Busted Myths: The Childhood Tales Our Parents Told Us

Did eating carrots really help you see in the dark, or was it just another tale our parents told us? In this episode of The Big 6-Oh, we unravel the funniest and most memorable childhood myths to find out which were fact, fiction, or just plain clever parenting!

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Transcript

00:00

This episode of The Big Six-O brought to you by Louis Carr Real Estate, helping people in the Hills District find their dream home since 1992. Ready to buy, sell or rent? Check out louiscarr.com.au for all your property needs. If you're old enough to remember when phones had cords and the only thing that went viral was a cold, then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Big Six-O with Kayleigh Harris and Guy Rawlison.

00:28

Because who better to discuss life's second act than two people who still think mature is a type of cheese? ["The Big Bang"]

00:54

Welcome to the Big Six O, if you've stumbled across us for the first time. Congratulations. You've unlocked the podcast for anyone who's ever wondered how I got the 60 and my joints sound like bubble wrap. I'm Guy Rollison, your host and joining me is my fabulous co-host and old inverted commas, old school buddy from back in the day, Kaylee Harris. Hello. How are you? I'm really well, except for those bubble wrap memes.

01:19

Oh, did you play footy or something or why have you got footy? Sport is a criminal, isn't it? You know, from just, you know, when you're young and I'm still sort of playing old man's sport. Like I gave up sort of soccer. Yeah. Only last year. So and still playing baseball. Cool. So yeah, it doesn't doesn't help, but, you know, it makes me feel like I'm I'm doing something other than, you know, sort of sitting on my hands.

01:48

Actually, we should do something about in a future podcast. We should talk, because I tried walking netball a couple of years ago. So the whole the Department of Recreational Sport or whatever it was in New South Wales, started this whole push to get all people like us back out playing sports. So they started walking netball, walking basketball and walking soccer. So if you played it when you were younger, you could go back, but you didn't have to be. And I went.

02:13

with these other old ladies and we it is so hard not to run. That's the thing that I've seen walking soccer and it looks like something from a Monty Python sketch. Where if you're capable of running and you're thinking, I can get to that. Yeah. You look a little bit. You want to run and, but with walking netball, you've got to always have one foot on the ground. And I'm this poor young girl who was umpiring this every week. She was all of 20, you know, she's Kayleigh, excuse me. You're running again.

02:43

And this competitive side of me came back out again and it did with all the ladies and we were, by the end of it, we were ready, like we turned into those netball Nazi people and we were ready to smash each other. I don't think this is the point. I've seen it, it's just not for me. I'm figuring that if you're going to play sport and look I'm not dissing on anyone that wants to take up walking netball or walking soccer or whatever it is but I've never been a walker for a start. You're running?

03:13

I just want to get from here to there in the past. And that might be walking eventually. I don't know. I think it will be with a walker eventually. Those bubble wrap knees and joints and everything, you know, that's going to play a big hand in where it goes very shortly. But we're both parents. We are. And one of us has entered that stage of being Yoda as far as being a grandparent. Yes. And we're going to talk about that another episode. We're going to talk about grandparenting and stuff.

03:42

But I thought we could drive into the world of like parental storytelling. You know, those, those old wise tales and half truths and pure imagination that stories that your folks or your grandparents or whoever told you that weren't quite true, but probably had an element of sort of truth somewhere back in the day. Or proved that they had a sense of humor and were messing with us. Oh, it's like, it's like, do you remember?

04:08

those gems like if you sit too close to the TV, you'll get square eyes or you'll go blind. Yep. I definitely remember that. I got that one. Yeah, sitting. And why is it as a kid, why did we sit so close to the TV? Well, our eyes were great. We had great eyes, right? So we shouldn't have needed to, but why did we? Yeah, well so we could hear it better. Okay, right. I'm sure we sat closer so we could hear the TV. Sure, we had good ears.

04:34

Even though over our siblings fighting and stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was, you know, it could have been, but I don't know whether that put the fear of goodness into us because did we go and check to make sure our eyes weren't square? We're going square. And yeah, because there are other things that we got told that you'd go blind if you did as well, but I don't think that's right. Yeah. So TV was probably the lesser of two Eagles really, wasn't it? Well, that's right.

