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

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.

, muddynails, that's so funny!

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....

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

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.,

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.