My Kid Is Doing Honesty Wrong

 

Robyn Welling  |  Feb 09, 2016 02:27 pm

I swear, I try my best to raise my kids right.

Well, maybe "try" and "my best" are a bit too strong. And "right" isn't exactly the word I'm looking for, either. But I am usually nearby while they're growing up, so they can't help but soak up some of my parenting, even if it is mostly accidental.

And like most parents, I thought I should teach my children that honesty is the best policy. Because they should always tell the truth, no matter what. Right?

For the most part, this has worked out just dandy. We have them pretty convinced that lying will always make a situation worse, so when they're in trouble or we even suspect they might be up to no good, they'll almost always admit who's at fault. This has cut way back on the Parenting Effort I have to put forth.

Me (tucking Zoe into bed): Uh, it looks like your DS is still on.
Zoe: Yeah, Jake and I had it all planned out. We were gonna stay up all night playing PictoChat through the wall. You'd better tell him we got caught when you tuck him in.

See? She immediately cracked like an egg—no need for threats or an interrogation. Easy peasy.

Except sometimes (often) it backfires. Not that I don't want them to be honest, but let's face facts—I'm pretty lazy. And there's certain information that I just don't want to know, because then maybe I'm supposed to do something about it.

Husband: I noticed some hand prints on the bathroom mirror.
Zoe (arm shooting up in the air like we asked for volunteers to swim in a vat of chocolate pudding): I climb up on the toilet and lean way over onto the sink to look at my hair in the mirror and get stuff out of the medicine cabinet.

Now, see? There may be issues with hygiene and safety there that I just wasn't interested in dealing with at that particular moment. Do you at least close the toilet lid before you use it as a ladder? And what exactly are you getting out of the medicine cabinet? Do I need to boil my toothbrush? These aren't things a lazy mom wants to think about.

And while we're on the subject of laziness, I also don't want your confession to give me yet ANOTHER thing to discipline you for.

Me (yelling at two rambunctious children): Quit chasing each other through the kitchen while I'm trying to cook!
(Four seconds elapse. Zoe comes shooting through the kitchen again.)
Zoe: Mommy!  Mommy!
Me: What???
Zoe (now in the living room): Nothing, I just wanted to distract you while I cut through the kitchen again.

Really? Now I have to do some complicated trigonometry-based Discipline Equation in my head.

Three demerits for coming in the kitchen, plus two points for being honest about trying to distract me, carry the four, multiplied by two demerits for being SO honest about trying to distract me that it dances dangerously on the edge of sass, divided by the fact that I'm up to my elbows in salmonella-tainted raw chicken juice so I can't chase you around the house with a wooden spoon or whatever good disciplinarians do with their kids when they misbehave.

I never was very good at math. By the time I finish my calculations, the smoke alarm is going off and I have to figure out how much butter it's going to take to pass off some charred lumps of coal as dinner rolls.

What's worse is that she can't really differentiate between "good honesty" and "a little too true."

Zoe (to Gran): I'm almost taller than you!
Gran: Someday you really will be taller than me.
Zoe: Of course I will. Because when I get taller you'll be dead, and then you'll be lying down.

Luckily Gran has a sense of humor about these things.

So sure, honesty is the best policy, but is it ever okay—preferable, even—for your kid to lie?

I guess I have to accept that there's some gray area; as much as I want to teach my kids to always tell the truth, there's a little wiggle room in there to allow for little white lies, the ones that save someone's feelings, or avoid spoiling their good time, or at least don't remind them that they'll be dead someday. Or like when your kid finds a four-leaf clover—they get so excited, why ruin it by pointing out that it isn't even clover?


Besides, nobody wants real honesty, not the 100% All The Time kind. In real life, we live in the gray area. If people really wanted the whole truth, nobody would ever ask, "Do these pants make my butt look big?" We'd read all the ingredients in our candy bars before we ate them, and Google the stuff that sounded like it might be an industrial solvent. Every time you greeted someone with "How's it going?" you'd be asking for a two hour conversation about back pain and lanced boils. Every shower in every bathroom on Earth would be tiled in mirrors.

Nobody wants that kind of full disclosure.

So kids, listen up. I love your honesty. But sometimes it's okay to keep things to yourselves. Sometimes you can just say, "Okay, Mom" without giving me a bunch of information I didn't ask for; I definitely don't need you to point out certain truths, like when the lady next to us at the grocery store is REALLY, REALLY OLD, and I especially don't want to hear that kind of honesty at top volume.

I'm not telling you to lie. Just embrace the gray area within honesty.

Because sometimes people want to believe they found a four-leaf clover. Even when it's a weed.


 

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Read more here! My Kid Is Doing Honesty Wrong