Saturday's Question of the Day - May 17

Happy Saturday and happy weekend!

Today's question is: Do you make up stories to your kids? Or did your parents make up stories to you?

Many parents make up stories to their kids as a tactic to change their behavior. My sister and I are no exception. 

We had this weird nasty habit of licking fire hydrants. "Don't do it, you'll catch bacteria and die," never seemed to work with us. So one day our mom told us that the Goddess of Mercy resides in fire hydrants (we were raised Buddhists). The conversation went something like this:

"Really?"
"Sure. You know what a fire hydrant does?"

"It puts out fire."

"Think about it. A 12-storey building catches fire, and a tiny fire hydrant is able to put out all that fire. How is the water from the hydrant able to reach 12 floors and put out such a huge fire? Because the Goddess of Mercy gives the water enough force to boost it to that height."

In other words, magic.

From that day, we began to revere fire hydrants. Not only did we stop licking those things, we started carrying pennies around whenever we go outside. Every time we pass by a fire hydrant, one of us would stop and place a penny on top of it, bow to it, and walk backwards away. 

Of course, pretty soon Dad asked us, "Why?" 

"We are giving offerings to Kwan Yin."

At least it's better than licking them, right?

That's a great story!

We got told a lot of stories and passed them along to the next generation, but they always seemed to be from books or were local legends, not things family members made up.

My mum told me and my brothers so many I can't remember most.  A couple of them stick, like 'eat the crusts (of sliced bread) and your hair will go curly',  and the best one for me was when I got measles just after my pet mouse bit me and my mum told me the mouse bite gave me measles so it 'had to go'......  

My dad used to make up bed time stories that were all about us as a family and me and my brothers getting up to all kinds of silly stuff.  I used to love them.

A former friend and I used to tell her very young daughter that sweeties were for grown ups.       (She had severe allergies and couldn't eat most of the sweets around so we'd tell her the ones we had were for grown ups and had separate bags for ones we could all eat).  The truth was explained as soon as she was big enough, a couple of years later.

I also used to tell my niece stories that I made up about my previous 2 cats as I got them as kittens when she was about  1 1/2 years old,  and how a little candle snuff that I have in the shape of a bell and with little faeries on was a faerie bell which only faeries could hear - that when you picked it up and shook it at night the faeries could hear it and would come out and dance in the garden.  

Haha, these are so cute!

I can't recall any specific stories my parents had made up, but my mom used to always tell me that if I finished every grain of rice, I would get a handsome husband. It actually led to me sneaking my bowl into the bathroom or somewhere and dumping the rice I couldn't finish there because I sincerely could not finish every grain as I got older and kept getting served more.

pinkdagger said:

 
Haha, these are so cute!

I can't recall any specific stories my parents had made up, but my mom used to always tell me that if I finished every grain of rice, I would get a handsome husband. It actually led to me sneaking my bowl into the bathroom or somewhere and dumping the rice I couldn't finish there because I sincerely could not finish every grain as I got older and kept getting served more.

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That's funny, my sister got told the same thing. The strange thing is, I got told that the only way to be rich and wealthy is to finish every grain of rice. We soon compared notes and realized something wasn't right.

When we were kids we used to see the lady walking on the street and she had a huge bump on her throat, ball shaped big enough to be seen from afar and my mom used to tell us that she had swallowed a cats hair and thats why it happened. Im pretty sure ive swallowed a bunch and im perfectly fine

Hmm....not from my parents that I remember.  I was a bit of a sensitive child; so they probably didn't want it to go wrong!

My cousin however...  She had me convinced that if I fell on the grass with bare knees or got a grass stain on my knee; clovers would grow out of my knees.  I still remember having nightmares that there were clovers growing out of my knees and the more I pulled them the longer the clover stem got!  She also tried to convince me that if I ate a watermellon seed one would grow in my stomach.  That one is pretty common though.  But to this day I have big issues with some plants.  Especially big leafy ones.  DH has to help harvest some things from our garden.  My cousin and I joke that it's a good thing I don't treat her kids like she treated me!

Fhi09 said:

 
That's funny, my sister got told the same thing. The strange thing is, I got told that the only way to be rich and wealthy is to finish every grain of rice. We soon compared notes and realized something wasn't right.

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Haha! Maybe your parents were balancing the odds and aiming for cute grandkids and lots of financial support when they retire, but they couldn't bank on it all coming from one individual? Anything to get kids to eat, eh?

MoochNNoodles said:

 
Hmm....not from my parents that I remember.  I was a bit of a sensitive child; so they probably didn't want it to go wrong!

My cousin however...  She had me convinced that if I fell on the grass with bare knees or got a grass stain on my knee; clovers would grow out of my knees.  I still remember having nightmares that there were clovers growing out of my knees and the more I pulled them the longer the clover stem got!  She also tried to convince me that if I ate a watermellon seed one would grow in my stomach.  That one is pretty common though.  But to this day I have big issues with some plants.  Especially big leafy ones.  DH has to help harvest some things from our garden.  My cousin and I joke that it's a good thing I don't treat her kids like she treated me!

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Ha ha, you just reminded me: my dad used to tell me that if you ate the core of an apple the seeds would grow and you would have an apple tree growing in your belly.  I don't remember believeing that one....

MServant said:

 
Ha ha, you just reminded me: my dad used to tell me that if you ate the core of an apple the seeds would grow and you would have an apple tree growing in your belly.  I don't remember believeing that one....

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I thought the same thing too, and with watermelons since those seeds were easier to swallow. I don't recall if my parents told me that, or if I "learned" it elsewhere.