|
By Sarah Pekkanen
A group of us moms and dads were sitting in a school bus as it heaved and
groaned its way to the Smithsonian Institution for a field trip. I was feeling
good, despite the migraine-inducing shrieks of the kids, who’d just spotted
the highlight of their trip, one sure to be recounted at dinner tables across
Bethesda that night—a homeless man
relieving himself on a tree on Wisconsin Avenue.
As we parents frantically redirected the kids’ attention—“Look!
A—a—parking meter!”—I suddenly
noticed a little girl named Kendall
staring at me.
Usually I draw stares for all the wrong reasons, like the time in Bethesda
Bagels when I thought a guy was checking me out, until a woman whispered,
“You have a Cheerio stuck to your behind.”
But today my jeans were Cheerio-free. I’d even taken a shower and applied
mascara. (Preschool field trips are major social outings for me.) Kendall
looked at me for a minute, then shouted, “You look just like someone I know. Only he’s
a man!”
As other parents were struck by coughing spasms, I slunk down in my seat.
Then it hit me: This was all Mother Nature’s fault.
Mother Nature, in her tireless quest for balance, has hard-wired young children
to speak only the ugly, unvarnished truth. This is to offset the fact that
we parents constantly lie to our kids.
There are the big, socially encouraged whoppers: “Sure, there’s a fat man
who slides down our chimney and leaves you presents! And they’re made by elves!
Yeah, that’s it! Elves! Oh, did I mention he has reindeer that fly?”
We tell kids there’s a little fairy who sneaks into their rooms at night
to buy their teeth (a disturbing notion), and a giant bunny who hops around
depositing chocolate eggs.
But my favorite parental lies are those born of desperation—lies that require
a perfect mixture of cunning, split-second imagination and unwavering eye
contact with a suspicious child.
My own mother was an accomplished child liar, spouting off whatever ludicrous
fibs came to mind in a losing effort to control my two brothers and me. One
morning when we were late for school, she wrestled
my older brother into a sweater, only to realize it was on backward. Knowing
it would take untold reserves of her strength and patience to remove it from
his protesting little body and force it back on, she tried another tact.
“Robert,” she whispered, “do you want me to show you an old Indian trick?”
He stood there enthralled, as she slipped his arms out of the sweater while
keeping it around his neck, then whipped it around so the tag was in the back.
Robert, now a political science professor, says it was only recently as he
strolled across the University
of Washington’s campus that a thought struck him
like a thunderclap: “WAIT a minute…ancient Indians didn’t wear sweaters!”
Of course, many people advise you never to lie to your children. I’m sure
it’s a coincidence that none of these people actually has children.
Because even the most upright among us will watch, cringing, as their ideals
crumble into dust under the stomping feet of a red-faced, temper-tantrum-throwing
kid.
A friend perfected the premeditated lie, an advanced form of child management
that should only be attempted by seasoned parents. When his daughter was a
baby, he and his wife would hand her dry, flavorless biscuits, saying, “Want
a cookie?”
It was a stroke of genius. While the rest of us dealt with cranky toddlers
who were always in search of their next sugar fix, his kid recoiled in horror
from kindly bakery clerks and party hosts: “Nooooo tookie!”
Another mom I’ve never met sternly told her children that the FBI copyright
infringement warning at the beginning of movies was an FBI rule stating that
there is no eating allowed in living rooms. (You may want to discourage your
kids from learning to read so you can stretch out the lifespan of this lie.)
And a physical therapist who once worked on a persistent knot in my shoulder
caused by hauling around two sack-of-potato-sized boys—not that I’m pointing
fingers—came up with a brilliant, on-the-spot lie for a particularly vexing
problem.
My kids had been invited to a birthday party at Jeepers!, which is a place I’m convinced is partially responsible
for the rise in ADD rates among our youth. Jeepers! practically
pulses with neon-flashing arcade games, rickety carnival rides and the mingled
germs of a thousand nose-picking kids. To my children, it was a wonderland
beyond all imagining.
Ever since the birthday party, my kids had been hounding me every day to
take them to Jeepers!
“Why not just tell them it’s only open for birthday parties?” she asked,
a “Duh!”
underlying her tone, as if to question why I had wasted time negotiating
and arguing with my kids rather than immediately turning to the safe haven
of a lie.
One day last summer, my husband Glenn and I took our kids to a fair. There
was a moon bounce with an insanely long line for kids under 3, and one with
a short line for kids aged 4 and up.
Will, our youngest, was then a week shy of turning 4. Glenn whispered, “If
they ask you how old you are, say 4, OK, buddy?”
I stared at Glenn in horror: “Are you teaching him to lie?”
Sarah Pekkanen can be contacted at sarah.pekkanen@bethesdamagazine.com.
|
