I sit writing this as my family is snuggled asleep upstairs. I am drinking my coffee and contemplating the true awesomeness of parenting. There is just so much to it! So much love, so many fears, tears, anguish, smiles and so many lies. Well, yeah lies.
For me it started innocently, when they were toddlers, “Yummy broccoli, it’s candy!” I would enthusiastically exclaim to my now 13 year old, who knows clearly it is not, but eats it anyway. Now its, “Finish your sandwich, it’s good for you.” Actually maybe not. Bread is high in sugar and may eventually land on your hips as fat (if genetics has anything to do with it most certainly will). The deli meat within that sandwich is teeming with preservatives. But I want my children to eat so that they have the caloric energy to sustain them in all the wonderful things they will see in this world today. So yes, for now, for today “eat that sandwich”.
How about “Santa is watching”? Well maybe that one is true. Not sure I should admit this but I work for Santa. Please don’t call me and ask for a Porsche or Organic Composter for Christmas next year. My job with Santa is relatively small. A background worker, I watch over two adorable kids, and then help determine the appropriate presents for them as well as presents for some neighbors and a few needy children that I have never met yet am made aware of through my church. So yes, for this year, perhaps forever “Santa is watching”.
“I never …… “ Honestly you can insert anything here, smoked pot, drank beer, premarital sex, told a lie”. This one is a fun one! There are a plethora of items I am not ready to cop to my 10 year old or my 13 year old. Nor should I. Not now, maybe not ever. If I do come clean, it should not be when I am ready to tell it, but when they are ready to hear it and ONLY if it serves them. Sometimes these relationships with our kids take on a weird friendship dynamic. I have seen many a parent burden children with their truths. For now, maybe forever, “I never…..”
Yet, the biggest lie? “My loves, everything will be fine”. My small family of four has been through its fair share in the fifteen years of existence and while I am able to look back and say, “we are all fine”. Telling them that it will always be fine isn’t a fair expectation. First, what defines fine? How in the world do I know if it will be? Fine for whom? I met a man the other day, 26 years old. He has a year to live. That is not fine. Not for him and not for his family and friends. That is heart breaking. My son’s best friend lost his father when he was in kindergarten. Not fine. But for today, for every crisis they face, “My loves everything will be fine”.
So yes, each lie as they age may become a truth. But for now, broccoli is candy.
