I hate lying. I just find it distasteful. I don't enjoy deceiving other people. Some people seem to delight in being able to fool someone else by making them believe things that are untrue. And yet I will not only lie to my child, I will plan a strategy and bring my husband in on the specifics of the lie so he can back me up. This is not something I thought I'd be doing before I had children but it's now part of my day.
This morning I told my son, "Here's your breakfast, and here's some delicious oatmeal," as I handed him some Rice Crispies in milk that had been warmed slightly. He immediately began eating the "oatmeal" because he likes oatmeal. If I had presented it as cereal he might have balked, because he prefers his cereal dry. We're working into cereal with milk. We've tried letting him pour the milk on the cereal with some success but in general, it's easier to get a child to eat something he thinks is something he already likes than something he definitely decided last week he didn't like.
I remember tremendous indignation as a child when I found out about one of these parental food lies. My best friend and I loved pizza. We came to dinner one night to see something pizza-shaped sitting on our plates, but was not at all like pizza. Our mothers told us it was "pizza pie" and it was so good and we should eat it. We were skeptical. I don't think we ate much because it just wasn't that good, sorry mom, I know you read this blog.
Later, when the dishes were being cleaned up, I heard my mom say to Joan, "That was a great quiche." Jenny and I were in hearing distance and we were mad. Incensed. We had been tricked. We did not like quiche. To this day I haven't really been a quiche fan. It's not a result of the parental lie. I love eggs, but I've never found eggs in a pie format that appealing.
What I did learn from that experience is that a parental lie will only work within a certain tolerance. Don't say mashed potatoes are candy, it's too much of a stretch. I wasn't sure if my cereal lie would work this morning so I used the mushiest cereal we had (Rice Crispies,) added a small amount of milk and microwaved it to make it as close texturally to oatmeal as I could.
I succeeded this time but as my children get older and more skeptical will I still be able to make a parental lie believable?
The Big Boy Update: "What's big and gray and has a trunk?" Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on the other day and they asked this question. My son was playing with toys and listening. There was a small trumpeting sound and then, before the elephant came into view, he said "elephant!" Was it the description that gave him enough clues to figure out the answer? Was it the sound? I didn't know he knew that much about an elephant either way.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Spinner. She likes to spin in place. She can turn around and walk well, but in the last two days she's started standing in one place and just turning around and around. It's cute to watch. I thought she was lost the first time, but I think she's just likes doing it.
Someone Once Said: Two witnesses who tell the exact same story are lying.
No comments:
Post a Comment