About 10 years ago, I met one of my best friends while walking at the local park and he recounted a story about teaching one of his young relatives the important virtue of honesty. My friend did not have a child yet, but his family had always stressed that he should advocate for these virtues as soon as his child reached an age where human speech could be understood. So, one day, he decided to try and practice teaching good virtues to a child.
He said, "I may not have a child yet, but when I was a child, I've talked with a lot of children my age. You know, I had debates and heated arguments about different topics with different kids and at the end of the day, we all understood each other. We think children are just part of the "kid" realm, but in reality, they are also part of the larger realm of the community. They copy good role models. And that's what I am going to be".
Upon hearing this, one of his relatives was clearly pleased about his caring disposition about children and asked if he wanted to help a girl in the family who was having trouble understanding what truthfulness and honesty really was. Her name was Kimmy.
Kimmy was a very young girl with a smooth complexion and silky golden hair. Her bright blue eyes would hypnotize any person who came near her. People would wonder, "how could this adorably gorgeous girl do anything wrong"? She had a brother named Nate who was adventurous and always wanted a "fair" share of attention, but he didn't get any. So, instead of wailing like the other boys did, he found a unique way to get that attention - by being an information source about what Kimmy was doing.
He would say all the time, "Uncle, uncle! Kimmy just got some of the cake from the refrigerator without asking permission. Mommy said that the cake is for the visitors only and it shouldn't be touched".
My friend thought that this was the perfect chance to show his family that he was definitely ready to raise a child of his own. He gladly accepted the request of one of his relatives to act as a "daycare daddy" while the parents of Kimmy were at work. Now, the only thing was to somehow make Kimmy tell the truth about what she did without any of the crying, moaning, and groaning that was always involved when one of her lies was exposed.
Then, the moment happened again. Nate informed my friend that Kimmy took cake from the fridge for the 39th time. I was actually surprised that Nate actually counted all the times Kimmy did this.
My friend summoned up everything he knew about children and marched towards Kimmy. Then he asked, "Kimmy, did you take the cake from the fridge?"
"No uncle!", she replied.
"Ok, no worries. Let's play a little game", my friend replied in a comforting manner. "Can you show me your left hand?"
Kimmy had both hands behind her back as if she was clearly hiding something. She slowly brought her left hand out which was smeared with all the cake icing. Nate saw the situation unfolding and slowly crept behind Kimmy. Then he made wild guestures which roughly translated to "UNCLE, SHE'S HIDING THE CAKE BEHIND HER BACK!".
My friend gave a slight nod of acknowledgement to Nate and focused his soft gaze on Kimmy, "Did you take the cake?"
"No uncle."
"Ok, no worries. Can you show me your right hand?"
This time Kimmy took her right hand out from behind her back which had a glob of cake on it. She paused, as if she was uncertain of what to do. Then, she slowly transferred the glob of cake from her right hand to her left hand and said, "here is my right hand".
My friend triumphantly said, "Haha, haha, haha, what is that cake doing on your left hand? Whatchu gonna do now, huh?" Then, he did a little dance.
Kimmy stayed calm and dropped the glob of cake from her left hand which landed on the floor with a soft thud. She showed both of her cake smeared hands and happily exclaimed, "See? I didn't take the cake!"
My friend suddenly stopped in the middle of his story and politely ended our conversation because he had an important errand to finish. As I returned home from the park, I passed by a local newspaper stand and casually took a free newspaper for myself. There was a story article about a man who had taken all of his wife's letters because he was suspicious that she was with another man. The pages of the letters were colored bright yellow. When his wife asked him what happened to the the letters, he said that he didn't know where they were. His wife then slowly pointed at the rolled up wad of bright yellow papers sticking out of his back pocket.
I folded the newspaper and said to myself, "There must be a name for this". There were so many parallels with this situation that there just had to be a simple way of describing it.
After a few moments, the idea hit me, "Ah yes, THE KIMMY EFFECT!"
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