SchadeBLOG

In my experience as a parent, I have found, as so many of you parents probably have also, that parents are really just a bunch of hypocrites.  And I mean this only in the nicest way possible.

What got me to thinking of this is the way that I recently tried to entice my daughters into following me into their room and letting me start the "bedtime process".  I did this by promising a chocolate treat.  Of course, they happily followed me into their room, thinking they were going to get a lucious confectionary delight.  Children are so easily fooled.  When they got to their room, I handed them the "chocolate", which turned out to be nothing, and they happily accepted it, recognizing that this was just a game.  The huge smiles on their faces as they pretended to eat the chocolate were clear cut messages to me that they were amused by this and that 20 years from now, when we are all sitting around reminiscing, they would use this as one of the many reasons why it is my fault that they are psychologically damaged.

Of course, I lied to my children.  I told them they would get a candy treat if they followed me to their rooms, and when they did, I gave them…nothing.  All this time, we teach our children that it’s a bad thing to lie.  We tell them that lying is a surefire path to Hades, that they will burn in the firepits of hell for telling even the tiniest smidgen of a lie.  We say, "you know, you may be able to get one past me, but God always knows when you’re not telling the truth," or "If you keep up the lying, you could end up as a congresshuman."  We give them all of these warnings and concequences and then what do we do?  We lead them to their rooms with a false promise of chocolate.  But as parents, we have a distinct advantage, and that is that at least during the first 10 years of our children’s lives, we are infalible, which means we can get away with the lie and not face the concequences.

Adults are always insulting the intelligence of children to manipulate them (the children) into doing our bidding.  It’s not just you and me, either.  This has been going on for centuries.  I’m willing to bet that Noah lied to his kids to get them to help him build the Arc.

Noah: Kids, if you help me build this giant boat that is nowhere near any body of water, which will cause our family heartache and ridicule from our neighbors - especially from the Smith’s down the road - and then help me load up 2 of every kind of animal, I will give you a piece of chocolate.

I suspect that the only parents that could never get away with lying to their kids were Mary and Joseph.  

Face it, your parents lied to you and my parents lied to me.  I remember one particular time that my mom lied to me and my friends just to get us out of the house (if you can imagine).  Of course, I never caught on to what she was doing until well into my adult years, after I became a parent myself and understood the power of the "Parent Lie".  The Parent Lie is this entire thing I’m describing - a lie that parents tell their kids in order to get the kids to do their bidding.  It plays off the trust that children have in their parents, believing that their parents are all-knowing and powerful creatures that would never lead them astray.  The power of this lie wears off during the teen years, when children come to realize that their parents, especially their dads, have the cognitive capacity of potato salad.

The lie my mother told me has been passed down from generation to generation in her family; which is that if you are able to put salt on a rabbit’s tail, it will slow down enough for you to catch it.  Of course, as kids, this was a fantastic idea.  The idea of catching a wild rabbit has a magnetic draw to it that is completely irresistable.  They are so cute and cuddly, and because of that they make ideal animals to try to catch.  Never mind the fact that they have very sharp teeth and claws (Monty Python comes to mind).  On top of that, there’s one glaring truth that almost always escapes all but the brightest of children; if you could get close enough to a rabbit to put salt on its tail to begin with, chances are you’re already able to catch it.  Probably because it’s dead. 

My friends and I were not among the brightest of kids of our time, and thus this little tidbit of information never occured to us as we blasted out the door , salt shakers in hand and fully loaded, vibrating so much with excitement that I’m sure we registered at least a 4.0 on the Richter Scale.  We went out into the desert near my house and weren’t seen for hours, guaranteeing my mother at least a little bit of stress-free time to herself.

Perhaps you disagree with this practice and have sworn that you would never lie to your children.  Perhaps you are an idiot.  The brilliant thing about the Parent Lie is the fact that, if done properly, your kids never have an opportunity to question your genius until well into their adult years.  By this time, it’s too late for your kids to use any incidents in which you employed the lie as an excuse for their adult phsychoses.  Don’t worry, by the time your kids are spending millions on psychological treatments they will have plenty of other reasons to blame you for their problems.  Some of them you won’t even remember.  It’s just part and parcel to being a parent.  I used to blame my parents for nearly every bad thing that happened to me.  Now I just blame Global Warming (it doesn’t argue back).  I’d get into this more, but right now it’s time for me to go give my kids some more chocolate.