the idea: start a blog where people can share what they tell their kids to explain strange/bad/adult things

Although I’m not a parent, I am a teacher and have some idea of the strange things that adults come up with to explain adult-concepts or life-truths to children.  For example, I used to get disgusting amounts of bug bites on my legs when I was a kid.  I mean, it looked like poison ivy creeping up my leg except that each one had been individually administered by some blood-thirsty insect.  My mother, who had to deal with constant scratching, late night tears, and plenty of oatmeal baths, always used to say the same thing to me.  “It’s just because you’re so sweet and juicy!”

Well I was recently out at my fathers house and in the space of an afternoon managed to procure eight bug bites marching up my right thigh.  As I sit here, itching them, covering them with anti-itch cream, and then attempting to forget about them, I can’t help but think of what my mother used to say and my constant response, “But I don’t want to be sweet and juicy!”  I can assure you that in those moments, I was the farthest thing possible from sweet.

My mother’s words, and the other idioms that she created, made me wonder about what other people were told when they were children or, now that they’re adults, what they tell their own children.  If I didn’t have enough projects happening, I’d start a blog where people could share the strange ways they decide to help children make sense of the world.