To quote the sage wisdom of Dr. Gregory House, everybody lies. It’s generally understood in civilized society that lying is usually wrong and frowned upon, but everyone does it. Distinguishing fact from fiction is a fundamental (IMHO the fundamental) conflict that every person must confront on a day to day basis.
When kids are thrown into the equation though, a whole new mess of circumstances apply. Children usually lack the critical thinking skills to see through most deceptions and they also usually intrinsically trust their parents word since, for lack of a better way to say it, they haven’t been here long enough to figure out what the hell is going on. This makes lying to them much easier. It is my understanding that lying to one’s kids, whether blatantly or through omission, is a common. The reasons for doing so range from parents saving face when they don’t know something, protecting the childrens’ supposed interests and innocence, incentivizing morality and/or obedience, or outright impatience and laziness.
The big three that most children in western societies are exposed to (outside of religion as a whole of course. For the sake of this article I’m focusing on lies that parents themselves know aren’t true) are the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. My parents broke the mold a bit. They were themselves very religious, but they spared me the deception of St. Nick, even to telling me to just play along when my uncle would call every December pretending to be Santa. Easter and Christmas were always about religion, not marketing symbols (wait a minute…). Granted while the religion behind the holidays is false, I still credit them at least telling me lies that they themselves believed rather than subbing in quick, easy, and socially accepted explanations.
So what I’m asking is this: Did your parents clue you in to the big three or did they string you along for whatever reason such as social cohesion with your peers or whathaveyou? Additionally, if any of our readers themselves have children (or plan to), how are you going to address these?
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