I was the same...
My parents gave me the same answers to my toddler questions they would have given to an adult.

What's that building, Daddy?
It's a mill.
What's a mill?
It's a grindery for the processing of cereal products.

Thus, when it came time for my progress checkup, and the nurse took me to the park asking "Can you see the big duck? And all the baby ducks?" I replied;
"No, because that is a swan, and those are signets."

"You can take him home now." was the responce.
(28:06:42:12, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 23:22, Reply)

I was unusually well informed...
...my parents always tended to tell me the proper names for things, when I was about 2 or 3 (instead of a papap being a car, or a bobo being a horse, etc). It was always:

Me: What's that Mummy?
Mum: It's a horse.
Get me?

Cue hilarity when other people assume you've been brought up by normal parents, so you call things silly names. My (well brought-up) Grandma for example.

Grandma: Look at that bobo!
(long pause)
Me: Grandma, it's a horse.

And those ice-cream van jingles that mean I need to stop being so anally-retentive and go kill someone.
(The Wigmeister, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 22:30, Reply)

I was a little shit !
This isn't so much a lie, more a misunderstanding... My Dad thought (When I was about 5) that the "Straight approach" was a good idea after I'd asked him how I came into being.Of course he tried to simplify the whole process for my little mind to grasp.

A day or so later I returned from playgroup triumphantly wielding a picture that I'd painted of my Mum sitting on the toilet smiling... with me dropping out of her arse.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was also once taking a car ride with my Grandfather on the way back from Gt Yarmouth .
We drove past a graveyard (I had a vague notion of what death was) so I asked him if thats where he'd be one day & he replied "No, they're going to put me in a fire" This immediately conjured up images of a bunch of adults slinging my kicking & struggling Grandand onto a bonfire.I was inconsolable & howled all the way home.
(hiab-x, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 22:24, Reply)

A day in Leiu
When I was young (a long time now!) Our family always holiday'd around Polperro and Looe.

My mum worked bank holiday's quiet regulary and would remark excitedly that she was having a day in leiu on tuesday. I was gutted that she wouldn't take me along. Although i though it was a long way just to go out for a day.
(drewpy, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 22:17, Reply)

This is a hereditary lie...
...as it was told to me by my mom who was told it by her mom, probably going as far back as the primordial soup... if you swallow chewing gum it will wrap around your heart and you will die. Once I swallowed some by accident and spent an hour sobbing like a baby (well I was 7) with my hand clasped over my chest to make sure my heart was still beating.
(being_spanked_by_a_monkey_as_a_sort_of_revenge_thing, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 21:57, Reply)

the 4 legged chicken
i had to join in on the fun after reading every post every week for the past some months or so.

50% indian families don't cook metal/nonveg at home and prefer to eat it outside. my family has a schedule for sundays as cook-and-eat meat at home day. so when i was young, my father used to ask me if he should get the 2 legged or 4 legged chicken and i would mostly alternate. when i went to boarding school then it hit me. i confronted him after settling in,
"so dad, was that four legged chicken actually goatmeat?"
"ya son." *sheepish smile*
"figures. never had any drumsticks in them."

another time, electricity was out and we were sitting outside. i had learnt something new.
" aap logon ko pata hai? (you guys know?) its actually the earth which revolves around the sun!"
" we didn't know that. that changes our entire perspective on life."
no lies involved but i can feel the sarcasm lodged deep in my conciousness.

another time i was told not to lie down and eat at the same time.
"why?"
" because the food somehow goes to the dog on the street downstairs and you will still be hungry."
(slipgun, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 21:51, Reply)

Bodmin Beacon
We lived in Wadebridge, in North Cornwall, and in the nearby town of Bodmin there's a big pointy granite war memorial on top of the hill - Bodmin Beacon.

When we drove past it, my Dad used to tell us that it was Cornwall's coal-powered space rocket, and that since it is made of granite, it never got off the ground.

Yep, we believed him.
(boggissimo, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 21:43, Reply)

that it was ok to sleep at the neverland ranch
really...
(Ajtag, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 21:24, Reply)

The hard shoulder
On long car journeys, eg. to my grandma's house along the M25, I would complain about things and bully my younger brother, as one does. My dad, who's not usually the lying type at all, once asked in an off-hand way "Do you know what the hard shoulder is?" Upon answering 'no' I was informed that it was "for little girls who don't like going in the car so they decide to walk all the way to Grandma's." The lie was reinforced on later occasions when we would drive past some poor soul walking along the hard shoulder (presumably to a phone or breakdown service, or whatever) and my parents would deadpan me with "Looks like that man/lady didn't like going in the car so they've decided to walk all the way to their grandma's."
At the age of about 14 or 15, when I finally asked them what it actually was for, they pissed themselves laughing at the magic shutting-up charm they'd come up with and its ludicrous longevity.
(pinky shminky, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:39, Reply)

Just remembered this
Not really a lie per se, but my brother was a terrible baseball player when we were in elementary school so my dad would tell him alternately that he played baseball like Michael Jackson, or Elton John.
Me: "Daddy, I didn't know they played baseball."
Him: "Well, if they did, they'd play like your brother."
This is pretty funny to me now.
(Hannah_Fruit, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:26, Reply)

Why, mother?
My mum told me you could get drunk on lemonade. I believed it until I was about twelve.
(wearer of the bloomers, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:26, Reply)

A mattress... Yeah, right...
My mom told me I had to go with her to load a new mattress onto her car, so off we went to the "mattress warehouse"...

