How and why parents should lie to their children - Greg Bruce

A father lies to his son about his mother being ok with them watching John Wick Chapter 4. Photo / Getty

OPINION:

I not only find lying quite enjoyable but also think it’s an important skill. People who claim you should never lie are idiots. Lying is sometimes the only moral choice, as in when a would-be murderer asks if you know the whereabouts of their intended victim, or your kids ask questions you are unable to answer, or a spouse asks if they look nice in these clothes.

Nevertheless, I don’t want my children to lie, which is tricky not just because of the inherent hypocrisy in that position, but also because they have a talent for it. I won’t name names, but some of them do it so well that I sometimes find myself doubting the evidence supplied by my own eyes

I don’t mind being gaslit by my own children – in fact I see it as part of the package deal of parenting – but I do feel like I have an obligation to teach them about the moral complexities of lying, that there are times when it’s okay and times when it’s not, and that which is which is never related to how much you wanted that packet of lollies.

Where this runs into problems is with the boundary-industrial complex. Boundaries are what children supposedly need to feel healthy, happy and safe, and I’m happy enough to go along with that scientifically unverifiable claim, but most of the time the boundaries we set as parents are wobbly and porous and very difficult to locate on a map.

Take, for example, the idea of “treat foods” – ignoring for a second the body of literature that suggests we shouldn’t use that term. Where should our boundaries be around consumption of treat foods? One treat a day? Two? Three? What size portions? Does fruit juice count as a treat? What about honey? Is there some sort of discounting for raisins?

Here’s a not-uncommon interaction in our house:

Child: Can I have a sweet treat?

Me: No, you’ve had X sweet treats already today [number given is almost certainly an undercount, based on the number of sweet wrappers we regularly find hidden under their beds and in their wardrobes].

Child [angry]: No I haven’t, liar!

Me: I’ve seen you eating them.

Child: [crying, screaming, running from room and through house slamming all available doors] I hate you!

This kind of exchange is hurtful obviously, but more to the point it is hugely disruptive in the context of lives that are lived almost constantly on the verge of lateness. In the high-stress environment that is a house with three young children, you simply don’t have time for the 15-minute meltdown typically engendered by this kind of battle over boundaries. In short, boundaries are something that might be good for kids in the long term, but in the short term, when you just have to get them to a practice/party/event/school on time, something has to give.

I’m sure there are proactive measures you could take ahead of time to make this kind of behaviour less likely, and there are probably also effective alternatives you could offer in the moment, but these are things that require creativity and/or clear thinking, which are in short supply when you’re already two minutes late for your child’s first-ever piano concert and one of your other children is refusing to put their shoes on, and the third is nowhere to be found. Furthermore, what you think of as an “effective alternative” is very unlikely to be seen as such by a child in the midst of a meltdown, because they hate you and everything you might be about to say.

If there is a good solution in this kind of situation, I’ve proven unable to find it, repeatedly, over many years. Most of the time, I have no idea what I’m doing as a parent. That is not a lie, but if my kids ever read this article, I’ll be telling them it is.