“What did you mean by that, anyway, Mom?!”

We’ve all heard them. Those annoying phrases that our parents said to us growing up and now that we’re parents ourselves, we’ve decided to inflict them our own kids.

There must be a gene that is passed on from generation to generation that provides the ability for a parent to realize the most profound of pleasures by uttering certain sentences to their children as a fait accompli. Mom or dad said it; so it shall be done.

Interestingly, there are so many more layers to these common phrases that many of us say to our kids. On the surface, they’re pretty clear and apparently self-explanatory. Surprisingly, the truth is that they’re anything but.

These gems of wisdom that parents have been uttering for millennia are actually much more complex than anyone could imagine. The reality is that the true meanings behind these messages that parents tell their kids are often not as straightforward as they appear to be.

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