05:01

But the other thing was, I remember my mum used to say, if you don't wash your ears, potatoes will grow out. What? Did you ever get that? No. Oh, don't, yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you wash your ears? I used to get like the sponge or the flannel or whatever you used to, so if you don't wash your ears, you'll get potatoes growing out of them. Oh my gosh, I've never heard that one. Oh, yeah. Wow. I know. I don't.

05:27

quite know why. Mrs. Rolison that was a bit of gold from you. Oh there are a few in there. Were there any that you sort of got stung with? Well I remember the um if you if you eat a watermelon seed a watermelon will grow in your tummy. That was and I was terrified of swallowing it. So as kids we grew up pulling all the seeds out of the watermelon and it's literally I was a teenager before I realised you could eat them and nothing bad would happen. Oh watermelon used to be one of those things that dad and I used to share. It was one of those little bonding moments apart

05:57

being down the back and burning stuff in an incinerator, but that's for another day. Yes, yes. But yeah, you'd spit out a million seeds from that watermelon because you just weren't allowed to swallow them. And I didn't know why, but yeah. You couldn't, but that was back in the day when fruit had seeds. Do you know, like now you can get mandarins with that are seedless, oranges are seedless, everything's seedless. How did we, when you do, when I gave my kids a mandarin when they were little and they bit on a seed, oh, what's that? You know, and.

06:26

spat the whole thing out, whereas that's the way we grew up. We've got a whole fruits of the forest growing in our tummy these days, haven't we? Because we would have had mandarins, oranges, watermelons, everything just eating all those. It's like that with chewing gum, if you're allowed to have chewing gum or bubble gum when you're a kid, don't swallow it. Don't swallow it. Because it'll stay in your belly, and for gosh knows how long. So there are all those sort of things, even eating carrots. Eating carrots is gonna help your eyesight. Yep.

06:54

And so you'd have to sit there and eat your carrots and you know, you think, yeah, okay, well I'll, I'll stomach those if I, if it means I'm going to have good eyesight. Yeah. Yeah. Cause rabbits can see in the dark and that made sense to it. Probably five year olds. So they ate carrots and they make complete sense. Yeah, definitely. I remember when I was a kid, um, when I was, I don't know how old I'm between five and 10 somewhere. Um, I used to, I broke out in warts on my knees, like a lot of kids do, you know, and my grandma bought them off me.

07:25

for five cents each. How did that work? What was, what was the deal? Exactly, I've gotta be psychosomatic or whatever, right? So she's like, I had like three warts and she goes, well, here's three five cent pieces, go and put them under your pillow, don't spend the money and I'll buy them off you. And within three days they were gone. Really? I don't know how that worked. I still don't know how that worked. And I couldn't have been the only one, but.

07:49

Yeah, Grandma bought my warts off. There must have been a basis behind all that, because that's not something you can just make up, is it? Because I know. And it would have worked. I'd love to hear from people, you know, listening, if that happened to you, shoot us a note on the Big Six O Facebook page and tell us if that was something you heard. But the same Grandma, they're talking about wives tales, when she was, when we were kids and we got badly sunburnt, she thought the best thing to do was to put butter on it.

08:18

which effectively cooking our skin, or the sting that you'd get in your skin from sunburn, the best way to get rid of that was to get into a bath, a hot bath, as hot as you could stand. And when we think about that now, oh my gosh, that was such bad advice. Well, I remember the hot bath one. I think my grandmother used to talk about putting butter on a burn. But I remember when we'd go to the beach and you had to go out to the beach to get a bit of color on you.

08:48

My grandmother used to have this mix of olive oil and vinegar and she used to make it up in a jar and shake it up and she'd put it on your shoulders and whatever because the olive oil was supposed to protect you from the sun and the vinegar would take the sting out of the sunburn. So you're cooking? Which was sort of counterintuitive because if you were going to get sunburn and you needed the vinegar to take the sting out then the olive oil wasn't really doing its job was it? Yep.

