Lies our parents tell us

10. May, 2010 0 Comments

When I was a kid, whenever I asked for something that my parents didn’t want to give me yet, they’d always say things like “people who ask don’t get” and “you get what you’re given”.

It never made a lot of sense to me but I heard a story the other day that really made me realise how stupid they really are.

My girlfriends cousin, I’ll call her Briony, lives about 5 hours drive from Melbourne, and asked her aunt, who lives in Melbourne, if she could stay at her place for one week in the holidays. So the aunt said yes and went ahead and bought train tickets and organised some things to do, etc.

Then come the day, Briony was getting ready to leave and her little brother spoke up and said he wanted to come as well. The aunt said to her, “You’re too late. If you don’t ask, you don’t get”!

What a thing to say to an 8 year old right?

To me it makes a lot of sense. In life, nobody brings you stuff. In life, nobody reads your mind. In life, if you want something, you have to get it.

“People who ask, don’t get” isn’t only inaccurate, it’s damaging.

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