The Lies Parents Tell.

The kids were in the lounge room, entertained with food, drinks and TV, and I was in the bedroom jumping on a conference call with people I’d never met. I presume that most people know how a conference call works, but for those that don’t, let me enlighten you. Basically you dial in a number, and it will prompt you to say your name so that it can record your voice. I’m never prepared, and I always freak out at the sound of my voice, but eventually I muster up a “Chantelle” and then I’m in.

And because I’m notoriously early to EVERYTHING I do, I’m always the first in the virtual conference room. I patiently wait, wondering how much of the lounge room the kids could have destroyed in the small amount of time I’ve been absent. One person enters the conference call {let’s call her Jane} and then another person enters {let’s call her Barb}. We make small talk while we wait for three more people to join us.

Except they’re late. I’ve never met the people on the other end of the line, nor talked to them on the phone, so it’s a lot of talk of weather, and news-worthy topics which make me want to pass out and sleep for a zillion years. And then somehow we end up on the most random conversation of pets, and then pets dying. Nothing like a bit of morbid small talk before a business chat.

Well, it wasn’t straight up death-talk, it went a little like this:

Jane: I remember when my dad bought me an old pony for one Christmas, but then when I was older it got taken to a farm.

Barb: Oh yes! Well, we all know that the farm means. {Awkward laugh}

Me: Well we had some chickens and a dog, but they actually really went to a farm. Dad took them there.

Barb: You know there really is no farm, right? They probably died.

Me: No, really. He took them to the farm. I’m sure of it.

And then we change topics, because I quickly realise that there was a likelihood that I had been lied to by my parents and that there actually wasn’t a farm.

Now, on a side note… as I sit here and type this, I am realising not only how truly morbid this topic is, but also how kinda sad it is too. Please don’t hate me for discussing this.

The other three people join the conversation, and I forgot about the farm chat until weeks later when I was driving in the car with my sister and I suddenly remembered. “Hey, you know when Dad took our chickens and our dog to the farm?”

She did.

“Well, it was really the farm, right?”

“Of course,” she agreed, “What else would it be?”

There was nothing more to do, other than to call dad and settle it. And by settle it, I mean discover the heartbreaking truth that there was no farm. There was never a farm.

We were slightly shocked, and upset, and then started to question everything. What else had we been lied to about?

And more recently, when I was at the gym I mentioned to my trainer that someone was wearing a nice ‘kidney belt’. He asked me, “Kidney belt?” My dad had told me that the belts that weightlifters wore were called kidney belts, to keep their kidneys from popping out. ANOTHER LIE. Also, those white bumpy strips on the side of roads that make noises if you veer off? Yeah, for blind drivers apparently. ANOTHER LIE.

What fibs did your parents tell you?

10 thoughts on “The Lies Parents Tell.”

  1. Blind drivers! Ha! On a drive to Canberra, I was told that the goats on the hills that we drive past have shorter legs on one side than the other, so they don’t fall and tumble all the way down. Yep, believed it.

  2. My parents had me convinced that they had a ‘soft’ needle to get splinters out. I always thought it was funny that they could always find this needle when needed. I am ashamed to say I was well into my teens before I realised there was no soft needle ?

  3. .. great post and subject Chantelle …..
    .. My father told my sister and me that he had a lot of friends in our suburb and if ever we did anything wrong while we were outdoors …or skipped school … they would tell him and we would be in big trouble… We were the best behaved children and never wagged school …. I will tell you that we spent a lot of tie looking over our shoulder to see if anyone was watching us ….. good on you dad .. xxx
    With my own children I was brutally honest about things like where pets go when they disappear and Santa and the Easter bunny and the tooth Fairy ….but I did threaten them with limb removals when they were playing up on me… … they never did believe me on this one .. xx lol … … Barb xxxx

  4. Blind drivers!!! Your dad ?

    My parents were always ridiculously honest (but always age appropriately and with love). The only ‘lies’ were Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. It was a tough day when I found out ALL of them were not ‘real’ at the same time!! It had started with a conversation about Santa not being real and then the penny dropped! Yikes!

  5. OMG Blind Drivers.. I nearly wee’d my pants.. My parents told very few lies and as a result we don’t with our kids but I sometimes wish I would/could as the truth gets awkward!!

  6. that is brilliant! The bumpy strips on the road are called Audible edging (daughter of a road engineer). I’ll never forget my parents telling me they were taking the cat I’d adopted to our friends house to rehome it, unfortunately it was my BFF’s house and she told me the next day that her Dad had actually shot the cat (it was feral)- It is still something we bring up at the dinner table to extract maximum guilt from my parents!!

    Unfortunately we live on a farm so telling my kids that our sick pets are being sent to the farm isn’t going to cut it- they are well aware that our dog that was run over was shot, and that the rooster that was attacking our other chooks had its head chopped off- that’s the reality of farm life I guess!!
    Sending pets to ‘the farm’ seems to be a universal lie for parents!!

  7. I was told a lot of my pets “ran away” when I was a child. I’d go visit my Dad for the weekend, and often come back to find my dog missing. Mom slipped up as I got older a few times and I learned what really happened to them. Snake bites, coyotes, ran over by a school bus MY AUNT drove, etc.

  8. Blind drivers… too funny! We lived on acreage so ‘going to the farm’ wasn’t ever an option. I remember that we had a sheep called Mabel. Name = pet, right? One day my Dad told me Mabel had gotten stuck in the creek and broken her leg so needed to be put down. Tears. When I turned 18 he told me that never happened, he put her down and we ate her… and I became a vegetarian.

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