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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:

IsFinnRogersDead · 06/12/2020 18:54

My mother used to do this.

Once we had an argument about how old my child was. She repeatedly corrected me. Firstly I was right and secondly I could prove it. She still didn't back down. And it wasn't like the difference between 6 years and 6.5 years - she said 6 weeks when he was 4 months.

LittleOverwhelmed · 06/12/2020 18:56

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

Tistheseason17 · 06/12/2020 18:56

It's all just different perspectives and our brains fill in the gaps, including yours, OP. If it's not hurtful then, hey, no worries

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Families

MerryCall · 06/12/2020 18:57

My nan was terrible for random lies and over exaggeration. Never in a malicious way, it's was just to seem a bit more interesting I think.

As my mum is getting older i've noticed her doing it too.
The weirdest thing that comes to mind happened about 10 years ago when myself and my husband started a new business. She asked me for some business cards to give out at work. I was reluctant to do so because we had very limited resources at the time and her work clientele were in no way our target market. She was trying to be nice though so I gave her a stack of DIY business cards instead of our good ones.

About 6 months later, she tells me she saw an offer on the TV giving away free business cards and ordered me some. Bit strange I thought as she didn't have access to any of our business graphics/logo or anything like that. She then hands me back the exact same stack of business cards I had given her 6 months ago. God knows why she made up the weird lie about an offer on the TV?

She also told me recently about a song that myself and my childhood best friend apparently used to always play when she was over at my house. That was a good 17+ years ago at least. The song in question was only released 10 years ago.

ShinyGreenElephant · 06/12/2020 19:00

Slightly different but my DSD does this all the time - completely made up anecdotes that she seems to believe. Some of them are clearly to try and impress (she tells people her mum works for the NHS when she actually sells FM fragrances on Facebook) but others are just nonsense, often about us so no chance of us believing them but it seems like she really thinks they happened and gets annoyed when we don't remember. One recently was that her and DD had seen a ferrari and other kids were taking pictures with it, then the driver waved to DD and it turned out she knew him. Not one part of it happened, so bizarre.

Fluffycloudland77 · 06/12/2020 19:05

Is it to cover up consistently shit parenting? I know people who get annoyed their parents look back and see the waltons when really it was pretty nasty stuff going on.

Nannewnannew · 06/12/2020 19:07

@BecomeStronger

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.

I agree with this. I remember things my children don’t and conversely they remember things I don’t. When looking through old photos they sometimes cannot recall an event, but obviously there is photographic proof!

PurePeppermint · 06/12/2020 19:19

Yes my DM does this! Just recently I said to her “oh I always would have liked to get a second piercing I my ear”. She then swore black and blue for 20 minutes that I had a second piercing, told a story about how it got infected etc. There was an infection, but it was my first piercing, which is why I never went back for a second. Now I check my ears every time in the mirror to look for this imaginary second hole!

BlueCheckedTeatowel · 06/12/2020 19:40

my DM didnt spend much time with us growing up and was always working. we had no holidays or celebrations together. she never bothered buying/making us birthday cakes for example, she was far too busy with work. yet she will tell everyone that will listen what a fantastic life we had and how much she did. she tells everyone that we couldnt wish for better parents when, while not horrendous or abusive, they werent good parents.

me and my siblings are very self sufficient (because we had to be) and she sees this as a source of pride. the fact none of us have asked her to babysit ever or have gone home since we all left at 16/18, she sees as good parenting. we are strong. in reality we just know we wouldnt get help even if we asked so theres no point.

Littleposh · 06/12/2020 19:47

Love catching my brother's eye when our dad does this, trying to keep a straight face is impossible!!

HeatherW82 · 06/12/2020 19:50

Yeah all the time. I just let them tell the story as it keeps them happy :)

Squirrel26 · 06/12/2020 19:53

There is a long-running dispute in my family over whether or not we have been to Plymouth. I say we have. We were on a family holiday and we went for the day. I REMEMBER it. (And I was a teenager so old enough to know where I was.) My parents say we did not. We've never been to Plymouth as a family.

15-odd years later obviously it's impossible to say who's right, but we all remain adamant about our own version of events.

