‘What is your favourite parenting white lie?’ – 22 perfectly acceptable fibs to tell children

One of the most important things drummed into us as children is that telling lies is wrong. And yet when we get to adulthood and have kids ourselves, we find ourselves telling them fibs – only small ones – quite often. Sometimes it just makes life easier.

They’ve been discussing these types half truths and untruths on the AskUK subreddit after Purepoise shared one of their own…

What is your favourite parenting white lie?

My current is: I will eat a sweet or a piece of chocolate and my toddler will be like “What are you eating?”. I will without fail say “Tomato, or gravy (for chocolate), do you want some?” And he will straight away run off going “bleurgh”. Free to enjoy my tomato or gravy in peace.

An ingenious ruse. And lots of other people chipped in with their own harmless porkies, like these…

1.

‘Former colleague of mine told her children that some of their annoying toys needed “Australian batteries which we can’t get here”. I thought that was a hilarious trick.’
–Ill_Republic_6484

2.

‘Mum loves ladybirds – can you find one in the garden? (Mum doesn’t care but wants you to bog off to the garden)’
–DameKumquat

3.

‘My son is 11 now so it doesn’t work any more. But I had him convinced the sound of the ice cream van was the Broccoli Wagon until he was about 5 or 6.

Unfortunately he’s wised up to it (and now likes broccoli) so my lies have burned down around me.’
–aberdoom

4.

‘My friend’s son only likes ham. Wouldn’t eat anything else. So they just tell him things are ham. Chicken is white ham… beef is brown ham…’
–Mu99az

5.

‘My mother always used to go to her bedroom on weekends to “listen to the Radio 4 afternoon play” as she liked the theatre.

It was only as an adult I realised this was a complete lie and she just wanted a short afternoon snooze away from the chaos of 2 x small children and chose a topic we wouldn’t be interested in!’
–Frosty_Leg4438

6.

‘”Daddy isn’t feeling very well today.”

Look pal, the sun was shining, everyone at work was feeling giddy because it was a bank holiday weekend and I’m sorry but after 57 pints I genuinely just cannot play daddy horse at this precise moment in time.’
–arenaross

7.

‘That only really well behaved children can use the vacuum as a special treat. A good way to demonstrate you’re well behaved might be dusting, and then you get the treat of getting to use the vacuum.’
–medphysfem

8.

‘Something is ‘closed’ eg. the park, the pool etc. If I really don’t want to go somewhere that day me and my husband say it’s closed.’
–Caitlyn_linda1998

9.

‘I swear the McDonald’s near us has the weirdest opening hours.’
–newmum21

10.

‘My mum tells the story of growing up in the 70’s, her and her siblings always putting their pocket money into the big penny box on the wall to keep it safe. It was the electric meter, and my grandad couldn’t be bothered to go and get change for it, so he told the kids that it was a piggy bank type of thing and then just gave them paper cash when they needed it.’
–shinydoctor

11.

‘My daughter doesn’t like peas. We told her one day that we had things that looked like peas called petit pois and she loved them so we now serve her peas and call them petit pois.’
–cheandbis

12.

‘”We’ll see.” We ain’t about to see nothing.’
–InfiniteComedian7172