What's the funniest or most ridiculous thing an adult tried to teach you as a child?

- Everything that begins with “if you <things they don’t want us to do>, <enter a random monster’s name here> will come and eat you”
– If you get too cold you will turn into a stone.

That if you worked hard and were a good person you would succeed.
So ridiculous.

One of my earliest sexual stirrings occurred when I was a preteen and my aunt, who could make a ridiculously loud whistle sound by blowing through her cupped hands, attempted to teach me that questionable skill. Unable to teach me by blowing through her own hands, she placed her lips on mine and blew. Well, the lips-on instruction didn’t work either, but ZOWIE!!!—I got one helluva physical jolt that I had never experienced before.

My aunt told me not to ever let the sweep go over my feet or I won’t get married. Boy was she wrong. LOL
I guess she needed to believe that is why she never got married.

My father once told me that if i didn’t jump really high over the end of the escalator it would swallow me up, churn my body, loads of mechanics would kill me and mangle me (pretty gross), but because I was really little i believed him 110% a few years later I caught him laughing at me when I was jumping off the escalator, since then I have walked off the escalator normally.

My mum also tried to teach me what mortgage meant when I was about 5, yeah didn’t work

I had my third grade teacher tell me that electricity moves slowly through water and that’s why it is so dangerous.

I never forgot that moment because that was when I realized that adults were not always right.

A junior in high school (1957), I had a science class where the teacher told us that the reason the moon always faced us was because its axis pointed toward the Earth. I knew better and tried to demonstrate by walking around another student while continuously facing him, but this did not persuade the teacher.

I remember my father trying to teach me how to shave with a straight razor when I was around 12. It was bloody.

When we moved to Thailand, I got bitten by mosquitoes left and right. Our neighbor said I had to grab them and bite them back to make them stop.

I was told that if I could shake salt onto a pigeon’s tail, I could catch him. While there’s a grain of truth to that (get it), the salt became more important than the proximity. In hindsight, I’m not sure what I would have done with a pigeon.

The good folks at the Baptist church told me that swimming with a boy is a sin. That and a bunch of other religious crap.

My Mom told us that the reason bars were always dark was because they were all sinning, and they don’t want anyone to see them sinning.

I remember my dad trying to explain to me the importance of civil rights while at the same time trying to explain why it was wrong to date people of different races. He was a separate but equal guy and was passionate about the equal part. His logic about the separate part never made sense. This was in the 60’s

@picante My grandfather told me the same thing about rabbits. I spent a good part of the summer (when I was 6) sneaking around with a salt shaker.

The most useless thing my adults told me was, “Put on your sweater (or jacket) or you’ll catch cold” (and DIE! was implied).
Being uncomfortably hot and restricted in movement was definitely not the way to keep “bugs” at bay.

My grand-parents were all born in Europe, consequently my parents were “first-generation”. Having come through the depression, my Dad never graduated from High School in order to help his family, they stressed the value of an education as a means to achieve the American Dream.

My mother’s take on this was to hammer into me “if you don’t have a Master’s Degree, you’re a bum”. Strong words but quite in character for her.

I got that Master’s degree at the age of 29 and I guess I at this point I am not a bum.

SRM

One thing that we heard when were kids -

If you don’t finish everything on your dinner plate, then children in China will starve.

I never understood the connection.

I went to a baptist Christian school for middle school. I had to watch all of these creationist videos that would use laugh tracks and Brady bunch style blunder music whenever a fact about evolution was introduced.

I thought of another one from the same school. Our science teacher was convinced the rapture would happen in 1988. He did an entire period lesson teaching us all of his calculations to show us how correct he was. He once told us that sometimes he felt it was pointless teaching us science because none of us were going to graduate high school. The rapture would get us all by our sophomore year. Igot spooked and I’m sure several other kids did too. He ended up too crazy even for the school to handle and he was fired. Several of my classmates met him working as a cashier in a gas station after 1989. He said his wife left him and he lost his home in 1988. Kinda sad all around.

That is sad @keobooks
I wonder if he ever had a moment of “My life is based on lies”?
Or is it still, “God is testing my faith?”

My sperm donor used to send me to the store to get something they didn’t have in stock ( I asked the store clerk). When I returned home and told him they don’t have it, he would yell and say I was lying and didn’t really look for it . After some cursing and name calling, He said he would go get it himself since he couldn’t depend on me. Then, he would drive to a store downtown, get the item, and return, telling me he got it from the same store across the street that he sent me to. Then, he would beat me for not seeing it in the store when he sent me the first time. I would spend the whole day wondering why I didn’t see it in the store. Later, I learned he got the item somewhere else. I don’t know what he was trying to teach me at that point, but I learned he was an asshole and to never trust anyone. Not even a parent.

The Boogeyman would get me, God would protect me, Santa would bring my heart’s desire, the Easter Bunny would rot my teeth, and finding my own joy would grow hair on my palms and make me go blind.

@Here2_4 – which of those has proven most accurate?

Well, Easter Bunny Teeth is a well known phenomenon, @elbanditoroso.

Turns out; an ex boyfriend was the boogeyman, santa was my daddy, my grandpa was god, my mother was the easter bunny And I can see, but I wear glasses.

excellent @Here2_4
You discovered moderation (just do it ‘til you need glasses) and the fur is simply a bonus!