You should never lie to your children. I know that, you know that. It's a subject on which we all agree. Yet, who among us can say with all candor that we have never fibbed, even a little bit, to our offspring?
It is true that, like all sins, there are varying degrees of lying. Stringing your children along about Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, or The Easter Bunny falls into the lower spectrum of lies we tell our kids. I won't go into the higher spectrum for fear of offending someone or causing hurt feelings but let's just say that the degree of sin rises sharply once you wander off the reservation of mythical beings bringing gifts to your children in the dead of night.
There are many reasons to not lie to your children, one of the least of which is that you'll eventually be found out. When I was a kid and I wanted to communicate with Kevin McCreary after bedtime, the best means possible was two juice cans connected by thirty feet of string between his bedroom window and mine. Kids today are mobilized, they're organized and they can text each other over cells phones brought to them by the mythical beings of the night we told them of when they were toddlers. You're just not going to lie to them for long and get away with it.
Unfortunately, I found out this lesson the hard way.
Early in our married life, my wife and I lived in Little Rock Arkansas. My eldest son, John-Ross was in that stage between toddler and kindergarten. (you know....easy to lie to). As it happened, the people who lived two doors down from us had a couple of kids close to our son's age and they became the best of friends.
For vacation, this year, they were planning a trip to Disneyworld. By night, at the dinner table, the family would plan the trip and the next day, their kids would eagerly relate to my son all of the wonderful things that lay in store for them in just a few short weeks.
Caught up in the excitement, my little boy came to me and asked me when we were going to go to Disneyworld.
"One day we'll go", I said.
That really wasn't a lie, even though I had no idea how we would ever afford such a trip, even one day. We were poor. I'm talking generic macaroni and cheese poor...the kind of poor where it's Wednesday and payday is Friday and you're scrounging around in the couch cushions for spare change poor.
But I didn't want for my son to feel left out. So I got together twenty dollars and went over to my neighbor's house and knocked on the door. When he answered, I told him my situation, gave him the twenty, and asked if he wouldn't buy a few souveniers of his trip to bring back and give my son.
What can I say? It was the best I could do. I swear by all that's holy, at that point in time, my intentions were entirely honorable.
But then events conspired against me. For one, they came home from their trip at eight-thirty in the evening. John-Ross was already in his bed. The next domino that fell was that my neighbor came over immediately and brought to me the souveniers he had bought for my son while they were away. The final nail in my coffin was when I opened up the bag and saw what they brought: A Disneyworld T-shirt, some Mouseketeer Ears, and a little felt banner on a stick.
An evil plot began to hatch in my heart...could I do it? Even if I could....should I do it? How bad was it, really? (I began to rationalize) "It's no worse than telling him about Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny", I thought. I weighed the risks versus the rewards of my evil plan and decided to go for it.
Scooping John-Ross up from his little bed, I grabbed the bag of souveniers in the other hand and went out to the car. My son was in that adorably drowsy state between awake and sleep when I placed him in his car seat. It was perfect, almost like a state of hypnotic suggestion. I drove around for a while until he fell deep asleep again. Then I pulled into a parking lot and dressed him in his new t-shirt and mouseketeer ears. I stuck the felt banner on a stick between the cushions in his car seat. Then I drove back home.
Everything was proceeding according to my plan. All that was needed now was the final touch. I gently shook my son. "Wake up, Boo-Boo", I said. My toddler did one of those numbers where he suddenly starts awake and then instantly settled back into drowsiness.
All parents know the trick of getting our kids excited by showing the excitement on our own faces. I turned it up full throttle, "Did you like Disneyworld?" I asked; my smile beaming from ear to ear and my voice at least two octaves higher than normal.
Confused, my little boy came a bit more awake. Like a drunk trying to remember a lost weekend, he looked at his t-shirt and his felt banner. His chubby little hand wandered up to his head. He pulled the mousketeer ears off and gave upon them with a bewildered look.
Then an expression came over his face; I'd seen it in war movies...that "thousand yard stare" shell shocked marines have after a long battle. His left eyebrow raised ever so slightly. I was beginning to lose him.
"Did you have fun?", I asked, reinforcing the illusion.
