The "Wild Women" were sitting in a restaurant at JFK airport having lunch and started a list of things our parents said to us when we were kids.

This one is my personal favorite (and I NEVER answered it for fear of getting smacked):

"Do you think money grows on trees?".

My 2nd favorite? "Do you want a good spanking?"!!

What's your contribution?

"Because I said so!"

I SWORE I'd never use that on my kids..... I've mostly succeeded

"Because I said so!", ha ha ha. Yep, every parent used that one.

Usually we just got the one eyebrow raise. No words needed be spoken during the one eyebrow raise. We knew what it meant.

I always thought money did grow on trees til I was about 10 then i asked my mom where the money tree is and she laughed!! Up until then she had me fooled...ha ha

Shut that door. Were you raised in a barn?

Get your hair out of your eyes!

Don't be in such a rush to grow up.

When life is the hardest, your faith in the Lord must be its strongest.

"Don't be afraid of the dough. It's just dough."

That's what my mom said when she was teaching me to make pie crust, and I was nervous about it. She was right, as always...it's just dough, the worst that can happen is that you throw it out and start again. And it applies to so many other things in life, you know? Don't be afraid of stupid little stuff. Just do it, learn from it, and try again.

-Mary Ellen

"You're gonna break your neck!"

"Sit up straight."

"Cover your ears when a dragonfly flies by otherwise it'll go inside your ears." I swear to God, that's what I was told.

"Sorry's not good enough."

My mother also used to say, I'm gonna skin you alive." It was never anything to me except something Mom said, but I guess that's pretty scary when you think about it.

"Be careful or you're going to poke an eye out!"

"You must always wear clean underwear in case you're taken to the hospital!"

"Just because "everybody" does it, doesn't mean you can. If "everybody" jumped off the bridge, would you?"

Plus, most of the ones you've already said.

Don't do as I do, do as I say!

My all time favorite:

"When I was your age . . . . . "


Once in a while I catch myself using it with our children but I try to temper it with, "well, I know at your age it must be hard for you to understand, but let me tell you how it usually turned out when I was (unbelieveably) young . . . ."

It usually works.

Turn off those lights. Do you think we live in the parliament building?

Go easy on the water.

Children in Africa are starving.

If you're going to run go outdoors.

Were you raised in a barn? (You'd think she'd know if I was raised in a barn.)

Don't come crying to me when you break your leg!

Just wait til your father gets home...

Hi, in response to any question my parents did not want to answer "Because Y is a crooked letter" still don't understand that one or my mothers favorite whistling girls and cackling hens never come to a good end??????

Love.
KK

hahaha... all these posts are cracking me up!

"Close that door or do you have a tail?"

"If you don't eat all your food, the cat is going to eat it."

"If you get to close to the TV, you'll go blind."

"If you keep crossing your eyes, they will stay that way."

"Don't let any boy touch you cuz you'll get pregnant."

"If you don't behave the cucuey is going to get you!"

There's alot more and they were all said in Spanish which makes them funnier.

"When you grow up I hope you have children just like you."

Many of the above and,
"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Mom: Ask your father
Dad: Ask your mother

"I brought you into this world and I will take you out."

My grandmother when we got in trouble, "You go out to the fig tree and break off a switch, or I'll choose one."

Of course we would always pick the smallest one, and it would make her laugh.

This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you. Yeah right!!

One day you will thank me for this.

I can't wait for you to grow up and have your own kids, then you'll know what you've put me through.

"Turn off those lights, do you think our last name's 'Edison'?"

"It's all funny till someone loses an eye."

Get your elbows off the table!

Your mouth is going to hang you one of these days.

If I have to stop the car...

Mom (when annoyed) would say "I am sick..." and we'd chime in with "...and tired" and then she'd be REALLY annoyed!

Another good one was when when I was maybe 10 or 12 years old and my (older, teenaged) cousins would do something *egregious* in my mother's opinion (I don't know... getting into a car w/ a boy, coming home late, not washing the dishes until morning... take your pick), my mother would holler at me! "Don't think YOU are going to get away with that when you're their age!"

Then there was "I raised you better than that."

And "Because you're older than your brother" (as in why was anything that happened between us always MY fault?).

quote:

Originally posted by Mimi D:
Mom: Ask your father
Dad: Ask your mother

Oh, yeah! How could I EVER forget those??!

Whenever anything was lost:
"Say a prayer to Saint Anthony."

