Why are people dishonest about their childhood events?

Question

My answer is that they have an audience. What is yours?

Terisina - If you are witness and hear them telling the lies or find out they've been lying....proof/observation that's "how".

Answer 1

Most people are as honest about childhood events as (limited) memory of said events will allow.

As is true about dishonesty with ANY event (be it childhood or or last week), there are many potential motivators for deception. Some dishonesty about childhood events is attributable simply to denial (a psychological defense mechanism). Other dishonesty about childhood events could be attributable to "selective memory" (or embellishing the "good" while minimizing the bad, or visa vera). Still other dishonesty is no more than garden variety lying as a means to an end.

Answer 2

I have blocked out my entire childhood. I have found myself when being asked questions about childhood, quickly embellishing something I have heard from others. All in attempting not to be found strange by other people. If people are talking about their own bad childhood, I also sometimes agree that mine was bad as well. More to show that person that they are not alone, and that they are free to talk to me. Anybody that knew my family would not believe that I had a bad childhood. However a bad childhood is in the perception of the child, not the perception of how others see that child and their family.

Answer 3

don't think people are dishonest. But as we grow our memories change. We get new information and this information finds its way to our memories and distorts it. This has been proved and tested many times. Also, like the fist that got away, maybe they are just making a better story?

Answer 4

Childhood events?????

A little more info might help with that.

Hmmm tho....dishonest. How can a person be dishonest about childhood events. Like so ok I never pissed my pants as a baby!!!

Answer 5

How would it be in your power to know exactly who is
or is not honest about their childhood events?
Just because it might seem impossible for one to believe
what another says, it wouldn't make that one dishonest,
just different!

Answer 6

If the truth hurts, & fiction is comforting, then nothing is easier to use that something that can't hardly be proven or denied. Others just live in a fantasy world. They lie so much for so long that they actually begin to believe the b.s. them selves. The bible calls that 'building your house on the wet sand'. As soon as the winds rise & beat the house, it soon falls.

Answer 7

they want people to think that thier character was built by the events they talk about.

on the more honest of fibbing with childhood stories are that the memories are slightly warped from aging.

Answer 8

sometimes people block out bad memories of their childhood and since they were younger have convinced themselves of a better life. And when they grow up, they cant differ between fact and fiction.

Answer 9

Three possibilities.

1. False memories. Everyone, without exception, "remembers" things that they swear happened, but never did. Conversely, they often forget things that really DID happen. The memory is funny that way.

2. They don't want you to really know what happened.

3. If they are insecure in themselves, they may make things up because it sounds more interesting to them than what really happened.

Answer 10

I don't understand your question. Are you suggesting that people manufacture childhood traumas or that they deny them? Because I think the latter is much more prevalent.