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Original poster

Do your parents do this?

50 replies

Babyleveret · 06/12/2020 16:57

My parents are lovely people and I had a very nice childhood. BUT -

They sometimes do a very strange thing where they completely make things up....they have various stories and anecdotes about my childhood which DID NOT happen! They swear that these things happened and repeat the various stories as treasured anecdotes, but they just didn’t happen!

They are usually nice things. But I still didn’t do them 😂
Or things that did happen but exaggerated to the max.

Is it just mine!?

OP posts:
TheLightSideOfTheMoon · 06/12/2020 17:01

Yes, my does this. Then she tells DS about it and I then have to tell him it didn't happen.

Example: When I was studying I had an Amazon wish-list for the textbooks I needed and she would buy them for me.

She probably would have. But I did my A-levels in 1998. Amazon wasn't a thing. And I studied Art and Design, Graphic Design and Theatre Studies. There weren't really any textbooks.

WishingHopingThinkingPraying · 06/12/2020 17:01

No, my parents are not prone to exaggeration.

Original poster
Babyleveret · 06/12/2020 17:04

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon

Yes, my does this. Then she tells DS about it and I then have to tell him it didn't happen.

Example: When I was studying I had an Amazon wish-list for the textbooks I needed and she would buy them for me.

She probably would have. But I did my A-levels in 1998. Amazon wasn't a thing. And I studied Art and Design, Graphic Design and Theatre Studies. There weren't really any textbooks.

Yes, exactly this type of thing!!
OP posts:

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user1274245 · 06/12/2020 17:06

No, but they were dead by the time I reached adulthood.

Are you sure it's not just a matter of different perspectives?

HumphreyCobblers · 06/12/2020 17:10

I discovered the other day that my parents told everyone that I wrote my dissertation on the Carry On films.

I did not write a dissertation and certainly would not have written one about the Carry On films. I did watch an excerpt from one film, once in a lecture about film.

Apparently they have told everyone they know this story Hmm

barbrahunter · 06/12/2020 17:16

My mum used to tell these kind of meaningless lies too. I could never work out if she really believed the crap she came out with or if she was just attention seeking. It was probably somewhere in the middle in that it probably started off as a fantasy and then she deluded herself it really happened.
I have always tried to be strictly factual with my own children because Mum's stories used to annoy me a lot when I was younger.

lljkk · 06/12/2020 17:19

My mom was prone to exaggeration & told false stories about herself, and interpretations of events I wouldn't agree with. I don't condemn her for it.

user686833 · 06/12/2020 17:22

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon Amazon started in 1998 in the UK, I remember when it was just for books. It's possible there are two versions of the truth, you could well have had book wishlists on Amazon dating back that far and have forgotten but maybe it wasn't for Alevel books.

TheLightSideOfTheMoon · 06/12/2020 17:26

Honestly, I didn't use Amazon in 1998... I really didn't.

plumpootle · 06/12/2020 17:27

No. My parents are completely accurate in their retelling of my childhood. Which is probably why we don't talk about it much.

1forAll74 · 06/12/2020 17:51

I am an oldie, and don't lie,or exaggerate any tales from my children's childhood,they are adults of 40 plus now. The reason is, that I am a keen writer of family things, and have always documented everyday happenings, for over 40 years now. So basically.I write down things as they were happening so to speak.

They do find it amusing to read my stuff, and sometimes say this can't be true etc, but it is true what they read, its just that their memories are not as good as mine !

DontDribbleOnTheCarpet · 06/12/2020 17:56

No, my parents have literally nothing nice to say about (me or) my childhood. In their version, I was a wicked and disgusting child whose rank ingratitude continues to this day.

In my version I was regularly beaten and humiliated, then sent away for someone else to bring up.

NovemberR · 06/12/2020 18:03

Eyewitness reports are the most unreliable type of evidence ever as far as the law/police are concerned.

If 10 people witness a crime they will all have seen different things. People's brains fill in what they surmise happened, or what they think they may have seen. The more they concentrate on, say, what colour shirt was someone wearing the minute they think blue doubtfully they then get surer and convince themselves about it as they picture it in their head.

My parents are like this, by the way. But I've also had this at school reunions, etc where people start telling stories about things that happened in the past and you just think that absolutely did not happen.