Whenever you were frustrated or upset:
"Offer it up for the souls in purgatory."

(Can you guess my Mom is Catholic?)

quote:

Originally posted by Gidget P:
"When you grow up I hope you have children just like you."

I heard this one a lot!!

You will understand why I'm doing this when you have children of your own..."

"You should know better than that"
"YOu act like you grew up in barn" (I was never on a farm"

If you know what's good for you"

Thanks to everyone. My mom must have used them all at one time or another

quote:

Originally posted by greenish:
Whenever anything was lost:
"Say a prayer to Saint Anthony."

Whenever you were frustrated or upset:
"Offer it up for the souls in purgatory."

(Can you guess my Mom is Catholic?)

I was raised in my Grandmother's house and she made staunch Catholics look like slackers. She went to Mass every morning until about 2 weeks before she died. She would also say "Say a prayer to St. Anthony" and we would say "Tony, Tony look around. Something's lost that must be found.". Then we'd run like H*ll so she couldn't smack us.

I remembered another one. If I got in trouble with a friend, I would invariably say "But, Judy Smith did it, too!" and my Mom would reply "If Judy Smith jumped off a bridge, would YOU?".

Besides some of the ones that are posted- my dad used to say" Wipe that smile off your face " usually when we were in trouble.

Straighten out your shoulders or I swear I'll put a back brace on you.
You should be proud you're tall. I'll love to tall like you.
(I TOTALLY believed she'd put a brace on me.)

good grief! They all use the same book!

Wipe that look off your face or I'll knock you into next week! (They tried)

whistle dixie.

thats the way the cookie crumbles (we had a dog named cookie so it really scared me)

Just thought of another one that evidently was passed down from several generations in my family, which I never really understood until I got older.

My family is from Arkansas. The black folk were still referred to, well, you know, that word. Truly, none of us use that word now. I will refrain from using it here. There was a black family that helped out on the family farm, named Johnson.

When anything was really stinky or messed up, or we would come in really dirty or muddy, "Whew, Mr. Johnson, you're as black as a 's crack."

Sorry, if I've offended anyone, but my mom, now in late stage AD, just said this morning, Whew, Mr. Johnson, when she took a smelly poo.

Oooh, just thought of three more:

"When I say 'jump', you just ask 'how high?' "
and
"Keep that up, and you're going to take a long walk off a short pier".

And when I'd ask to do something they thought might be a bit risky or dangerous, the answer was: "Well, you might as well just go play in traffic!"

If you don't stop your face is going to freeze like that.
My sibs. and I would stick our toung out at each other all the time, or make any kind of face we thought the others would not like.When that did not work.
All of you get outside and play.

I just remembered another one mom used to say, "It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man."

...and when we were sitting down to a particularly sumptuous meal she would always say, "I wonder what all the other poor people are eating tonight?"

My favorites: If you want to cry I'll give you something to cry about.

I'll knock you into next week.

Family service

I don't want gifts for Christmas - I want you to behave, or clean the bathroom etc.

Once when I came home from work - the family dog was coming home from his jog and my brother-in-law said shitheads home and my dad laughed cuz I had just pulled into the driveway

My father"s words come back to be when I have a money issue. He always told me when it comes to money "dont get yourself in a bind" (dont go in debt too much)

oh yeah...this one from my dear old dad,"You made your bed...I guess you'll just have to lay in it!"

Because I'm the Mom and I said so!
Or the dreaded one:

Just wait until your Dad gets home---and you would hope she would forget!

my favorite was "don't sit on the concrete sidewalk (playing jacks) because you'll get a cold in your kidneys!

from Mom:
Watch out! I have eyes in the back of my head!

Iris L.

LOL!! That's a classic, Iris! I had forgotten about that one.

I didn't say you had to like it you just have to do it.

my nanny would always refer to "every Tom, Dick, and Harry" about everything and she still says it. I find myself saying it too. but one day she was talking about a promiscious girl and she said, She has slept w/ every tom, dick,and harry and mostly Dick!!!

my mom would always tell me "your daddy wasn't a glass maker" and "you quarter me to death"... yeah, i find myself telling my kids that one about the quarters... dang ice cream money!! lol

When I was a teenager my dad would always tell me "When you get a job don't forget you were hired to do a job, so do the best job possible, don't be a complainer, and be a go getter."
I had that in mind throughout the years, and yes it paid off. In every job I had I climbed the ladder. Thanks to dad.