09:17

So as a kid that you just go around smelling like fish and chips when you're around them. That's right. But that mean we believed what our grandmothers and our mothers told us and that and they believed it too. That's what they were brought up with. There was no malice intended. It was just what they believed. And a lot of these things must have had a basis of truth. And while I'm on that beach thing, did you ever get told that you shouldn't go swimming straight after eating because you'll get cramps or whatever? Definitely. Yeah. So

09:45

I don't know where that came from, but it must have happened if you and I heard about it. I had to stay out of the... and it was, I was like in my 20s before I challenged that and went, hang on a minute. If I go in the water with a full stomach, I'm not necessarily going to die. I can still swim. But there was always a little bit of caution there and you would say... I don't know why, because I would have thought that if you're at the beach and you're with your parents as a kid, you probably want those kids to get out of your hair for...

10:15

quickly as you can not sitting around on the beach for half hour yeah yeah oh my gosh I remember that and what about um if you if you frowned or went cross-eyed and the wind changed your face would stay like that that was terrifying for a kid oh did you try it though yeah yeah I still I still did it yeah that explains a few things anyway thank you

10:41

I would try that and then be absolutely petrified and go and look in a mirror just in case. Yeah. Yeah. And think like I got away with that one. Yeah. So what and one that I thought, your crust makes your hair go curly. Yes. Yeah. And we passed, like I passed that onto my kids and I remember, oh, one curly hair. But there were so many, I mean, not that, I mean, I guess when you're little.

11:11

Like if you've got wet hair, don't go outside because you'll get a cold. So there's all those little stories that you just can't make them up. You've got to have, there must've been some anecdote and how long they'd been passed down from generation to generation. Some would have been made up in your household, I'm sure. Yeah. Um, there was a friend of mine whose mother used to go around the house and change all the clocks before bedtime. So if it was before 8.30.

11:40

she'd go around and change all the clocks and put them forward to like 20 past eight and say, look at the time, it's only 10 minutes before bedtime. Oh my gosh. And so, yeah, so, yeah. Really? So, you know, when they're all clocks with hands on them necessarily, she'd go around and she'd change the clocks and show the kids and say, look, it's this time, only 10 minutes more. And they just, oh yeah, okay, it's another time for that. Okay, yeah. So that's not really at all wise, Tuff, but that's just something that I don't know. I love it. I mean.

12:07

I guess when they were 18 they probably woke up to that story but... Yeah, yeah and and I've done this is bad but my grandma, the same grandma, um used to make a Christmas pudding every year and there was always five cents in it and whoever got the five cent pay... It can't be good putting metal in food. I remember that. It can't be good for you. I remember that. My my grandma used to do it but I remember well five cents used to be sixpence's they used to put in there.

12:34

And it was the same thing, but like how many kids used to crack their teeth or you think, oh, yeah, you know, or I don't know. There it is. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. Back in the day, like a lot of those six months has had a probably, I don't know, some carcinogen in there while you, I don't know how it worked. Did they start all the germs from all the people that had handled it? Yeah, like, yeah, I do remember that. The other thing I used to get when I was a kid was if you told a fib, there'd be a black mark on your tongue. So stick your tongue out.

13:04

and let me have a look. Oh, I do vaguely remember that. I used to get, I shouldn't say I used to get that a lot, but I used to get that. And are you telling a fib? Show me your tongue and your hook. And of course, if you didn't want to show your tongue, you gave yourself up. Like, and so all of a sudden it was- Don't make me do it. Yeah, all of a sudden you thought, oh, there must be a spot there because mum and dad knew that I was telling a fib because it's because you never put your tongue out. I wanna make-

13:32

Yes, right. One of my personal favourites, and I did this to my kids, was the eyes in the back of your head. My mum had eyes in the back of her head under her, it was under her hair somewhere. And I did the same thing to my kids. And years later, my daughter, who's now 23, she said, Mum, I think I was 15 before I realised she didn't actually have eyes in the back of your head. So we're passing that stuff on as well. And she probably will to her kids. Yeah. It's because it's a little...

