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

I can remember being very interested in my belly button one day and my mum telling me to be careful or I'd unravel!

I was told if I swallowed chewing gum it would wrap round my lungs and I would die :-(

The weirdest thing I ever believed was when I was about four and for some reason sucking the end of a knitting needle. Stop sucking that said mum, you’ll poke your eye out, like grandad. The poor man had had an accident and lost an eye. But I believed her and spent hours trying to feel the back of my throat to find the hole the knitting needle must have gone up to get to his eye! And wondering how he had bent it!

Grannynannywanny

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 😆

Same here! The district nurse visited Mum after my brother was born, and I was told that he had arrived in her bag (black, sturdy Gladstone type). I was forever pestering her to let me look in the bag to see the other babies

I gave it a lot of thought HousePlantQueen. I used to hope on cold wintry days when I’d see the green lady trudging through the snow that she’d remembered to put a hat and mitts on the baby in the bag!

Wear a vest or you’ll get a chill.

If the wind changes your face will stay like that!

Eat your crusts, it’ll make your hair curl.

Our cat had kittens, and my mum said the cat had found them under a bush. She also said all babies came from hospital, and that all mums and dads went to choose their babies there! No giving birth.....

In the early 50s we lived in a very rural area and there wasn't much traffic on the roads at night. I was fascinated by the cats' eyes that magically lit up in front of us on night journeys and my dad told me that there are tunnels under every road and a crew of men on mopeds who, when they hear a car coming, ride on ahead through the tunnel, switching on the cats' eyes as they go!

I loved that story, long after I knew it wasn't true but, sadly, it didn't work for my own daughter - a prosaic child who screwed up her face and said, "Nah! Grandad's telling fibs!".

Friends of my mum had a stuffed stag's head, complete with antlers, in their hall. They told me that the rest of the stag's body was in their neighbours' hall. The two halls abutted each other so for a long time I believed them.

25Avalon

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.

TBH I was amazed when my German exchange girl’s mother apparently insisted on no bath or hair washing during a period.. I thought it was like something out of the Dark Ages. The younger girl actually had a tantrum at the dinner table because she wasn’t allowed to wash her hair.
This was in the mid 60s.

I was told that you shouldn't eat standing up, because the food would go to your legs and make them fat.

DeeAitch56

I was told if I swallowed chewing gum it would wrap round my lungs and I would die :-(

Chewing gum chewing gum led me to my grave ,
My mother told me not to knew it but I disobeyed.

My mother was not a fan of flowers in the house and she told me never to bring bluebells because they scream when you pick them. As an adult I checked and they do make a slight squeak if you listen hard! I was also never to bring hawthorn (May) blossom inside as it was unlucky.
Every year I was threatened with ashes in my Christmas stocking if I didn't behave. It was always such a relief on Christmas morning!

Opposite. My mum said to eat the crusts so I could get curly hair.

Stir with a knife. Stir up strife. Decades later I will not stir with a knife !

7 years to digest chewing gum. Really ???

My mum said that babies came out of their mother's belly button. I believed her until I read a book before giving birth.

Things my mom said eat your crusty's you will get curly hair . Had straight hair all my life. Don't swallow apple pips as you will get an apple tree growing inside you. But the worse it's only puppy fat and will just disappear when I wanted to diet at 13. But they where the things her parents told her . And no doubt generations before came out with weird sayings.

25Avalon

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.

My mother did this too, along with many of the other superstitions and sayings on this thread.
She was very careful to never walk under a ladder, to acknowledge magpies, never give an empty purse as a present (always add a coin or two) etc

If you swallowed a pip it would grow inside your stomach - apples and oranges. I also heard that swallowing chewing gum would make it stick to your heart. That lasted a while !

My parents had a small stone fossil - they told me it had come out of my brother's ear because he hadn't washed them.

Elless🤣

she used to tell me lots of places were haunted, presumably to frighten me to death so I didn't go there

oh all the period stuff, yes! no hair washing and bathing etc

Eating fish is good for being brainy.