The weird and wonderful things our parents told us

Sink ships, not shops. Because that would of course be ridiculous.

cossybabe

I find that I still crush eggshells to stop the rats going out to sea in them and entering the boats - I am nearly 70 for goodness sake?

Oh dear, cossybabe, I’m as bad. My grandmother’s version was that witches would sail out in them and sink shops. My MIL nearly cried laughing when she asked me why I insisted that all eggshells were crushed before they went on the compost heap.

Growing up in Glasgow Dandelions were called pee the beds and if we picked them we'd pee the bed that night.

Take your coat off when you’re indoors (even if you only popped in for 5 minutes!) or you won’t feel the benefit when you go outside.

NannyKat

My dad, who was a serious joker, used to take us 6 children for a drive in the country.. when he came across herds of cows, he told us to open the windows and breathe in the air because it was good and healthy.. the smell of cow dung was awful but we all grew up thinking it was good for us..

My Dad would say "Don't sniff too hard or there won't be enough to go round"

I was told not to eat are mushrooms as they would give me cancer!

I remember being told to eat my crusts to get curly hair. Not to swallow apple pipes as the tree would grow in my tummy. Chewing gum getting tied around the intestines but the best one was, when I started to go out with boys, that ' it only takes 5 minutes to ruin your life'. It took me a very long time to realise what my parents meant.

Told if I sat on the front step ( outside ) that I would get king cough in my bottom, piles I presume

Neither have mine, but during the war when elastic was hard to come by, grown women and teenage girls wore "French knickers" with a button and button-hole in the waist band.

A girl-friend of my mother's who was nineteen at the time, lost the button of her knickers while crossing the city hall square in Copenhagen, and she did kick them aside and walk on, as hér dress was so short, due to rationing, that she didn't dare bend down!

I don't think either my sister or I ever believed that if the wind changed our faces, which we had pulled, would stay like that.

GardenGran, chilblains are horrible itchy and sore patches you get on your fingers and toes if you are too long in damp, cold places.

They were very common in my Scottish childhood before the days of central heating. Nothing helped to stop them itching.

Later on, people who had been in Greenland told me that the only thing that does help is to rub your own urine on them. That is actually true.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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 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!

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.

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 ?

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.

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

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