13:58

It's a little weapon in your arsenal as a parent, isn't it? Yeah, look, I've got to be, I've got to come clean. I'm actually doing that with my grandson now. Not the eyes in the back of your head, but Popo's got eyes that can see anything sort of thing, you know, so I can see around walls and around corners and all those sort of things. So yeah, I'm as big a criminal as probably my parents and grandparents when it comes to those stories as well. Yeah, we do it, we're doing those things.

14:24

Now your great aunt told you something about putting your mouth on the metal bus seat in front of you. Oh don't make me tell you that. What did she tell you? Don't make me tell you. You can't tease me like that and say no here's a story but I can't say. This is something I need to tell you not within the pod pass but let's just say that political correctness will stop me from telling you why I wasn't allowed to do that. Okay. But you know but this was a thing.

14:50

from a great art. And we used to go, she was a very little lady, her feet wouldn't touch the floor on the bus, so she used to be able to swing her feet. But you'd rest and have your sort of mouth on the little bar on the thing. And she said, oh, don't put your mouth on there because, anyway. Okay, was it something racist or was it something sexual? It may have been something that was a little racist, but back in the day, it was possibly okay to say that to your three-year-old when he was on the bus.

15:18

Yeah. You know, so, and it's sat with me now for over 50 years. So, okay. But something that's also sat with me is what you shouldn't do in a swimming pool. Cause the water might turn pink if you do it. Oh yes. Or blue or red or whatever. Whatever color. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that even convinced me one day that he bought a special chemical that he would put in the pool.

15:44

That's what people used to say, there's a special chemical and you'd be terrified, absolutely terrified. No, but this has come from a father who also, and used to say to me, we had, we bought guinea pigs, I don't know why, they make useless animals, I think. Yeah. Your dog or cat, they shows you some sort of affection. Even a bird knows when you're coming to do something, I'm sure, but he used to say, look, whatever you do, don't hold that guinea pig up by the tail, because its eyes will drop out.

16:15

Hmm. So I had to look everywhere before I realized that guinea pigs didn't have a tail. Don't have a tail. So I don't know. I think that's just something that is made up a long way. Oh, that's hilarious. It's like we had a, I learned very quickly too, we had a beautiful Samoyed dog. Now I must have been about seven or eight and someone was letting out the local dogs. They were opening the gates for people's homes and they would...

16:44

four or five dogs would all get out together and they would, eventually they were starting to get a little bit, not vicious, but they were getting, you know, so, because they'd go and hunt around in packs all night and you have to go and collect them just from the neighborhood streets. Anyway, dad got Jack of it and they were back in the days before you had cameras and everything like that. And he told us, oh, look, we're gonna have to take, insert name here, to the special farm. And that's where dogs go, you know.

17:14

so as they can have lots of space to run and things like that. So until such time, I thought there was this, this very kindly sort of farmer from like Bay pig in the city that had this massive property where all these random dogs would go and just live out their lives, having the best time. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Oh my goodness. So, you know, there are those things that sort of sit with you. Yes.

17:41

One that I remember as well, and I'm doing all the talking, is that TV, did you ever get, ah, we need to either go to bed or we need to TV off because it sometimes runs out of batteries? No, I didn't get that one. I didn't hear that one. It's probably time to go to bed soon because the TV will run out of batteries. Oh wow, that's a bit of gold from your parents. Wow. Oh, they had them all. They had them all. And that was at the time when

18:10

you would actually turn the TV off and there was a little light that used to, in the tube and you'd sort of get as close as you possibly could to the tube until you couldn't see that little light that had gone out in the tube. And then you'd run and check and see whether your eyes had gone square. That's right, cause you were way too close to the TV. I used to think when I was little, I used to think that, you know, you'd listen to the radio and you'd hear the bands. When I was a really little, I used to think that was like little miniature musicians inside the radio playing. Oh really? But then when I got older and smarter, I thought that they were all,

18:40

the bands were at the radio station and they would go in, play their song and then go to the back of the queue and wait for the next time to play their song. And if they left the spot in the queue, their song wouldn't get played again until they came back and joined the queue. And they didn't have a life, you know? The little people in the radio sort of, I don't know, I might've questioned that a little bit, but very plausible the whole, like, go out to the green room and just wait for your...