I got out of the drug rehab 13 months later. Sheesh.
(Disgruntled, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:24, Reply)

Oh, remembered another one!
Not a parent, but my A-level Biology teacher told us about this time back at her old school, when the whole Biology department decided, for a laugh, to pretend to an entire GCSE Biology class that the reason seagulls sleep standing on one leg is so that they don't get eaten by limpets.

The theory was that limpets are carnivorous creatures, and the way they catch their prey (seagulls) is by waiting until they're asleep, then crawling very slowly onto their legs, and then when they wake up, they are unable to walk or take off, and so when the tide comes in, they drown, and the limpets feast. So of course, sleeping standing on one leg halves the chances of being killed by limpets.

Of course, a lot the kids at first thought it was nonsense, so they went and asked the other biology teachers, who were of course in on it, and confirmed her story (and of course these kids were at the age when teachers still had no lives outside the classrooms, and so didn't communicate with each other).

I like to think that someone, somewhere, has failed their GCSE because of this, and now harbours a bitter hatred and a lust for revenge...
(Branfish, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:17, Reply)

Another interpretation of the ice cream van
Friend of mine told her son that the sound was that of the ambulance coming to take the old people away.
(barmouth, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:12, Reply)

When I was five
I got a puppy for my birthday. Shortly thereafter, I was told she was given away to some people who lived on a farm so she would have more room to run around.
Around age 25, still believing this I asked my father to which farm he had sent the dog. He laughed and said, "A farm in the sky."
Turns out the dog had incurable mange and had to be put down.

Also he used to threaten when I was misbehaving that I would have to take a dose of a particularly bad tasting cough syrup which I stupidly believed he kept in the fridge. For years.
(Hannah_Fruit, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 20:06, Reply)

Ha! Ya right...
I once found one of my mothers power tools under the bed, on wandering downstairs and thinking nothing of the group of friends she'd got round for coffee asked her what it was.

She told me it was a delux food mixer to which her friends howled and I went away perplexed

Pfftt
(Plumpilicious, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 19:33, Reply)

Lies my friends told their little brother
my buddy & his next-younger brother told their youngest bro - who was about to go get his tonsils removed - that the doctor was going to stick him with this REALLY BIG needle and then SCRAPE his throat out with razors --- so the kid is in the room when the nurse brings in the tray of instruments, one of which is the hypo of anesthetic - and little brother goes into shock --- Mom & Dad had a few things to say about that ...
(spiderplex, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 19:18, Reply)

Lying twunts
Till I was about nine, mine had me believing everything was black and white before 1940 and that's why their were no colour films.
Oh, and that I was the dogs child not theirs and was known as Fang. This ended abruptly when an Aunty [of the 'not your real aunty' variety] realised that at three years old I no longer responded to my real name.

I'll bury them eventually.
(autopilot, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 19:15, Reply)

The light on the forehead
I'm rotten, so I use this on my own kids.

"When you're lying, a light on your forehead comes on that only grownups can see." It gets to the point where kids will put a hand over their forehead as they tell a huge whopper of a lie. Just picture it for a moment. You tell the kid off for lying, then quietly take yourself off for a good laugh.
(EauSalee, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 19:12, Reply)

When I was about 7
My parents took me to Crete on holiday, and my parents being my parents quickly managed to make friends with the locals (who probably thought they were tourist tosspots and just smiled and thought of the mighty tourist buck they were making. Anyway, the people that ran the local Avis car hire invited us to their house to meet their kids and join in the traditional grecian easter festivities. To start with all was good, despite the language barrier me and the kids got on and were playing as kids do (running round and screaming), and then we sat down to dinner. First course was a bowl of murky green sludge, my mum told me it was asparagus soup and "you like it". I didn't, it was foul. But still, being a well mannered boy I ate it all and even accepted the offer of seconds. My stomach wasn't the same for the rest of the 2 week holiday.
Fast forward 14 years to my 21st birhday and I'm out with my family prior to a propper debauch, and we're sitting in a rather swank resteraunt. "What are you having to start?" My mother asks. "Well definitely not the asparagus soup I bloody hate that". When pressed for an explanation I reminded her of the time in crete and the asparagus soup. "Oh that wasn't asparagus" she replied. "I told you that so you'd eat it". "Well what was it?". "ummmm......sheeps intestine soup. The green bits were the guts"
(voodo_kinky, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 19:00, Reply)

