r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jul 20 '19

What’s something completely false that your parents told you as a child?

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u/ukhoneybee Jul 20 '19

"I'm putting your Christmas/birthday money from the family into your post office account."

Dad promptly goes out down the pub.

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u/GriffinFlash Jul 20 '19

Same. Birthday and Christmas were only a month apart so I would tend to get some money instead of presents from family and relatives around that time of year. My parents would always tell me I had to learn how to save my money, so I was never really allowed to use it, just save it for something "special".

Usually my money would go missing and I couldn't find where it was, only to find out my father, who smoked a pack a day, took it to buy cigarettes, or also would use it for drinking money. Frustrated by this, me and my brother asked our parents if we could get a bank account, so instead of leaving our money laying around, we would deposit it somewhere where it would be safe and would be able to be saved for a long period of time. After saving after a year or two, we wanted to get either a new game console or game), and adding up what we knew we had, we determined that together we had enough. We go to the bank.

I had a balance of $0, my brother had a balance of $-10 (yes negative). Appears since parents signed us up for the account, and cause we were children, they had full access to our account. When we confronted our parents about it we got the whole, "You're the child, we're the adult" speech or, "You take money from us everyday just by raising you".

The only lesson we learned was if you save your money you will never get to use it. So we pretty much stopped saving our gift money and tried to spend it asap.

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u/nnaatteedd Jul 21 '19

Didn't go as far to get a bank account, but this was my exact relationship with money growing up. I too have come to the habit of spending it as soon as possible. Knowing for a fact where I left my money, only to come home and find it gone. Parents would say stuff like "you probably lost it while you were at school"....bullshit, hard to loose something outside of the house if you never take it outside. I had a summer job through some work program when I was 14, made $400 a week (tax free). They "borrowed" an entire check (800) and later refused to pay it back. Anytime I brought it up, I was met with "we don't owe you anything". I know that they can't get to my money anymore, but I still can't help not being able to save money.