Your Parents Did A Great Job Raising You If You Believed These 11 Lies Growing Up
Sometimes, lies can serve a purpose.
Look Studio | Shutterstock Kids rely on their parents to make sense of the chaotic and unforgiving world. They need unconditional love to build self-worth and boundaries to feel safe. More than anything else, kids need to know that they can trust their parents so they can learn to trust themselves.
Yet even the most sincere parents lie to their kids. Most of the time, they lie with good intentions to protect kids from hurt and heartache. Parents lie to boost their kids’ confidence and ease their sorrows. They want to shield their kids from hard truths, saying life is fair and hard work always pays off. They say that the good guys always win. If you believed these lies growing up, your parents did a great job raising you.
Your parents did a great job raising you if you believed these 11 lies growing up:
1.‘You can do anything you want.’
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Your parents wanted you to see how capable you were. They showered you with positive affirmations and praised you for every win, big or small. They made your happiness their top priority, which is why they told you the gentle lie that you could do anything you wanted.
When you decided to be an astronaut after learning about outer space in second grade, your parents said you could do anything. They could have crushed your little kid's heart by telling you that only 676 people in the world have gone into space, but instead, they let you believe you could fly to the stars. When you declared your intention to become the prima ballerina in the Royal Ballet, your parents took your dream seriously. They enrolled you in lessons, invested in point shoes, and gave you a standing ovation at every performance.
Telling their kids that they can do anything is a classic parenting technique. It might be a deceptive thing to say, but it serves a noble purpose. This particular lie is meant to inspire hope. It encourages kids to embrace the world instead of counting themselves out. If your parents supported even your most unrealistic dress, they did a great job raising you.
2.‘You must eat all your vegetables to grow big and strong.’
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Parents say honesty is the best policy, but they twist the truth more often than their kids realize. In most cases, dishonesty is an extreme breach of trust, but not all lies are created equally. If you believed your parents when they said eating every vegetable on your plate was the only way to get bigger, they did a great job raising you.
Getting through dinner with young kids can be a battle of wills. It doesn’t matter what their parents make; kids will decide it’s “so yucky,” gag dramatically, and refuse to let a single green bean pass their lips. With the intensity of their youthful defiance, it’s no wonder parents massage the truth to make meals less stressful.
According to Lisa Newman, an intuitive eating counselor, family dinners teach good eating habits that kids can take into adulthood. She shared that “constant mindless snacking” indicates kids need more consistent structure and sustenance.
“Mealtime hunger is a real thing and can’t be satisfied with a little of this and that,” she explained. “A predictable dinnertime… provides a greater chance for exposure to healthy food options as well as a more conscious connection to appetite signals.”
If there’s one thing kids hate more than broccoli, it’s being told how little they are, which is why this lie is so effective. Insisting that leafy greens are the secret to getting taller might not be the most honest approach, but it’s not the worst lie a parent could tell.
3.‘The tooth fairy came while you were sleeping.’
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Most of the time, lying to kids is a form of emotional manipulation, but there are parenting situations where dishonesty is the best policy. If your parents lied and said the tooth fairy was real, they did a great job raising you.
According to Psychology Today, parents must consider the type of lie they’re telling. For example, they might say their kids’ hair will fall out if they don’t brush it, an instrumental lie meant to manage their children's behavior. Instrumental lies lead children to do what their parents want, but short-term compliance might not be worth the negative consequences in the long run.
Since they only benefit parents, instrumental lies can be damaging, yet mood and myth-based lies enhance the childhood experience. Cultural lies are a form of storytelling. They help kids make sense of big moments, like losing their first tooth.
“By allowing a child to enter a world of fantasy and metaphor, the parent is enriching the child’s imagination,” Psychology Today explained.
As crucial as modeling honesty is, parents should also try to keep their kids’ sense of wonder alive. There’s an important distinction between lying for cruelty's sake and preserving kids’ joy. When parents pretend that a tooth fairy slipped five dollars under their kids’ pillows, they encourage a good kind of magical thinking.
4.‘You’re the smartest kid in school.’
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If you believed your parents said you were the smartest kid in school, they did a great job raising you. By praising you for being exceptionally smart, your parents emphasized the importance of committing to your education. Their encouragement lifted you when you felt low and helped you see your capability.
Even though they said you were the smartest kid at your school, your parents didn’t let you coast through life on your natural intelligence. They expected you to keep learning new things, even when it was hard.
According to Psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy, facing challenges and sitting in their frustration is the only way for kids to build resilience. She described that experience as being in “The Learning Space,” which is “the space between not-knowing and knowing [that] generally brings one feeling: Frustration.”
“Resilience doesn’t come from getting to ‘knowing’ as quickly as possible,” she explained. “Resilience comes from the length of time you can tolerate The Learning Space.”
“The more we can tolerate frustration, the more we can learn, the more we can struggle, the more we can take on challenges, the more we can bounce back from failure,” Dr. Kennedy concluded.
