LIES YOUR MOTHER TOLD YOU.

Byline: Glenn Gaslin Daily News Staff Writer

Mom knew it all. The woman always had something to say, it seemed, something about everything, no matter how obscure or technical, speaking with the authority of a chemist, philosopher and financial planner.

She could explain why the sky is blue, why you shouldn't run with scissors and just exactly why you should finish your peas.

And you'd think she knew what she was talking about. She had to. She was Mom. Mom knows these things. Mom has always been the keeper of conventional wisdom, the original source of much of what people ``know'' about the world. Even if we heard the stuff from Dad or teachers or television or friends, much of our common knowledge is attributed to Mom.

But, as it turns out, she was wrong.

Sure, it's a bad idea to take candy from strangers. It's not polite to point, of course. And maybe, just maybe, people do like you for what's on the inside.

But, come on. What about the rest of that stuff? The starving kids in China and the hair-on-your-palms thing? What about swimming after you eat and swallowed gum staying in your stomach for seven years?

Mom didn't have all the facts, says Michael Sherer, author of ``Why People Believe Weird Things'' and editor of Skeptic magazine.

But being Mom, she has to at least pretend to know the answers. Her tales were meant to tame children, to teach morals, to explain why we should behave a certain way. Kids may not respond to ``because I said so'' but will believe ``because the bogyman will get you.''

This serves Mom just fine, Sherer says, but we all need to grow out of it.

``Most people access the world through stories that come from parents, teachers, friends,'' he says. ``Rarely do people check things out for themselves. It's easier just to believe.''

And so we investigate a few of Mom's most notorious claims about the way the world works:

``Clean your plate. There are kids starving in China.''

Starvation is a minor problem in most countries, especially China. Instead, lack of modern medical facilities, clean water, sewage systems and education plague developing nations, says Anna Wright from the United Nations Children's Fund.

``That sort of thing just perpetuates myths and confusions of other countries,'' she says of Mom's advice. ``And the American children always say to put the food in a box and send it over, and that's not an effective way to provide development help.''

Most American kids think that between 50 percent and 75 percent of the world's children are starving, according to a UNICEF poll, when the real figure is closer to 2 percent. A quarter of children live in extreme poverty, Wright says, but most of them eat. Death from dehydration and disease is much more common.

``Plus, China is not a country facing major malnutrition,'' she says. ``I think that's very old-fashioned actually. There was a big China famine in the '50s, and I think that the starving-kids-in-China thing is leftover from that.''

``If you don't behave, the bogyman will come and get you tonight.''

Bogymen do not exist, and, therefore, do not ``get'' children. The creatures are social constructs, figments of our collective imagination, usually ghostly figures taken from local folklore. But, like many stories Mom spins, the ``bogyman'' tale can be healthy. Good for kids.

The name can be traced back to several 19th-century ideas and creatures, such as hobgoblins, bugganes and bogles. But a bogyman these days is any scary thing, usually a ghost, that hunts down naughty children.

``There's a long tradition of parents frightening children into obedience,'' explains Richard L. Senate, self-proclaimed Ventura County ghost-hunter, folklorist and curator of the Albinger Archaeological Museum and the Olivas Adobe. ``There's bogymen. There's Wee Willy Winky, he peeks through the windows, he'll take you away. Even Santa Claus has a dark side.''

But Senate has heard accounts of different kinds of bogymen in the area, including leprechauns lurking in closets, an evil Virgin Mary with a horse's body, a faceless woman with long dark hair, and a headless horseman swinging a glowing lasso and galloping around Ventura on the last night of each month, searching for the souls of sinners. Kids who behave and virtuous people are spared.

``Stories that mothers tell are morality tales,'' he says. ``They all have a reason behind them.''

``Don't make that face. It'll stick like that.''

This probably won't happen, says Dr. Lawrence Stein, a West Hills facial plastic surgeon. He's never seen a kid who could permanently retain a silly expression.

``No, I don't think it would stick if you keep making the same funny face over and over,'' he says. ``Actually, it's possible that if you keep on contorting your face for a couple of years, you might get wrinkles that accentuate that.''

There is, however, a very slim chance that, while attempting an extreme Jim Carrey-esque plastic face, some people's jaws might come out of their sockets and lock into an awkward position, says Stein.

``A penny saved is a penny earned.''

Not exactly true. You have to pay taxes on anything you earn, even a penny in a savings account, so that little copper Lincoln may turn out to equal less than 1 cent. Eric Tyson, financial counselor and author of ``Personal Finance for Dummies,'' says that a penny saved is most likely a penny earned if you put it in a tax-sheltered long-term investment account, such as an IRA or 401 (k). But kids don't know that.

``Mom should have told you to put it into a retirement account,'' he says of the penny in question. ``Mom didn't tell you how to invest the money.''

``Don't do that. You'll go blind,'' or ``Don't do that. You'll get hair on your palms.''

Touching yourself will only give you hairy palms during a full moon when you're a werewolf, and it certainly won't cause blindness. But, for various moral and health reasons, a long tradition of such superstitions, folktales and motherly advice has tried to discourage masturbation.

``So far as I know, these are normal, healthy biological functions,'' says Dr. Drew Pinksy, a local physician and voice of medical reason for the call-in sex advice show ``Loveline,'' airing on KROQ-FM (106.7) and MTV.

``There's a lot of guilt around it,'' he adds. ``People think they are going to damage their fertility or the equipment.''

But when Mom warns her sons against masturbation, an everyday part of life for most men older than 13, she means it as an act of compassion. In a way, Pinsky says, she (and women in general) are trying to calm down the male sex act in favor of female techniques of a more emotional, heartfelt method of lovemaking and living.

``Mom is the keeper of intimacy,'' he says. ``Women have more of an ability to find a feeling place, and not to be physically preoccupied.''

``Don't swallow your gum. It'll stay there for seven years.''

Gum, uh, evacuates the body within a few hours or so.

``I think it's a pretty well-accepted fact that it passes right through your body,'' explains Jeff Baum, who isn't a gum scientist, but works for the company that makes Bubbalicious, Trident and Chiclets. ``It just passes through, you know, like fiber, but bigger.''

``Wait an hour after you eat before getting in the swimming pool.''

Swimming after you eat isn't such a bad thing at all. In fact, many endurance athletes have to eat while they exercise.

``That is a fable,'' explains John Vowel, aquatics director for the Los Angeles city swimming pools. ``My mother said the same thing to me. Every adult that I was around said the same thing.''

But they were just repeating what they had been told, having no idea it wasn't true. If you exercise regularly (like any good kid should, he says) you should have no problem chomping a hot dog and then jumping in a pool. But exerted out-of-shape muscles will demand more oxygen, competing with the digestive system for the body's blood supply, causing a physical crash.

The wait-an-hour story may just be another way to tame rambunctious kids, making them sit for a while instead of running all over the place, causing trouble, maybe hurting themselves.

``Let's give moms credit: They have a lot of intuition,'' he says. ``If it wasn't for doting mothers, the species would have died out long ago.''

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8 photos

Photo: (1 -- 7 -- color) no caption (Veronica Gaines)

(8 -- color -- cover) Vernonica Gaines and her son, LaMonte, 11, of Canoga Park.

Tina Gerson/Daily News