The 10 Lies I Tell My Children

Lying is bad. We teach our kids that lesson even though much of childhood is built upon lies. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy just to name a few. We gloss over the lie with the idea that it’s essential to the childhood experience, it’s part of growing up, and the hope that our kids can stay small and gullible for as long as possible.

But we lie. It just happens. Here are the ten most frequent lies I tell my children…

1. I’m almost done. I use this one all the time. I’m almost done making dinner even though it’s actually probably 30 minutes away from being consumable. I tell my daughter I’m almost done brushing her hair when, in fact, we’re going to be here awhile thanks to her curls and penchant for sweating a lot when she sleeps. I know you wanna keep playing during your bath, but I’m almost done (even though I just started) washing your forever sticky body and oh my gosh what is that in your hair?

2. Dinner is so good! Actually it’s not. I cooked the broccoli way too long while I was putting your arm back in your shirt, and the 782 people that pinned “World’s Best Chicken” are a bunch of filthy, rotten liars. Not unlike myself.

3. We’ll go to the park later. Much later. Like tomorrow. Or maybe your Dad will take you so I can get a nap or watch another episode of Top Chef on Netflix. But, really, we’ll go. When you’re five. Maybe ten.

4. No, I don’t mind sharing my food with you. Why would I mind? It’s not like I don’t get any time to make myself food, let alone eat it, so of course I want to share it with you. I can always eat after you’ve left for college.

5. What a great drawing! Is that a stick figure and a tree, or a walrus playing basketball in space?

6. I love taking baths with you. There’s nothing more fun than you splashing me over and over again and squirting your bath toys in my eye. When you’re done with that, please feel free to shove your whole finger into the cavernous abyss that is my belly button and giggle while you poke my stretch marks.

7. The candy’s all gone. Except for the bag of Reese’s Minis which are hidden in the pantry. Those are mine.

8. Mommy’s going to bed, too. Actually I’m going to stay up for another few hours cleaning, folding laundry, meal planning , and reminiscing of a time when I didn’t have to do these chores in the dark because if I leave the lights on, you’ll see it under the door, and the gig is up.

9. I don’t know where your favorite obnoxious toy is. It’s definitely not stowed away in the closet behind several boxes of clothes you grew out of six months ago which I haven’t gotten around to donating yet.

10. The TV went to sleep. Or maybe I slyly turned it off when you weren’t looking because I couldn’t take one more episode of Daniel Tiger singing about his feelings. It was getting way too honest up in here.

I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do when I see ole St. Peter at the pearly gates. I wonder if he likes Reese’s…

Related post: 5 Big Fat Lies About Parenthood