Why oh Why Do We Teach Them to Read?

Happy Throwback Thursday! This World’s Worst Moms moment is from Vicki Sehy at Nature’s Details. I believe this post got the very first “White lies biting you in the ass” tag. But looking back, it was easily in the running for the “No good deed goes unpunished” label as well.

I am the world’s worst liar. If I even try it, the universe will trip me up in about five nano seconds. That would be understandable if I were trying to pass myself off as the Queen of England or some similar massive fraudulent enterprise. Nope. This extends to white lies. Don’t ask me if something makes your hips look big. Much like most males on this planet, I can’t answer that diplomatically. I’m surprised I was able to play along with the tooth fairy thing for as long as I did. And I was very grateful that my kid never did take to Santa Claus.

The problem with that, is some white lies need to be told as a way to save our sanity. For instance, I recently lost my mother. This sorrowful event took place on my son’s ninth birthday of all days. My husband and I made the decision to fudge a bit and say she passed on that Monday, the day after his birthday. That lasted a week. I was sorting through all the paperwork I brought back from my trip home, when I ran across my mom’s obituary. My son was curious as to what it was, so I explained that when you die, people put a write up in the paper. He seemed to think it was cool that his grandma ended up in the paper. I told him that he could read it if he wanted to, and it wasn’t too sad for him to do so. Yeah, never mind the date of the death is in there. SIGH. The first thing he said was, “Grandma died on my birthday?” Aw, crap. Well, yes, she did. We just decided to blur the lines a little because that might be too upsetting for you. “Why?” Well, because some people would be sad that their loved one died on their birthday. Their birthday would be cause for sadness not celebration. “Huh.” Does it bother you that Grandma died on your birthday? “No.” Good. I just figured that we would just focus on the fact that it’s your birthday and have a happy day instead of worrying about Grandma’s death. Glad you’re fine and psychologically healthy.

This is where it ends up biting me in the seat so to speak. “So did you lie to Dad?” Argh! Rock, hard place. If the answer is yes, there goes MY credibility. If the answer is no, there goes OUR credibility. I decided to reiterate what I’d said earlier. No, Dad knew the date. We decided that we should say it was Monday in case it was too sad for you to lose your Grandma on your birthday.

Just goes to show how we can underestimate our children’s ability to handle the tougher events in life. I just hope he doesn’t end up using it to play the moody artist when he’s older. Some sort of misguided attempt to get girls by playing the pity card.