Finally, through a combination of lack of sleep, Disney mechandising, and a firm conviction that the father he idolized would surely never engage in such a cowardly falsehood, my son bought the story.
"uh huh", said John-Ross, with a befuddled nod of his head.
We heard no more about Disneyworld......for a few years.
"Be sure that your sin will find you out."
Numbers 32:23
Several years later, I was working late into the night at my drawing board. My son came to my elbow:
"Dad?"
"Yes, son"
"Remember back when we went to Disneyworld?"
My heart came to my throat. I didn't know how but it seemed as if the web of deceit I had woven was about to come unravelled after all of these years...maybe his mother had talked....she always had those lofty ideas about being honest with your children.
"What about it?"
"Well.....um...."
"Yes?"
"Can we go back? Because I can't find any pictures or tapes and I can't remember anything"
My heart settled back down into my chest. I took a deep breath, turned to my son and smiled.
"Sure, Son", I said, "We'll go back one day"
Eventually we did go to Disneyworld. Because we were a lot more solvent then and because a guilty conscience has a way of loosening the purse strings, we decided to go all out. We bought the "anything you want to do, is already paid for" package.
We stayed at The Grand Floridian. We ate at the best restaurants. We saw all the shows. I took my kids fishing and waterskiing...everything they wanted to do was already paid for and so we did it all. I felt a relief knowing that I had atoned for the sins of my capricious early fatherhood.
But it seems that Karma decided I had not yet fully paid for my foul deed. There was one activity that we had not yet tried, parasailing. It looked like fun. What wouldn't be fun about gliding hundreds of feet above the treetops, riding the wind currents like a magnificent eagle?
There was only one problem. I am a person who is only too aware of his own weight, the laws of physics, and (more importantly) The painful consequences of flaunting those laws. But my son persisted in wanting to go and, not wishing to appear like the coward I am, I relented.
If you ever go parasailing, you really need to benefit from the wisdom of my experience and pay complete attention to the safety lecture they give you before they strap you into that death machine...particularly the part about making sure that the straps are situated at the bend of your knee.
If you value your safety, your comfort, and (if you're a man) your manhood, for the love of all that's holy, get those straps at the back of your knee. You won't have occasion to correct that blunder once your parachute fills with air and your feet are lifted off the back of the boat.
Listen to me on this....THE LAST THING YOU WANT IS TO BE 400 FEET IN THE AIR, DANGLING FROM YOUR CROTCH!!!
It doesn't happen right away. If it did, you would be close enough to the boat that your screaming would alert the crew and your torment would be short-lived. But what happens is that the instant your feet leave the deck. Those straps that you thought were perfectly fine at the meaty part of your thigh begin to inch upwards.
You aren't really that concerned until you're about two hundred feet up. It is about then that you realize two things: First, those straps aren't going to stop inching up and second, you were probably joking around and not listening when the crew told you what the hand signal was for, "stop now and get me the heck down!"
By the time that your tether line is fully extended, you're well out of shouting range. That's when those straps decide to slip all the way up and give you the mother of all wedgies.
I had inadvertantly discovered the perfect means of torture. If the fifteenth century Spaniards had understood the laws of aerodynamics, surely this means of torment would have been reserved by the Inquisition for the most recalcitrant of heretics. I had been in far less pain in my life and lost consciousness.
I began to try and improvise hand signals to get the crew to pull me down. All that I accomplished was to induce them to go faster, and thus, lift me higher. As I danced about in the air, my screams lost in the ether, I remembered one thing from my safety lecture, "DO NOT TOUCH THE BUCKLE CONNECTING THE HARNASS TO THE TETHER LINE"
I looked about through the blur of tears in my eyes. I saw the forbidden buckle and seized it in both hands whipping it back and forth like a terrier shaking a rat. I could see them signalling for me to stop. I shook it again more vigorously. Finally, the boat crew decided to end the ride for my own safety.
By the time they got me onto the deck, I had composed myself. My son was eagerly awaiting his turn.
"How was it, Dad?", he asked.
I don't know why I didn't tell him the truth...what can I say? I am a wicked, spiteful man....
"It was fun", I said smiling. "You're going to love it"
Sometimes at night, I will jolt awake from a deep slumber with fear for just what Karma has in store for me because of that lie.
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