It’s Mother’s Day which means it’s the one day out of the year that we all act like the sons and daughters that we should–or at least feel bad if we don’t.
And while moms certainly teach us a lot, I have discovered that not everything they taught us was true.
1. You Can Be Anything You Want to Be.
The problem with this lie is that it’s so broad. Anything can mean anything. If this were true, and I wanted to be an Asian leg model, then I could. But this isn’t the case. For one thing I don’t have particularly attractive legs–theres nothing wrong with them, just nothing that makes them exceptionally attractive–and I’m also not Asian.
I certainly understand the message here, but we should at least keep it more honest, something like “You can be anything you want to be, within reason, and that doesn’t involve changing your race.”
2. If You Keep Making that Face It Will Freeze that Way
This would seem to be a rather innocent lie that is used to coax children into looking presentable, but it goes deeper than that. First, it teaches children inaccurate information about the human body which can be detrimental to a career in medicine. Second, it gets innocent children into trouble when they ask a particularly ugly woman on the bus if she was making a silly face and it got stuck like that.
3. Babies Come from Storks
In an attempt to avoid having an awkward conversation about reproduction, parents like to claim a stork dropped you off one day. Not only does this raise questions in the child (who were my real parents? am I an ugly duckling? where was I before the stork picked me up?), it also gives undo credit to storks. Why are they the bearers of children? Why not something cool like an Eagle or wolf? Or at least something sensible like a kangaroo, at least they already have the built-in baby carrier.
4. Santa Clause is real.
This is probably the mother of all lies (ha!) and it runs rampant among parents around the world. The worst part about this lie is that it’s not really to benefit the child, but for the parents to try to threaten kids into behaving.
It also goes completely against the spirit of the holiday and the idea of giving–it teaches children not that our parents love us and work hard to give us gifts to make us happy and that giving is better than receiving, but that an old fat man will give us stuff for behaving moderately well.
But even with these few small lies, moms do teach us quite a bit. Here’s to you, mothers, for all your hard work! I love you, Mom, Happy Mother’s Day!