Your parents probably exaggerated when they said you were the smartest kid in school. Intelligence exists on a spectrum, which means no matter how smart you are, someone else is more competent in a different way.
5.‘If you work hard, all your dreams will come true.’
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Your parents were your lifelong cheerleaders and number-one fans. They did everything they could to boost your morale, even if it meant lying about how the world works. They raised you to believe that putting in hard work would make your dreams come true, but reality is way more nuanced than that.
It’s a hard truth to swallow, but working hard doesn’t guarantee success. Not every dream is attainable, and people aren’t always rewarded for their dedication. The belief that effort is the only thing holding you back from achieving your dreams makes life feel a little easier, which is why your parents kept up the lie.
Part of adulthood means accepting that life won’t unfold like you planned. You’ll set goals you can’t reach. You’ll be passed over for opportunities, even when you deserve them. Staying flexible and learning to pivot are essential to success, even though your definition of success might have to change, too. The more you can navigate disappointment with grace, the more you’ll learn how strong you are.
6.‘Being a kid is the best time of your life.’
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If you believed your parents when they said that being a kid was the best part of life, they did a great job raising you. They did more than meet your basic needs; they made your childhood like an adventure. You had family movie nights, ice cream dinners, and epic birthday parties. They let you play outside until the sun went down, and they didn’t care if you came home covered in mud; they were happy that you were pleased.
Your parents never pushed you to grow up too fast. They didn’t expect you to carry the weight of adult responsibilities or be their emotional caretakers. They protected you from parts of life you weren’t ready to understand. You were allowed to be a kid, which is the best gift a parent can give.
7.‘Your art belongs in a museum.’
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Your parents were proud of everything you did, regardless of the result. They believed you were inherently worthy, which made you think it, too. Their love lifted you, paving the way for you to become a confident, self-assured adult.
They celebrated every report card and put all your spelling tests on the fridge. They said your science fair experiment was groundbreaking. They told you every piece of art you made belonged in a museum, and you believed them. Your macaroni necklaces were high fashion. Your self-portraits were astonishingly accurate. They oohed and ahhed over every fingerpainted masterpiece you brought home. They displayed your lumpy pottery projects. You were the next Picasso, and your parents were faithful patrons of the arts.
Once you got older and realized your artwork was nowhere near museum-worthy, you may have felt a twinge of disappointment, but mostly, you remembered how deeply your parents loved you.
8.‘I love watching your recitals.’
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Your parents showed their devotion by showing up. They were emotionally available and affectionate, always making time for you. When you were in the school play, they sat in the front row, even though you only had one line. They thought you were robbed when you didn’t win first place in the talent show. They gave up their weekends for trumpet recitals, insisting they loved every minute of your experimental jazz solo.
You never doubted that your parents would be there for you. They were a reliable presence throughout your life. While they didn’t make false promises, they did give you false praise, which wasn’t as traumatizing as it sounds.
According to a study from the Journal of Moral Education, parenting by lying is a common practice with the potential to cause harm. Still, as with everything else in life, context matters most. The researchers acknowledged that “different types of lies may have different implications for trust.”
When your parents said they loved your recitals, they told an affiliative lie: "to protect a child’s feelings [and] promote social harmony.” Lying caused you less pain than telling the truth would have. Your parents lied because they loved you, which means they did a great job raising you.
9.‘Mistakes mean success is right around the corner.’
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If you believed that every mistake you made brought you one step closer to success, your parents did a great job raising you. This statement isn’t so much an outright lie as it is a murky half-truth. Making mistakes can be generative and productive, but they don’t automatically guarantee success.
Your parents told this lie to help you understand that mistakes hold promise. They wanted to teach you that failing doesn’t make you a failure. While they weren’t being entirely truthful, they were trying to give you hope and encourage you to keep going, which indicates solid parenting.
10.‘We’re not worried about money.’
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When parents lie, it makes their kids less likely to trust them later in life, but sometimes, living a lie is necessary to keep the peace. Some subjects are too heavy for kids to handle, so parents lie to them as a protective measure.
According to the “Parents, Kids & Money Survey,” 77% of parents said they weren’t always honest with their kids about money. Some parents lied to avoid conflicts with their kids, saying they couldn’t afford things they could. Other parents downplayed their financial struggles, telling their kids that they weren’t worried about money when they were.
While financial stress impacts every part of family life, kids don’t need to know the whole truth. If your parents hid their financial concerns from you, they did a great job raising you.
11.‘No one in the world is as special as you.’
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If you believed your parents when they told you how special you were, they did a great job raising you. As much as unconditional love should be a requirement for raising kids, not every parent can offer that kind of steady affection.
When your parents said you were more special than anyone else, they weren’t lying. They genuinely believed you were that special. When it’s malicious or deceptive, lying can erode the sense of connection between people, but by telling you how special you are, your parents made the bond you shared even stronger.
Alexandra Blogier, MFA, is a staff writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.