Not really shattered illusions, more lies told by your parent/s.

If I ever told a fib I would be told my nose would grow.

Some of our elders and betters would have had some ruddy great conks if that was true, madmum.

If I ever told a fib I would be told my nose would grow but mum would say I’m not as green as I’m cabbage looking and never have been able to work that out

Don’t bite sewing thread as if you accidentally swallowed it it would tangle around your heart and kill you. Some friend of my mothers told me this, she reckoned it happened to a dressmaker she knew!
In my teens there were urban legends spread by people who claimed to know someone who was a relative of the young woman victim.
One was a girl who never disturbed her beehive hairdo except to lacquer it daily. By the time it caused her discomfort it was ‘too late’. Insects had burrowed into her brain. Yeah, right!
The other was when tickets for the stage musical My Fair Lady were eagerly sought after. Twin sisters queued up and were approached by a pleasant couple. They couldn’t use their (box) seats and kindly gave them to the twins plus a box of (drugged) chocolates. During the show one twin came over all funny, went to the ladies and was never seen again. Allegedly.

That if you ate grape pips a vine would grow in my tummy!

Mum always said that if I didn't dry my armpits properly I would get tuberculosis. I'm still careful to dry properly after my shower even now.

My father used to tell me a joke about soldiers on anti-aircraft searchlight and one of them was thought to be a bit simple and the others used to tease him by daring him to climb up the searchlight beam. The target of their teasing used to reply "I am not daft you know, I'd get half way up and you'd turn off the light". I was quite a long way through my childhood before I understood that this poor guy wasn't just cleverly predicting being let down in mid air !!!

And on a similar theme, when my kids were small we lived in a house with 6 split levels - an attic room at the top and a cellar at the bottom and we used to play hide and seek. I would hide in the cellar cupboard and call to them at intervals to guide them to me. Just as they got outside the cupboard door, my voice from just a few inches away would say "I am in the attic" and they'd go racing back up the stairs to look for me. Children are too trusting by far :D

I remember all those too MesMopTop also you shouldn't have a bath or go in the sea whilst menstruating - why ?

Remember being told many of these, all in fun and jest. Also got told not to sit on cold steps or you’d get piles. Piles of what I used to ask? Bubblegum would jam up your insides if you swallowed it andvtrees would grow in your tummy if you swallowed seeds. Haha, love this thread.,

Minxie I was told it was my legs that would drop off!

I was told to eat my eggs so I'd grow feathers under my arms!
If I asked what was for dinner I was told bread and poullete. I always thought I was being told pull it....

, muddynails, that's so funny!

yes notneccessary, do you remember the list of divorces and the reasons for them, when I asked what unnatural practices
were , reply, tickling her feet with a feather, believed that up to very recently, wasn't until I really thought about it - duh.

DH told DD3 at age 6 that camel had a silent p at the beginning. Luckily when she used it in school, and had to explain, her teacher who knew us all very well, saw the funny side but DD3 (now 38) has never forgotten!

Did anyone else's mother have 'eyes in the back of her head' because mine certainly did!
And I wish I'd never eaten all those crusts because I would like my hair to be straight not the jumbly mess that it is now.

ReadyMeals DH thinks he has a 'bone in his leg' but DGD scornfully informed him 'no, you haven't' when she was about 2.

Father told us about his own father who loved tongue. He discouraged his children from eating it as "cows don't clean their teeth"!
On the whole, they told us the truth and explained things to us [as I have done with my own DCs and DGCs], apart from the tooth fairy and FC of course. Life wouldnt' have been as exciting withouth them, surely!

“”Jonnie has gone for a soldier” - just ask Google - the f.... of all knowledge and there are a few explanations there - gmelon - It seems to have multiple meanings!

I shall bear that in mind!

Apparently if you play with your belly button, your bum will fall off

I was told eating apple pips would cause appendicitis. I used to picture what if I swallowed one and a perfect little apple tree grew in my tummy. There was another one about swallowing chewing and bubble gum, but I think I may actually have told my children that too , and the one about sitting in a draft with wet hair, the whole house was drafty!, before I got a hairdryer as a teenager used to sit in front of open fire, I can't remember how it dried in the summer, just towel dried I suppose.

My mum always told me that touching egg shells would give you warts.
If you did get warts, your mother would take you on the ‘bus to the next village where an old lady called ‘Mother Morris’ would charm the warts away.
I can remember being terrified when my mother dragged me to see her (must’ve been around 1950), but the old lady was delightful and for her 2/6d fee, not only did she charm my warts, but gave us both tea and delicious home made sponge cake!
Strangely enough my warts disappeared, tho’ I daresay they would have gone anyway

Sorry, just seen someone else used to get the same answer .

If I wanted to play a rough and tumble game with my Dad when I was little and he didn't feel like it he used to say "no I can't, I've got a bone in my leg".

Covert NOTW reader here, too, muddy - I remember puzzling over the fact that telephonists were written about so critically. Didn't realise that call girls were not the same thing at all!!

It took me a long time to realise we all had bones in our legs!!! ?

Yes, ReadyMeals, that’s just what my Dad used to say!?