Did adults use fibs to control your behaviour?

Greyduster, my Mother took it a stage further. She would 'phone' Barnardos to arrange a time to take me away....I never knew that she kept her finger on the phone and was terrified of anyone coming to the door in case they came to take me with them.

I can remember how we feared the gypsies too. Same thing, we thought they stole children and when we were all outside playing in the street together if the gypsies made an appearance one word Gypsies ....and the street would literally empty. We would run indoors and lock the door, to make sure we were,nt stolen. Don't think they sold many pegs or bundles of lace in our area unless some unsuspecting adult opened the door and did,nt like to refuse buying something in case they had a curse put on them.

I don’t remember ever being told any of that except I had to be good for Father Christmas to come down the chimney and the tooth fairy needing my teeth etc
I do remember being told the heaven/ hell stuff at school and how my bad behaviour would mean hell or limbo
I don’t remeber telling my kids any, might have but don’t remember We did tell my dummy obsessed grandson that we were posting his dummy to a new baby who needed it Didn’t work his thumb took over

The attendance officer was a very real threat in Scotland in the 1950s when I started school, as he collected the names of absentees from our form mistress twice a week and went to the children's homes to find out if they were ill or not. Parents were fined if they were keeping children at home unless they were ill (the children not the parents). After one or two fines the parents would be cited to appear in the Sheriff's court and could be given a prison sentence for avoiding their legal duty to provide education for their children.

On the other point, my parents were very outspoken in their condemnation of parents who threatened children with the bogey man or other imaginary horrors. Daddy did once tell us, that if we kept leaving lights on all over the house, we would not get very much for Christmas as he would need the money for the electricity bill, but that was after all not really a lie.

Are you suggesting that eating one's crusts does not result in curly hair, or that i never used to have a better L in my eyes when telling an untruth!!

I was told that if I went near the canal a bogey man would get me. I didn't go near the canal!

I think GrandmaKT must have gone to a Catholic school. I was told all that, also that I would burn in Purgatory or Hell if I didn't go to Mass on Sunday.

My mum just used the "just wait until your dad gets in" line.

Sad, but enough to put the fear of god into me.

I digress, but when I look at him with my 3 grandchildren I wonder how on earth he changed from a cold hearted, strict, misery guts into a loving great grandad.

My dad used to say he was going to see a man about a dog. I longed for a dog and was waiting for him to bring one home. He never did. When I asked when some event was going to happen. He would say "next Sheffield Wednesday". I thought that was a real occasion!

I was babysitting my nephew once when my sister had an evening meeting at work. It was expected to go on late and then she had a long drive so she told me to put him to sleep at a certain time and we would carry him to the car, hopefully still asleep when she got back.
He refused to lie down because he wanted to stay up to wait for his mum. I told him that she was going to get home half an hour after he fell asleep. He said 'oh ok' laid down and immediately went to sleep. I didn't expect it to work.

If my kids wouldn't go to bed I'd say wee Willie Winkie would come round. On one occasion my husband went outside a knocked on the door saying in a very strange voice 'are all the children in their beds?'
Goodness know what they thought he'd do!!

As a small child I put lots of sugar in a cup of tea until my Gran told me that this would give me worms. I have never taken sugar in tea (or later coffee) since then!

I was told if you don't behave I'll put you in Ann Fowlers with your ears pinned back.Years later I found out that Ann Fowlers was a home for " fallen women" Ha haha.

We took our young DGS to a wildlife/bird sanctuary and he was frighted by the noise as we walked through the parrot enclosure. When it came to closing time he didn't want to go so I told him they let the parrots out to fly around when everybody has gone. We were out of there in no time and, funnily enough, as we neared the exit there was one of the keepers walking along with a parrot on her arm. Nasty nanny!

Grey duster, my mother not only threatened to send me to the children’s home, she went so far as to put on her hat, coat, handbag over her arm,put my coat on then checked out the bus times to transport me to the home.I don’t remember what sin I committed to warrant this threat but it terrified me (not enough to change my naughty ways though!)

My mother toldme that if I didn't eat meat I would not grow up to be a 'nice big girl' I am possibly the world's largest vegetarian but maybe not nice.

I despise the developing of paranoia in children now, eleves on shelves watching their every move etc. If people t ook more notice of the kids then the elves would be redundant.

When my daughter was old enough to put her own seat belt on in the car, I told her it wouldn't work unless it was done up! Worked well for years, she'd get in the car, and do her seat belt immediately. Only several years later, a little voice from the back seat....Mum, my seat belt isn't done up!!....and we were at the end of our road! Yes, I'd been rumbled!

I also used to tell my daughter, when woken by a bad dream, that if she put her pillow the other end of the bed, the dreams couldn't come back. She does this with her girls now!

I recognise quite a few of these.

My Dad didn't come to church on Sunday with us. When he was going out on a Friday night I would ask him where he was going, he'd say he was going to church. He was really to the pub and I never twigged for years. When I was joking about it as an adult, he told me the priest was always there on a Friday night because he never had to buy a drink!

My Dad also told me that when girls whistled, it made Our Lady (Virgin Mary) cry. He never liked women whistling.

(Another brought up as Catholic).

Harrigran and teetime - another one here who was threatened with boarding school if I was naughty. I was desperate to go lol – I’d read and loved the Mallory Towers and St Clare’s books, so of course, I knew that boarding school was all great fun and midnight feasts, and it all sounded like a wonderful place to be. As an only child, being surrounded by other children and friends all the time sounded blissful. (Little did I know!)

Of course, my mother would never ever ever have even considered sending me to boarding school, whether she could have afforded fees or not. But I spent a lot of my childhood slightly disappointed that I was still at home with my parents

Are you suggesting that eating one's crusts does not result in curly hair,
But it does moobox - at least it results in unruly hair rather than nicely curly!

My mother used to tell me there was an old man down the road who would come and take me away if I was naughty. I was rather disappointed when he never turned up because I thought he might be more fun to live with. She also used to tell me that if I spoke when we were on a bus we would be thrown off.

have travellers in one leg of family /didnt really see them often
mom would threaten(tongue in cheek)to sell me to the gypsy,
was thrilled wanted to go...
later it became will give someone a nickle to take you/
mom is a wise ass to this day

big threat was being sent to the school for delinquent girls about 9 miles away.

I was told that a policeman would take me away to a home for naughty girls if I misbehaved. Obviously I shuddered whenever a policemen walked past me and I thought that he'd put his hand on my shoulder and ask, "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what have you been up to, then?" even as an adult. I rarely walk past a policeman these days.

I was told that if you swallowed fruit pips a tree would grow out of the top of your head. I don'i know how many times and for how long I felt the top of my head when I accidently swallowed a n apple pip.