PegLegTrev · 06/12/2020 19:55

My Mum recalls stories that simply didn’t happen too.

She tried to make out to my husband that when I was a drunk teenager she would hold my hair back... never happened.

She’ll frequently recall conversations we never had or deny conversations we did have (and to which others bore witness). It’s infuriating!

PegLegTrev · 06/12/2020 19:57

@Fluffycloudland77

Is it to cover up consistently shit parenting? I know people who get annoyed their parents look back and see the waltons when really it was pretty nasty stuff going on.

There was nothing nasty in my house but my mother was not maternal at all.

She never watched me play sports, never cooked tea, never bathed me. It was always my dad. She would groan if she had to do anything for us!

thegreylady · 06/12/2020 19:59

I tell anecdotes about my dc childhood which they swear never happened yet I know they did!

ivfbabymomma1 · 06/12/2020 20:00

Not the same but my mum always says to me like do you remember going there when you were 2? Erm funnily enough no! And remember your nursery best friend what was her name again? Erm again no!!!

Pyewhacket · 06/12/2020 20:03

My parents split up when I was 14. My mother moved back to Provence and my father relocated to New York. I went to live with my grandparents on their farm in Dorset. My father has a place in the Hampton's so I see him a few times a year. I haven't spoken to my mother in ten years.

movingonup20 · 06/12/2020 20:10

Mum mostly gets confused between which of us kids did things, plus seems to think we all did x or she did x for us when actually it only was my youngest brother eg she drove us to school when in actual fact she never drove me to secondary school because she had to take my brothers to the infants and juniors the opposite direction.

GiveMyHeadPeaceffs · 06/12/2020 20:18

@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

Oh my DM does this. I've told her a funny story about something that happened to me or someone I know and then sometime later she tells it back to me as though it's happened to her. It's the weirdest thing!

mopphead · 06/12/2020 20:30

I am worried that I will be this parent! I've always had a bad memory, and I do the thing of exaggerating stories or distorting them when telling them, and I really believe what I'm saying. I think it's that I think about future events a lot and imagine how something might go, and then after some time struggle to remember which way it actually went and get confused with what I imagined. I also go over past events in my head and this often takes the form of telling another person, and then again I can't remember which version happened. I imagine how things could have been worse. I never noticed until DP points it out, and then I often can remember what really happened when he tells me both the version that really happened and the version that I told people. It will be things like exaggerating accidents, getting wrong who did something, mistaking whose idea something was, and so on.

Lots of people do the thing of hearing a story and thinking it happened to them. DP sometimes thinks things that have happened to me happened to him, and often I'd believe him and think I got it wrong if not for particular evidence.

Twobrews · 06/12/2020 20:36

My Mum told DD the other day that my Dad used to take me out for driving lessons as a teenager and said I was a terrible nervous driver.
It never happened. They gave me a choice of paying for ten lessons or insuring me on their car, I chose the lessons because my Dad was a naggy twat.

LegoPirateMonkey · 06/12/2020 20:48

We have a relative who does this a lot and gets very angry and defensive if challenged (however gentle the challenge or inconsequential the story). I think they are sort of conscious of having some trouble with their memory and so does get quite upset by it being pointed out. We usually just smile and nod but it can drive me a little crazy sometimes.

zukiecat · 06/12/2020 21:16

Yes, my mother tells everyone that I used to hide in the bathroom whenever any housework needed to be done.

When in reality I had to scrub the house top to bottom an a lot more besides all day, every Sunday, from age 8, and I wasn't allowed to stop or eat anything til she decided I could,

So usually from about 9am to 7/8pm every Sunday.

Retrievemysanity · 06/12/2020 21:48

Not totally the same but I was talking to my dad last year about a car he had when I was about 15. He swore blind he had never had a car this particular colour. It was ‘kingfisher blue’ and really in your face. Anyway, luckily I do have a good memory and remembered it being on one of our old holiday videos so I made him dig it out and sure enough there it was. I was amazed at how an adult could not remember a car they had owned. It wasn’t as if he had loads of cars over the years!

Milomonster · 06/12/2020 22:11

My parents have us very little to say about me when I was a child. No stories to tell DS. I, too, have very very few lasting memories of it.

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