Day 4: Pants on Fire

Lies. 

We teach our children not to lie, we are stunned when they lie to us for the first time – in this case, when I say “we,” I really mean “you,” because I’m certain my children will never lie to me – but the cold reality is this: we lie to our children all time; they are learning from the best. 

It starts, I suppose, with cute lies of convenience or custom. Santa Claus will climb down the chimney and leave gifts for all the good little boys and girls. The Tooth Fairy will slide a stealthy hand beneath your pillow and replace your fallen tooth with a shiny coin. Instead of discussing the details of conception and childbirth, we might tell the tale of the stork, or simply call it all “magic” and leave it at that. 

Few of us would have any trouble with these innocuous fibs, but I’m here to admit that we have crossed a serious line in our household. In our defense, our children have pushed us across that line, but we haven’t tried to hard to get back. We lie like dogs. 

For us it started with an extension of the Santa Claus lie. Like most parents, we often found ourselves telling a misbehaving child that Santa was watching, but one day inquisitive young Alison asked how exactly Santa was watching. In a stroke of pure genius, I told her that the alarm system motion detector in the corner of the living room was actually Santa’s surveillance camera. (I wrote about this a few years ago.) From there, the floodgates were opened. 

As soon as Christmas was over, we decided that the Easter Bunny had taken over the cameras. Sure, it was another brick on our road to hell, but since it kept the kids in line, it was a tradeoff I was willing to make. 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. From there, we took another leap, a leap borne of true desperation. Kate, our youngest angel, has authored some vicious tantrums in her short career. Perhaps you’ve experienced tantrums like hers, the ones where you are certain that not only your next door neighbors but even the neighbors across the street can hear. The ones where you begin to be concerned that someone might actually call the police to rescue the screaming child. 

And then it hits you. Someone might actually call the police. The sheer brilliance of a plan – a lie -- that is absolute genius. Sure, it might be obvious and a bit over the top, but so is the sun, and no one complains about that. 

And so one afternoon as Kate’s head was spinning around and all of us were dodging the green bile spewing from her mouth, I explained that if she kept screaming, someone might think we were hurting her, and the police might come and take me to jail. Completely unimpressed, she only screamed louder. Time to go all-in. I quietly slipped out the patio door, walked around to the front of the house, and pounded on front door as loudly as I could. When the house – even Kate – fell silent behind the door, I knocked again, just as loudly.  

Leslie, my accomplice on the inside, played her role to perfection.  She quickly leapt up to look out the peephole and pretended to see the police. Kate bought the whole thing and stopped crying immediately. Success! 

Needless to say, this wasn't the last time the police came to our rescue. Last week Alison joined the fun and knocked on the door for us, and several times we've averted public tantrums by reminding her that the police were probably nearby. Before you flood the comment box with your concerns (okay, I realize that would never happen), let me assure you that I know what we're doing is wrong on many levels, most notably that we're teaching her to be afraid of the very people who are trained to help her when she's in trouble. But you know what? It's a lie I can live with.

Comments

[Mark]

I'm not sure whether to tell you that's horrific, or to be ticked off our front door has a window that our toddler could see through and bust us. (Oh, who am I kidding. I'm fully in the latter camp.)