Weird things your mum told you and you believed at the time ..

Ah, that's such a sweet memory! Yorkshire mums have a knack for these little magical stories, don’t they? Whether she believed it or not, it sounds like she gave you a beautiful memory to hold onto and maybe a bit of peace and quiet for herself too.

Eat your crusts or your hair won't curl

Carrots help you to see better.

Never to sit on a cold step you’ll get piles, piles of what I ask

There is an element of truth about the carrots.

What about the great big Father Christmas myth?
I could not bring myself to actually lie to my children, but I just went along with it when other people, mostly Grandparents, told them to be good or he wouldn’t bring parents.

Oopsadaisy1

Carrots help you to see better.

I thought they did. Really. Some vitamin in them or something. Didn’t work for me I have to say - myopic eyes.

When I was a little girl in the 1950s the community health visitors were a common sight visiting mothers before and after giving birth. They wore a bottle green uniform and were referred to as the “green ladies”. They carried sturdy oblong bags.

When I was about 3 yrs old my Mum told me they were delivering babies in their bags and I totally believed her and watched in amazement if I saw one in the street. I’d picture the little baby snuggled up in the oblong bag and wonder which lucky household would receive it. Of course if she went into a house nearby and I later saw the family with a baby in a pram I know it was true 😆

Whingey

Eat your crusts or your hair won't curl

All that achieved in my case was to stop me eating my crusts because I didn't want curly hair!

Me too MissInterpreted! My hair was curly and I hated it

I was told if I swallowed apple pips a tree would grow in my tummy. I worried about that for a long time!

My mother, a very honest woman, told me that if I touched the plants known as 'Red-hot Pokers' I would burn my hands. I believed her for years, thinking when I was older they would give me a rash while not actually burning the skin.

Oopsadaisy1

Carrots help you to see better.

Carrots contain beta-carotene that the body converts into vitamin A that does help improve vision, not sure how much or how often you would need to eat though.
Carrots are also a good source of vitamin C.

My mum told me that gypsies in the woods would run away with me if I went to play there, so of course I went to check it out with my friends, we were very disappointed not to find any.

We were driving through a dense Forestry Commission plantation of spindly conifers. I was told that each tree would be whittled down to make an individual matchstick. I really believed that ... for ten minutes.

If you swallowed chewing gum it would stick to your heart and you would die.
My mother was Irish. She told me that when she was a child she found a comb that belonged to a banshee in a field. I believed that.

I suppose the weirdest thing I remember my mum doing rather than saying when I was small, if we went to the ladies loo, she'd painstakingly arrange pieces of toilet paper around the seat before I sat down, germs! maybe not so weird, but I remember it was a bit of a palaver. I don't think she told me anything too woo woo, apart from the teachings of the Catholic church, which I got both at home and at school some of which was definitely weird. Never forgot one nun on instructing us in how to take Holy Communion, "Don't let the host touch your teeth because you will be biting of Jesus' legs" I realised late, clearly batsshit nonsense, but at 7 I half believed her. My father on the contrary, bluntly told us from a very early age, "there's no such person as Father Christmas the presents you get come from us and the rest of the family" logical! but a spoil sport

of off late later

My mother told me that the hair of men and boys couldn't grow long. I believed her until the day a reclusive neighbour left his house due to illness. His hair was waist length!

If you don't dry yourself properly under your armpits you will get tuberculosis. I believed this for years. And thunder was the old lady in the sky (God's wife, apparently) moving her furniture around. And snow was when she broke a pillow and the feathers tumbled down to earth.
My mum was full of these strange beliefs and I was gullible.

Don’t wash your hair if having a period which I always thought was rubbish.

Like Terribull’s mum mine used to line the toilet seat in public loos with toilet paper before I sat down.

Tuck your vest into your knickers, otherwise you'll get a cold in your kidneys.

Vitamin A is in carrots.✅

Sitting on very cold surfaces or warm heaters can cause haemorrhoids. ✅

Don't frown or the wind will change and your face will be stuck like that.

Avoiding crusts has not stopped my hair being curly.

If my brother refused to eat his carrots despite the carrots are good for your eysight advice my Mum would follow it up with “you never see a rabbit wearing glasses”

Hopefully old wives’ tales and things you might have believed in your early years are no longer part of what you take as gospel?
Spoiler alert-
Tooth fairy
Father Christmas
Elf on the shelf etc

My mother told me frequently that she was sending for the van to take my sister and I to the "Naughty school". In my mind that would be something like Sunday school. Also that men in the white coats would be coming to take her away to the local mental hospital as we were driving her mad.
Eventually she made both these threats so many times that they lost their effect.