A true story.
Everybody lies. People all like to say "I don't lie." ...Maybe, but that's probably a lie.
I don't believe lying is a natural thing. It requires abstract thinking that must be developed, beginning in childhood.
Why do our kids lie?
We taught them how.
Santa Clause. The Easter Bunny. The Tooth Fairy. The Boogie Man.
We teach them that it's fun to lie. There are presents, parties, games, costumes, candy, cookies and all sorts of fun associated with the lies we teach them.
Now, I'm not here to hate on Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, or any of the rest of our beloved holiday figures. (The Boogie Man maybe.) I enjoy the holidays. I celebrate with my kids all the holidays we know of, even the ones we don't understand, because they are fun and the kids love them.
When I was a kid everybody lied to me. Some of it was the traditional holiday folklore all kids are told. Other lies were told, I believe, because it was just easier to give a short answer than to get into details beyond a child's understanding. And, of course many lies were told to for selfish reasons, to dupe a naive kid to the benefit of the deceiver.
When I was small, like all small children, I would tend to believe whatever it was that the adults of my family told me. Like "Honey, you had better slow down and save some of your words for later. Don't you know that's why some of the old folks just sit and don't talk anymore? They used up all their words. You had better save some for later." I was quiet the rest of the day. Isn't that how children learn, from what the adults tell them?
The first time I can remember it becoming a real problem was when I started 3rd grade. the teacher had a bunch of introduce yourself to the class exercises planned. The one that got me in trouble was about Mommy and Daddy. I didn't have a Daddy. I had 2 Mommies. My sister and I had been adopted by my mothers mother when I was too young to know any difference. They had both said that they were Mommy and it had just never been questioned. When it came my turn to answer, I felt I should clear up that fact first before I answered the question. My answer, "I don't have a daddy, I have two mommies.", enraged my new teacher. She would not let me finish my answer. She made a speech to the class right then and there about me being a bad kid and instructed the rest of the kids that they should not talk to me because a bad kid like me would get them in trouble as well, and for the rest of the year I was not allowed to speak in her class. This was the first day of a very long school year. Even when the assignment was to read aloud. She would make a point to explain that I was to be skipped and the next child in line was to go ahead with their turn. At the time I couldn't understand what it was that I had done so wrong to make the woman so angry with me, but I sure wasn't gonna ask. Looking back I realized what she must have thought that meant, and it's funny now.
I had not been told the truth about who Mommy was. It was not a malicious act. I believe it was done merely to simplify the situation. The lady (my grandmother who had adopted us) that took us to school and doctor appointments, dance lessons and tumbling classes, was our mommy. The teachers or nurses would tell the kids to go to your mommies, or give these to your mommies, and we would head straight to her. But we always knew who Mommy Kimmy (our mother) was. She had always been there as well.
I was living in a state of altered reality, and it had inadvertently gotten me into a heap of trouble.
None of my family must have been very big sticklers for the truth; because time after time I would find myself in trouble or sounding really stupid because of "facts" I took for granted that were not facts at all, but rather lies I had been told and had never questioned.
Eventually, I made a ridiculous statement (wholeheartedly believing that it was a true and logical statement) to one of my friends that was over visiting at my house and he stopped, looked at me and said "Your family lies to you a lot, don't they?" He was a couple years older than me, and several IQ points higher, and the statement he made that day changed my life and my personality forever.
I began reflecting on everything I had ever been told. How much of it was true? How often did things like this happen and I was too naive or gullible to see that it wasn't true? How often was I making decisions based on lies and not facts. Had these decisions permanently altered my life? Had all their lies ruined my life?!!
I was an overly dramatic teenager by then and spent way too much time in my own head; But the epiphany that that conversation brought about changed my person forever.
If you lie to a person who believes you, you have permanently altered that persons reality.
Someone else will inevitably lie to that person again, and further alter that persons reality.
If most of a persons thoughts are not based in reality, their actions are not based in reality.
Then we have crazy thinking people running around doing all kinds of crazy things based on this individuals perception of reality.
What kind of a world is that to live in? It just sounded scary to me at the time.
That's when I made the decision not to lie to people, for my own benefit. I didn't want to be a contributing factor to that scary insanity I had just visualized.
I decided that lying to someone not only altered their reality, but also the reality of any person that they were to interact with using any of the information or deductions they had acquired based on that lie, at which point that next person would now also suffer from a permanently altered state of reality. Now, who will they interact with? Who will they alter?
It could be me!!
I have been both respected and reprimanded for this honesty. It has been referred to as everything from honorable to brutal. I often have to explain to people that I am not gonna lie for you, and I've noticed people tend to get mad when you refuse to help spread their fabrications. I don't adhere to this policy of honesty for honor or respect. I do it in an attempt to improve, or at least not further deteriorate the world I live in; the world we all live in. My motivations toward honesty are completely self centered.
I hope that this article can reach many, many self centered people like me, (It's OK. You don't have to admit to being self centered out loud. Nobody's watching you read this.) and they too will take a vowel of honesty, if only for the selfish reasoning of improving the world they must live in.
The entire content of this article came from my brain...even the brain. Its my brain, 2005 imaging.
I had this discussion with my girlfriend not too long ago, about Christmas time actually. It's quite easy to explain how holidays are not really what we perceive them to be and the product is a "true lie" for generations of children. You are so right that our childhoods are based on mostly over-simplifications or outright fabrications. We have set our own children up to be deceivers. I'm glad my girlfriend was able to understand the perspective and agree with my assessment that it's probably an unhealthy way to raise children. And that's not even touching the subject of all the shiny things that lure us into these holidays aka rituals.
"Shiny Things" you could make a great holiday article from that.
I tell my kids all the holiday tales that are traditional, but follow up with "Do you believe that?" I feel they need the background stories everyone else knows. I just don't like lying to my kids. I don't want to alter their perception of reality, and make them crazier.
I think about this a lot, especially while raising my own son. My family always said things to scare us into submission “the boogie man will get you, a car will hit you, or your face will freeze up”.
My son is on the autism spectrum. I told him one thing and it made him very sad and anxious and fearful of certain things.
When others try to now I gently correct it before it sticks in his head.
It’s a little scary how easily you can shape someone’s world.
People disapprove of how honest I am with my kids, but I really do think its best in the long run.
“Quit ruining our fun!”
My son will have a lot more fun in the long run for not being lied to, trust me.
I feel you!