19:10

to come and play. That's right and then out you go and it didn't occur to me that that you know the instruments and moving stuff around they just yeah especially when the artists were actually in having an interview or something. So when you moved into radio and you had such a long sort of illustrious career in radio and yeah your name was sort of bandied around in the halls of you know fame and all. Keep telling me yeah. Yeah was that was that just a

19:35

were you disappointed and think, hang on, where's that special room that they keep all these bands? I was, yeah. Where are all these bands? I want to go and see where ACDC is or the Angels or something, you know. Oh my gosh. Did you ever get, I got this when I was very little, if you woke up and you had a bad dream, that you'd turn your pillow over to the good dream side? No, I'd turn the pillow over to the cool side. Ah, okay. But there wasn't a good dream and a bad dream side. Yeah, well. But that's a great idea. I'm loving that.

20:02

Yeah, look, I'd forgotten about that until we were thinking about, made a little chat about some of these sort of old tales and I thought I must remember that one because that was a goodie. Yeah, well speaking of like being in bed, I used to, and I think I mentioned this when we spoke to, a few episodes ago to Simon Foster about movies, when I saw Jaws and frightened the daylights out of me. And I remember thinking that there were sharks in the carpet. And so I started this thing where I wouldn't let any limbs

20:31

outside of the bed because there were monsters outside that would if my arm just happened to fall outside the bed something would grab it and eat it. Wow. So I ended up sleeping in the fetal position for you know the next 20 years. Oh my gosh. And if I'd wake up I'd pull my arm back under the cover again in case there were boogie men. Yeah that's yeah that's that's big that that's a commitment to make sure that you don't get out of bed and you're going that. I can't believe I didn't challenge like sharks in the carpet Kayleigh really

21:01

Yeah, but there are things you think, I mean, if you ever watch the whole Toy Story movie thing, where there's that monster that will come out of the cupboard, you know, and not Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Yeah, and the monsters would come out of the cupboard. So your imagination sort of, there's a degree of truth, whether you're three or whether you're, you know, you're 10, with there's a degree, there's always a degree of truth in some of these stories, where you're not at an age where you can completely dismiss it. And that's enough.

21:29

It's like as an adult, how many people will still say, oh look, if you break a mirror, it's seven years bad luck. Well, yeah, yeah, that. And if a black cat crosses your path, it's seven years bad luck and all that. They've been getting into superstition though, aren't we? Yeah, look, if a black cat crossed my path, I'm telling you now, the bad luck would be on the cat. Yeah. I'm telling you right now. I've got a black cat that crosses my path 50 hundred times a day here, so it's, yeah.

21:55

Well, I guess you could read into that. You and I and a lot of listeners probably have heard your cat. Yeah, that's right. Something you hear people talk about, and I'd never heard it until people started talking about the old Mr. Whippy truck and the whole when it's playing music, it means it's run out of ice cream. Oh, I didn't hear that. I've heard so many people say that their parents used to talk about that. I'd never heard that. That's a bit of gold from from parents, isn't it?

22:22

Yeah, look, I mean, I'd hate my parents if I got delivered that one. That's a beauty. Oh, the Mr. Whoopi truck, there's a whole podcast in just that. Oh, well, but these days we've got a Mr. Coffee guy that comes around the street every three days or something and delivers home coffee. But I used to tell my kids, and they're all grown up now, that if they grazed their knees or whatever and you'd put antiseptic on it.

22:51

The reason it hurt is because it was all the germs yelling out and sort of crying and dying. And so they'd put up with that because they thought, oh, that's the germs that are escaping. The bad germs and the good germs are having a fight with their little shields and swords. And that's why it hurts because they're all stabbing each other with their swords. That's it. Yeah. And they'd put up with that. And sometimes I have to tell myself that, you know, if I'm not playing walking soccer. There you go. I remember I...

