London, Dec 5 (ANI): Remember your mother saying “wait and see” or “because I said so”? Well, if you think that these old sayings have become obsolete today, here’s some news- eight out of 10 Brit mothers still give these tried and trusted replies.

Other favourites to emerge in a survey by The BabyWebsite, which questioned 3,000 mothers, include “If someone asked you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?” as well as “You’ll have someone’s eye out with that” and “What did your last slave die of?”

“The funny thing about this research is that many mums will insist they are nothing like their own mothers,” the Daily Express quoted Kathryn Crawford of BabyWebsite as saying.

“But the reality is that we can’t help but teach our children as our parents taught us and that means using old sayings, familiar methods of discipline and routines which worked for our parents.

“Children are always questioning their parents, pushing the boundaries to see what they can get away with. Sometimes a quick retort is all mums can offer before running out of patience,” she added.

More than half of mothers said that they deliberately use some of their parent’s best-loved phrases because they think it worked to discipline them.

But 40 per cent admit they sometimes repeat things their parents said even though they have never understood what they meant.

While sayings like “Close the door, you don’t live in a barn” do baffle mothers, but they keep using them because most children never know how to respond.

Researchers found “It’ll end in tears” and “Who’s she, the cat’s mother?” the most common answers to annoying questions.

Two in three mothers said their parents found it hilarious that their sayings were being re-used on their grandchildren. (ANI)