furthermore
My Mum once told me that when she was a little girl, she & a 'friend' were told by an older kid that if you stuck a screwdriver in your belly button and unscrewed it that your bum would fall off.
My Mum then went on to tell me how her 'friend' had actually tried this and "made a right mess of herself".
This was my Mum's misguided way of trying to alert us to the dangers of sticking things in your belly button, not something that had ever occurred to me up till that point.
She has since confessed her guile, which would be all well and good EXCEPT the imagery has left me with a lifelong phobia of having ANYTHING at all even as much as touch my belly button, never mind sticking anything in it. (other than possibly a wet flannel in the bath).

They f_ck you up your parents do.
(The Pink Strat Copy, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 18:52, Reply)

My mum once told me
that Santa Claus wasn't real - stupid bitch
( Koocha My Gallery is full of fun stuff, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 18:17, Reply)

Sending us to the hospital
Whenever me or my brother were naughty my parents would put us in the car and take us to hillingdon hospital. they would park outside and threaten to give us back.We would cry all the way there and back,then for the rest of the night.o the good times we had.
(TheSadisticThespian, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:58, Reply)

Ron
Not really a lie, but my dad used to be fond of saving things (food for instance) "for Ron". We actually knew someone called Ron at the time and I was like, "is Uncle Ron coming around?" Eventually my dad witheringly explained "it's for LATE-R-ON". Bastard.

He also once told me "Did you know gullible isn't in the dictionary?" I didn't believe him... but I did the next best thing, which was to leap up, grab a dictionary, and yell indignantly "Yes it is, look!!!"
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:43, Reply)

Not actually told to me...
... but what the hell. I was walking around Thetford a year or so ago, and I saw a three-or-four-year-old girl jumping into puddles, as kids do. Her mum was upset by this, as mums usually are.

"DON'T JUMP INTO PUDDLES!" she screeched, "YOUR FEET'LL GET WET AND THEY'LL FALL OFF! DO YOU WANT YOUR FEET TO FALL OFF!?"

Fast forward five months later to a hypothetical trip to Great Yarmouth.
"Go on! Go for a paddle! Just effing leave me alone and go for a paddle!"
(dungeoneer, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:35, Reply)

"This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you"
...the most blantant of all lies that was always told straight to your face (...or not if you were over his knee) and which was invariably, never the bloody truth. Swine.
(Rata-tat-atouille, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:31, Reply)

Not so much a lie...
...as an uncorrected assumption. My mum is a fairly modern parent, and so she never really lied to me, so I never believed in the tooth fairy or santa claus (although we did still all pretend we believed he existed, for some unknown reason) or anything like that.

However, she did like in indulge in a little of the wacky baccy on occasion, and so until I was about 13 I thought that the crumbling of the brown stuff was just a natural part of rolling a cigarette...

Like I say, she never actually told me this, but since I almost never saw a cigarette being rolled "properly" (as most of my family indulge), I never questioned its existence or, more crucially, its legality...
(Branfish, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:25, Reply)

lesbians
when I was about 5 or 6 I was in the living room while my mum was watching the evening news. Not sure what the report was about, but somebody mentioned lesbians, which provoked the question "mum, what's a lesbian?"
She thought about it for a second then replied with "it's someone who comes from Lesbia. You know, like if someone comes from America then they're American?"

"oh"

For my next birthday one of the presents I got was a world atlas. I spent a whole day looking through it trying to find Lesbia. Eventually I asked my dad.

"dad - do you know where Lesbia is?"

dad - *confused look* "Lesbia? Never heard of it"

"Well mum told me that's where Lesbians come from!"

dad - "let me just go and ask your mum about it"

*Hushed conversation in the other room*

dad - "you shouldn't be spending all your time looking at maps. How'd you like some Star Wars figures instead?"

So I forgot all about Lesbia for several years!
(evilbert has his nob out under the desk., Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:24, Reply)

my parants?
no we like you just as much as your brother
(m0rbis, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:16, Reply)

Darling Mummy...
whilst my wonderful mother was training to be a nurse she had a book with a picture of a person that was one of those pictures of your muscles. She told us if you chew gum your skin will go all stretched and showed us the picture.
I was terrified.
She also told us that in the winter there was a thing called a "square moon". if you saw the square moon you wouldn't get any christmas presents. I think this was a way of making us go to bed early. Icarried on believing this until I was seven at which point my older sister revealed the truth. Parents eh?

/teen angst
(Smiling Naked Toad is in a sexy mood, Fri 16 Jan 2004, 17:11, Reply)