23:17

You know how you can make your, you can blur your eyes, you can make your eyes go blurry and look at things blurry. I used to think that I was anyone that could do it and I had this superpower. And it took me, like I got to school and mentioned it one day and it was like, no, everyone can do that. It's like, really? I thought it was just me. I think after the age of.

23:37

50s, everyone can do it anyway. It's just a natural ability. Your eyes are just blurry. They're just blurry all the time. We're both wearing our glasses at the moment. I'm not sure why because I know you're there and we're talking. I don't know that I need to see too much, but yeah, another thing that we probably, I don't know whether we grew up with it, but it's still part of the lexicon today. You go to a barbecue and your food hits the ground. There's a five second rule. It's okay as long as you can pick it up.

24:06

in five seconds, it's edible. That doesn't make sense, right? Yeah, you can pick it up, but I still do that. Because I don't want to waste food, so I still go for the five second rule, but how does that work? I don't know. I mean, I'd probably do it as well. So if a snake hits the ground, quick, there you go, that's okay, it's fine. Yeah, that's all good. That's fine. And cracking your knuckles. Do you ever do the whole, you know, crack your knuckles? No, that's a boy thing. Oh, is it? Oh, I hate it. Yeah, my sons do it. And it's like, don't do that around me. It's awful.

24:35

Yeah, it's awful noise. It is an awful noise. My grandson does it and like he's oh yeah he does it and people do it he takes well I used to get tired I can't remember it was like oh if you do that it'll give you arthritis or whatever eventually yeah that's what I um he takes great delight in sort of sitting there and we might be watching something or doing something and yeah he will oh I was going to say pull my finger but that's another story isn't it that's another podcast but he will he will try and crack my knuckles without me knowing and you're like you'll try

25:05

You know, yeah, and and it hurts I think but he will do it and I don't know why he's why people do that Why I had no idea and once it's almost like once they start doing it. They have to keep doing it Yeah, have you noticed that people then they'll just just keep doing it all the time You know once they've once a day or once a week or whatever. Yeah, I'm gonna leave you with one But I didn't grow up with but my wife grew up with it. Yeah

25:33

the little man in the fridge that turns the light on and off. Yes, that's right. I do remember that. I didn't know about that. That's a classic. Until much later, I thought there was a little man in the fridge. So don't leave the fridge open because the little man needs to turn the light off. And I thought, where's this little man? Like, does he hide in the salad crisper or what does he do? Exactly. And how do you get that job description? Exactly.

26:01

Yeah, I don't know. Do I want that job? I mean, is that a great job for retirees? And I think, I don't know, but yeah, man. So little guy in the fridge. I'm going to leave you with one. I used to actually think, and I was quite little that in a movie or a TV show, when somebody died, when the character died, the actor had actually sacrificed themselves for that role. I honestly thought that till I was about 10. And I used to think these actors are like, why would anyone want that job? Why does anyone want to be an actor? Because I honestly thought when they died,

26:31

in the movie, I believed everything I sort of saw on movies or TV that they were dead in real life. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That explains a lot, doesn't it, about my state of mind? That's pretty big, yeah. And so that means you only ever saw one movie without the same actor in it or whatever. That's right. Because they never had this resurrection. Yeah. And then all of a sudden I got to about 10 and went, hang on a minute, didn't you die a couple of years ago in another movie? Does that explain when people say, oh, remember that actor? Oh, aren't they dead?

27:00

Yeah, that's right. Well, Kayleigh said they were. I know. Hey, it's time for us to go. Right you are. But you know, because I think this podcast doesn't run out of batteries. I'm not sure. I know the TV's and I've got to go and plug it in or whatever. But we'll talk again. See you next week. See you later. Ciao. The views and opinions expressed on the Big Six O are personal and reflect those of the hosts and guests. They do not represent the views or positions of any affiliated organizations or companies.

27:30

This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for guidance on any personal matters.

27:43

Oh, and before we go, let's give credit where credit is due. Kaylee Harris and I came up with all the genius content for this week's episode. Our producer, Nick Abood, well, he keeps the lights on and makes sure we don't accidentally upload a cat video instead of a podcast. So thanks for keeping us on track, Nick. Nick?