20 Lies Told to Me by Boomers When I Was in School

(A Straight Forward Justification to Keep Old People Far Away from Educational Decisions)

By Christopher Moore

I was born in 1981. That weird in-between space where I played Oregon Trail on a green screen at school and then grew up to watch the internet swallow reality whole. So I feel qualified to say this:

Boomers fed us a buffet of bullshit.

Some of it was intentional, some of it was ignorance wearing a tie, and a lot of it was just regurgitated garbage that nobody ever bothered to question. And we wonder why Gen X, Xennials, and Millennials have anxiety disorders and trust issues.

So let’s roll the tape. Here’s a list of lies, myths, and half-truths they pumped into our skulls between milk cartons and mandatory pep rallies.

1. “You won’t always have a calculator with you.”

Really? Because I’ve got one in my pocket that also sends memes, orders tacos, and livestreams police brutality.

2. “Pluto is a planet.”

Not anymore. Poor little guy got demoted. Turns out science updates itself when it’s not busy getting ignored by politicians.

3. “If you crack your knuckles, you’ll get arthritis.”

Nope. Just makes that satisfying pop and annoys the people who say dumb things.

4. “You only use 10% of your brain.”

This one feels like projection. Because we were surrounded by adults proudly operating at 10% capacity.

5. “Dinosaurs were scaly lizards.”

Wrong. They were basically giant, prehistoric chickens with teeth. And yes, some had feathers. Jurassic Park lied to us too.

6. “Gay people are ruining the country.”

Really? Because the gay folks I know are better parents than most of the straight couples I grew up around—and they’re not the ones trying to pass laws based on what Jesus allegedly said while ignoring everything he actually did.

7. “AIDS is a death sentence.”

They said it. They meant it. And they let people die because of it. Until Magic Johnson survived. Then the conversation magically changed.

8. “Viruses can’t be cured, only managed.”

And then we watched COVID vaccines happen in under a year, and HIV treatments make it undetectable. Science works. When politics sits down and shuts up.

9. “The government supports innovation.”

Funny, since they almost didn’t fund the internet. DARPA had to sneak it in. Congress thought it was useless. Now they’re addicted to X just like the rest of us.

10. “The Great Wall of China is visible from space.”

It’s not. But the lie was printed on cereal boxes, so it must be true.

11. “George Washington had wooden teeth.”

Nope. His dentures were made of ivory, metal, and actual human teeth. Probably from slaves. But let’s keep pretending he was just a quirky founding father.

12. “Columbus discovered America.”

Sure, if you ignore the people who were already here, the Norse explorers who beat him by centuries, and the genocide that followed.

13. “The food pyramid is the gold standard.”

It was built by lobbyists and funded by sugar companies. That “6-11 servings of bread a day” advice made us all doughy and diabetic.

14. “Fat is bad.”

Wrong. Sugar’s the problem. But they needed to sell SnackWells and Diet Coke, so we all got duped.

15. “Computers are just a fad.”

Tell that to the AI that’s about to replace your customer service job.

16. “Stranger danger is your biggest threat.”

Wrong again. Statistically, the real danger was in our own homes, churches, and after-school programs. But let’s not talk about that.

17. “If you go to college, you’ll get a good job.”

LOL. Nah. You’ll get a mountain of debt and a resume that gets ghosted by HR bots.

18. “We’re the greatest country in the world.”

Define “great.” We rank like 37th in healthcare and bottom-tier in education. But we’ve got the best military-industrial complex and reality TV.

19. “Politics is for adults.”

Then why do y’all act like middle schoolers on Twitter and C-SPAN?

20. “Respect your elders.”

Sure. But only the ones who earned it. Age doesn’t automatically mean wisdom. Sometimes it just means you’ve been wrong longer.

Final Thought:

Maybe it’s time we stop letting people who still forward chain emails make decisions about education.
Because a lot of the mess we’re cleaning up now came from them being wrong—and loud about it—for decades.

They had their chance. They bombed it. I don’t think we should allow them to pass their narrow minded poison on to our children.

-The Gun Loving Hippie Dad … Who Fixes Stuff

Rants, repairs, and realness