Telling the Truth is Optional

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 actu

ally 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?”