It's really common.

bellagogosdead · 06/12/2020 18:03

dm once related a funny story as if it had happened to her, when it actually happened to dh- he had told her about it a year or two before.

It was so weird she was adamant about it, dh and I could only look at each other open mouthed. confused

lifestooshort123 · 06/12/2020 18:14

It is easy when you get to a certain age for misremembered events to get lodged in your brain and eventually they take on a ring of honesty. Do your parents believe they are being truthful or do they know it's a load of bollocks? It is also easy to embroider a half-truth to make it more entertaining and your brain accepts it as true.

Ghostlyglow · 06/12/2020 18:15

My mother used to do this. I remember telling DP how she just made lots of stuff up and swear blind it was true. He thought I was exaggerating until he'd known her a few years and she started telling made up stories about him Grin

WilheldivaHater · 06/12/2020 18:18

@bellagogosdead

dm once related a funny story as if it had happened to her, when it actually happened to dh- he had told her about it a year or two before.

It was so weird she was adamant about it, dh and I could only look at each other open mouthed. confused

Dh does this to me! It winds me up to no end. If I ever point out to him that it actually happened to me and I told him about it he'll say something like "well it must have happened twice".

Also OP I totally get your annoyance with your DPs! Mine lie about things all the time and it means I just don't trust them to tell the truth about anything. My mums husband is particularly bad for it but my mum backing him up annoys me just as much.

He'll tell my daughter a hilarious childhood story about me and something I did (usually painting me as some sort of lazy, moron) I always have to tell DD that it never happened. Usually I'll be met with "you must have been too young to remember, you were only tiny" which could make sense, if I hadn't met the man when I was 10 and he didn't even live with my mum full time until I was 20! (And had moved out years prior)

I feel like my irritation comes from their desperation to rewrite the past and act as if he is my dad, and we'd always lived together and had such a jolly time. (Definitely not the case, I remember mostly abuse from my childhood)

WellyBootsAreYouFrom · 06/12/2020 18:25

My DM does this all the time, it's become a bit of a running joke between DH and I. My parents travelled a lot when I was young, I didn't spend much time with them but apparently they managed to do all sorts of lovely things with my DB and I, for example reading us The Gruffalo every night.

I am in my late 30s, the soonest she could have read me that story I would have been in my late teens as it was only published in 1999!

Mendingfences · 06/12/2020 18:32

My mam has a habit of listening to the beginning of what i am saying, deciding she knows what Im going to say and then she doesnt bother listening to the end of what i am saying. She then remembers her version which may or may not have any relation to what i actually said.....

BecomeStronger · 06/12/2020 18:37

How do you know it's them making it up rather than you forgetting? My parents (and others) talk about things I don't remember but that doesn't necessarily mean they're not true.

PiccalilliChilli · 06/12/2020 18:37

My mother in law does this. I think there isn't much going on in her life so her imagination takes over.

Pogmaasal · 06/12/2020 18:46

My mum has done this, but my auntie has too. She seems to think she knows a huge secret about my teenage hood, and it simply isnt true, but it is one of those things where the more I protest, the more she thinks she knows a big secret, so frustratingly I have to keep quiet.

LynetteScavo · 06/12/2020 18:47

My DM loves to tell a story about how I whacked a girl for pulling my pigtails. Yes, I gave her a nose bleed, but it was totally accidental and she certainly hadn't pulled my hair (we were both playing a silly whacking game).

There are many other such stories. We just nod and smile.

habibihabibi · 06/12/2020 18:52

A while back, my mother told everyone I lived in Kuwait, when I have never even visited. Wprked in other Gulf States but never Kuwait. Geography may be not her strong point but when I gently ( she is fierce) corrected her she said I told her I did

Caselgarcia · 06/12/2020 18:54

My DH's parents divorced when he was in his teens. His father got remarried a few years later to a lovely lady with two teenage daughters, Jane and Sally. When DH and I had our son, we spoke about how noisy the hospital ward was at night with new born babies waking and crying. My FIL said 'oh you wouldn't believe how noisy Sally was, she kept everyone awake with her crying'. He didn't meet Sally until she was in her teens!

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