Looking back on my childhood, I have realized that my parents (and grandparents, teachers, and babysitters) were wrong about a lot of things (they were also right about TONS of things too!). Sometimes they were knowingly lying to me, but other times, they just didn’t know any better. So what are some things that my parents told me when I was a child?

1) If you keep making that face, your face will freeze like that
I remember clearly the day my parent told this to me and my bother. We were about 5 minutes into a 3 hour car trip and my bother were busy making the most ridiculous faces. I don’t think my parents minded too much until the faces were accompanied by noises of a similar style. Thus, out came the “you face will freeze like that” saying. Now, both of my parents were engineers, so we were used to figuring out how things worked. This was no different and we began to press for how this face freezing thing worked, if it was reversible, what the restrictions were. The answer to this was what made it memorable. My mom, in a question induced state of frenzy, said “it will really only work if you get hit really hard when your face is like that.” THIS WAS A MISTAKE! Cue the now 2 hours and 45 minutes of my brother and I making funny faces and then beating on each other in an attempt to get it to freeze in that position. My parents NEVER said this again.

2) Santa is real (WHAT? You mean he is not??)
I don’t get this lie. Why is getting a present from a fat old man who wears a funny suit and breaks into your house that much more valuable than getting a gift from a REAL PERSON? Shouldn’t we be encouraging children in the spirit of gift giving and all that? How much does it encourage the rampant materialism we see today when children are given gifts from an imaginary person who gives them gifts based on how “good” they are?

3) Video games will ruin your sight.
As much as this is going to disappoint all of those parents out there who DESPERATELY want a reason to make your kids play outside (how about just tell them the truth?) video games will not ruin your vision. In fact, scientists are using video games to improve the vision of some people.

4) Sitting too close to the television will ruin your sight
Again, not so much truth in this. Sitting closer than 20 feet to the TV will indeed make your eye muscles tired, but it will in no way “ruin” them. You see, when at distances over 20 feet, the muscles that contract to change the shape of your lens (and thus focus your vision) are in a completely relaxed state. Once you move in closer than 20 feet, your eyes have to work harder to focus your eyes so they get tired faster.

5) Reading in the dark will ruin your eyes
I remember as a kid pretending to be deathly afraid of the dark so that my parents would leave the closet light on. This was JUST enough light so that I could read. I remember spending HOURS with just the top of the book pushed under the pillow and at any noise, I would shove the book under it and pretend to be asleep. I can only remember being caught twice, but due to my extreme fear of the dark, my parents never turned out the light and my room was down a long hallway from their room, so as long as I listen carefully, it was a fairly safe bet on my part.
Anyway, this will also just make your eyes tired. The rods in your eyes must work harder when you read in the dark because the cones don’t work in low light. The rods have lass acuity than the cones so your eye has a harder time processing the information and thus gets tired faster.

6) You should rip band-aids off quickly rather than over a long time
I always had an issue with this, but could never prove that the slow way was better…until now. This guy (near the end of the video) did a study that shows that the human brain processes intensity of pain much more than duration so a longer but less intense bandage removal will be overall less painful.
NOTE: The best way to remove a bandage is to get it wet so the adhesive (usually water based) lets go a little bit…then it practically slides off
ANOTHER NOTE: The rest of that video is also very interesting…be sure to watch it!

7) You can’t go sledding when there is no snow
Ok, this was probably just me, but as a kid (and in-fact probably even more so now) I LOVED sledding. My friends and I were hard core sledders. Remind me to tell you the story of when I knocked myself out and got a concussion while sledding (NO, I did NOT run into a tree). I wanted to go sledding LONG after there was no more snow, but wet grass doesn’t work all that well (although for the record mud works EXCELLENTLY until you get home and come in the house) and slip and slides are just not the same. So what is a kid to do? Well, these guys came to the rescue of kids like me. They have created a sled that you can attach blocks of ice to the bottom of so that you can sled ANYTIME! Bring on global warming (ok, do NOT bring on global warming…EVER) we will STILL BE ABLE TO SLED!

8) All that texting will ruin your ability to read and write “real English”
This idea seems to still be commonplace even though there have been studies that show that kids who text are often better writers and readers than kids who do not text. I think that as long as kids are taught that the abbreviations that are often used in texting are not appropriate in formal essays, learning and practicing the expression of ideas through the medium of text can only improve your writing in the long run. On a personal note, I know that my spelling has improved immensely (from worse than horrible to slightly below mediocre) since I started texting with word prediction. You don’t spell a word right with that on and it gives you this annoying question mark that just mocks you “nah nah you don’t know how to spell annoying (who KNEW that it has 2 Ns in it???) so now you get gibberish…good luck with your message.” Ugh…so now I know (and have a reason to remember) how to spell more words than I ever thought possible.

9) Stop doodling during class or you won’t learn anything
Many of you have probably already figured this out at some point, but here is some ammunition the next time that someone tells you to stop doodling and pay attention (appropriate response is “I can’t do that…its one or the other. You get to chose which one is more important to you…k thanks”). Scientists have preformed a study that shows that people who doodle while listening to something have a much better retention of facts than those people who did not doodle. All of you doodlers who were forced to stop now have an excuse for why you never did well in your classes…thank you science!

So, that concludes the list because 9 is my favorite one digit number (12 being my favorite two digit number and 144 is my favorite three digit number…yes I am odd enough that I have several favorite numbers…to add to it, 4 is my favorite smallish number).

What are some other things that your parents (or any elder) lied/misrepresented to you as a child? I have more of these, and I am sure there are some I can’t remember right now, so I might do this again. I find the instructing of children in the ways of the world to be a fascinating topic (even though kids in general are somewhere near the top of my top ten things to avoid at all costs list) and the idea of lying to children about relatively simple things simply baffles me.