! And there was another one about growing bamboo under their finger nails if they did something, but i can't remember what!

This one has its charms to be sure

"Dont stick your tongue out! if you do a seagull will poop on it!" lets say i dubble checked when outside ever since, i still do it purely due to habit

Bamboo under fingernails? Heebiejeebies thats a bonafied torture method, seriously.. :S scary mom, she in the guerilla by any chanse?

Eowyn: "if you cross your eyes too much, they'll get stuck that way" Mothers when i grew up would say due to a popular kids show where this happend to a character. "dont cross your eyes like that! the wind will turn and your eyes will get stuck"  the wind will turn? i suppose this could be a referal to "luck"? i guess its not entierly untrue, i think therse actually been cases of kids with stretched eye sinew or what its called and an eye has got stuck.

Okay, I remember one that till this day still pisses me off and I have to call my mom about once every two weeks just to remind her of the damage that she caused, lol.

When I was in the first grade I got a dog, named Toto, she was cute a little mix terrior (sp?) mute. Well she got loose and got knocked, and she had a littler of puppies, 11 in all but one died. *sniff* So we had the puppies for like a month, they were starting to get big, etc. So I kissed them all goodbye along with Toto and went to school. When I got home my dog didn't come greet me at the door, which was strange. So I ran upstairs she was gone and so were the puppies. I started to cry, wail. My grammy told me it would be ok and to call my mom at work.

I called her still crying, saying that the puppies and Toto were gone. She told me she knew, that the Animal Rescue League came and got them. They wanted to take them to this huge farm in the country so Toto and her babies would have room to play and run and all the food that they could eat. I was cool with that. Believed it until I was 12 when my grammy told me the truth. That my mom called the A.R>L. to come and take all of them. Now you know if the dog(s) don't get adopted within a certain amount of time they put them to sleep. So can you understand why I'm still pissed to this day?

Parents!

That is MEAN! She couldn't just put up signs to adopt out the puppies herself? Ugh... maybe I'm a bit pissy about that after recently losing a dog, who knows.

But MY mom, you know in the 80's when they had those button tabs on the sleeves that are now on the bottoms of shorts? We used to ask what they were for and she told us if we unbuttoned them her arms would fall off.... and we actually believed her.... hmm, what else did she tell us... I'll have to think about that.

Oh, lol, I just remembered a story I told the other day - semi-related. My DAD, he had one of those wolfman-ish ugly masks that he'd chase us around the house wearing. We screamed bloody murder and cried and crawled to the top of the bunks, pelting him with pillows to keep him at bay. Well, one time we moved my baby sister was opening a box and started wailing and screaming. We went over and there was the mask! LMAO

  I've had a voice talent since I was a kid:  I could roar like a lion.  

  My mother got so annoyed by it she told me if I kept doing it I'd have a voice like a man's.

  I've been doing it only in moderation ever since.

TwilightChild

  No fat guy beamed into our livingrooms every Christmas Eve;

santa's not real??!!!

Madcow x

Five dozen fish?  I actually did have a gold fish that lived for 7 years, but 12 would be pushing it.  

I thought of another one:

When I was a little girl of 4 or 5 years old, we used to spend a lot of time at my grandparents' house.  My grandfather used to hang out with his buddies across the street.  When he came home, he'd be kinda groggy, eyes all red, and he'd fall right into bed and sleep for the rest of the day.  I asked my mommy, "Why is granddaddy always so tired?" and she replied, "Because he was playing with his friends all day."  I was 15-years-old when I realized that was code for, "He's an alcoholic."  :-P

I can remember several my parents told me, usually when my sister and I were irritating them. We still laugh about them.

But one time when I was about three or four, I had to get my eyes checked. So you know how they put that mask thing infront of your face and you have to read the letters across the room? Well my Dad had the brilliant idea of telling me that I had to hold very still when they put this thing infront of my eyes because these tiny needles would be put in my eyes. Needless to say I had a death grip on the door and was screaming as loudly as my tiny little lungs could manage. My  mother was PISSED, and the nurse behind the desk was giving Dad dirty looks. :P

Lady Y - At least your Mom took you to get glasses.  My mom used to slap me and my brother for squinting.  She also had our dog killed while we were on vacation.  Guess it's too late to trade her in on a Joyce model.

*opens her mouth then decides better and turns around to go yell very bad words in her room*