bedtime story

Tonight, at bedtime, my daughters asked me to tell them a story about when I was a girl. This happens a lot and I almost always dread it because I have so few memories of my childhood, at least any that make good bedtime stories. But their persistent (and by that I mean whining, pleading, incredulous pestering) requests did prompt several memories.
I told them about the time my parents decided to teach me a lesson about not leaving my bike out in the yard. I was probably eleven or twelve and they always were bugging me about bringing my bike onto the porch or into the house. It seems improbable to me now that it might have been stolen from our yard, but that was their line at the time. And with due respect I understand now how parents fabricate all kinds of stories for different reasons to get their kids to do certain things for somewhat arbitrary reasons. But I would get home from a ride, promptly dump my bike in the yard, and that would be that. One day, I went back out and saw that my bike was gone. I was devastated--this the bike I had modified myself from a girlie banana-seat high-handle-bar cruiser to a cool bmx dirt bike was GONE.
I remember, almost viscerally, the feeling of panic as I ran inside and told my parents what had happened. They just looked at me calmly ( and with what I now recognize as a certain parental smugness), and said "Come with us." They led me around to the side of the house, where they has stashed my bike as a lesson--in what, I still don't know. But I felt only ashamed and betrayed in that moment. Did it teach me me to bring my bike in from the yard? No, and even though I did bring my bike in after that, the real lesson was that my parents were capable of deceit, were not beyond question.
Of course I didn't tell my daughters that, instead delivering the story as a moral lesson in responsibility, etc. This is the funny thing about being a parent who is also a grown-up child, as we all are, you are constantly being thown back into your own childhood self as you try to parent. In my case, I haven't decided whether this is valuable or not.