The weird and wonderful things our parents told us

When challenged on why carrots were good for your eyesight my Mum’s reply was “have you ever seen a rabbit with glasses?

When a good friend’s parents got their first microwave (early 80s... size of a house?!) they were obviously worried about radiation leaks as they told her not to stand too close to it or she might get pregnant! All these years later, and with a full awareness of the facts of life, she still admits to being suspicious of her microwave ??

Maggiemaybe

If I didn’t eat liver I’d get so weak I wouldn’t be able to walk.

Against all the odds I’m still managing to stagger about.

So funny!

Don't use knives or scissors (indoors or outdoors) during a thunderstorm as you will get struck by lightening.
Even in the 1970's my DM told me off for pegging out washing on a line when pregnant as the cord could go round the baby's neck.

SueEH my mother-in-law refused to have a microwave for years on the grounds "it can make you sterile."
As she was well into pension age at the time, my husband always asked if it would really matter anyway? ?

Masturbation, or as the catholic priests at my school euphemistically called it, "playing with yourself," can cause blindness, mental health issues and infertility. In short, it's BAD!

That "advice" was given to small boys long before they reached puberty. I remember reading the word mastication, having never come across it before, I misinterpreted it and hid my book in case my Dad saw it.

If I didn't dry under my armpits properly I would get tuberculosis, apparently.

Wrap up warm or you will catch a cold.
But there is some truth in it as research has shown germs can multiply easier if your nose is cold. So you are more liable to catch colds and flu in winter.

All of the above except for not washing your hair whilst on a period.
And i said most of these to my two boys.
Life is funny.

GardenerGran
The French for dandelion is pissenlit, which means wet the bed.

I was told to eat crusts to make my hair curl, however I liked my hair straight so I never ate them!

Don't eat the core or even pips of an apple or they'd grow a tree inside you !

Never sew or do knitting on a Sunday. Also don’t wash your hair or have a bath if you have your period.
Children are not allowed to go to funerals. That was when my grandma died.

My Mum always said never swallow chewing gum. I knew she was right all along when a friend sent me this a few months ago ?

I think the funniest one I was told was when I was about five. My father's father had lost an eye in an accident, I was sucking the knob end of a knitting needle and was told " stop sucking that, you'll poke your eye out like your grandfather". I spent hours ferreting about with my tongue at the back of my mouth wondering how he got it up there!! I didn't dare ask for fear of being called cheeky.

If I was poorly even into my teens I was always encouraged to have a "nice wash" or even a bath; but was not allowed to wash my hair because it would cause some sort of relapse!

Grannynannywanny

My Mum always said never swallow chewing gum. I knew she was right all along when a friend sent me this a few months ago ?

A neighbour and a good friend of Mum used to take me shopping once a week when I was quite small (possibly before I was school age) and would let me have a ball of chewing gum from one of those machines that was outside a shop. I just thought it was a sweet so would chew and swallow it...when the friend realised, Mum dragged me to the doctors....and I was made to use my old potty for a few days so Mum could check the gum had passed through...

Was never allowed to have one again!!

If you swallow apple pips you will have trees growing in your stomach.

kate1949 your chewing gum reference may have had some merit. Age 6, I wasnt allowed bubblegum, so of course I wanted some. Having crammed a huge wodge of it in my mouth, I heard my mother coming to my room, so I swallowed it. A day or so later, I had violent abdominal pain, gp was called he rang for an ambulance and I was admitted to hospital with suspected appendicitis. The doctor decided to first check my anus manually (ouch) and extracted the offending bubblegum. I was then kept under observation for a whole week...just when my class was practising their songs for The Coronation party. I was gutted in more ways than one!

My old Nan told me to go for a wee after sex to avoid getting pregnant !... Might explain 4 children ?? ?

As a teenager at a convent school in the swinging seventies we girls were told by an elderly Irish nun that if we got a lift to the youth club and had to sit on a boy's knee in the car (those were the days!) we should always make sure we sat on a telephone directory!

My mum answer to the inevitable question of how do you make a baby was that the man and woman ate an apple and swallowed the pips and low and behold - it made a baby - only in the woman’s tummy not the mans - I didn’t understand why it didn’t grow in the mans stomach too. She said it was a special apple that only grew on special trees. I spent years being very careful not to swallow apple pips which was very hard for me as scrumping apples was one of my favourite autumn activities.

Specki There may be some truth in it then!
Not parents, but the Catholic nuns at school came out with some good ones. Apparently it was a sin to cross the road in a diagonal line. This was obviously their way of getting you to cross the road quickly and safely.
All it did for me was to make me panic if I did it. I couldn't wait to then confess it to the priest.

Before lockdown, when I was still seeing him, I used to tell my little grandson always sit down to eat (rather than running about) or the food might get stuck in your throat and hurt you. But that was just because I didn't want to terrify him by explaining asphyxia by choking.

Not going out with wet hair
Eating crusts make your hair curly( I can’t have eaten a crust all my life with my dead straight hair)
Sitting on anything cold gives piles
The one about sitting too near the fire gives chilblains that was true.
Funnily enough when I see my Grandchildren going out with wet hair I always ask them if they dare to do that! I can hear Mum when I say it.