Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them

So as my daughter has grown older (she's now two) and more articulate (she's able to ask for things in complete sentences), my wife and I have begun lying to her with greater frequency -- usually when she's requesting something that we either can't or aren't willing to provide her, and when our inability or unwillingness is (we think) too complicated to convey to a young toddler.

So when she asks to watch Finding Nemo, for example, we will sometimes tell her that "Nemo is sleeping" when in fact we simply don't want to plop her in front of the television at that precise moment. Or if she wants to Skype with her grandmother in the morning, we'll tell her that "Grandma is sleeping" when in fact we know that she's three timezones away and that she's probably enjoying her afternoon by that point.

At times -- OK, most of the time -- I feel ambivalent about this, in part because perental lying is pretty much how kids themselves learn to lie. But I also recognize that I've turned to this strategy (I can't speak for my wife) because I'm fundamentally a lazy person. Our child has always been a fantastic sleeper, and she adheres to a rigid schedule of naps and bedtimes, from which she departs only when sick. So for her, sleep is one of the iron laws of existence. She understands it and respects its boundaries. Sleep, to her, is not negotiable. So when we tell her that "X is sleeping" when "X" is in fact an inanimate object like the television or a fictional character like Nemo, she gets the point.

Soon enough, though, she's going to figure out what we're up to; I'm not sure how I'm going to explain all the lying to her, but I imagine that "My sense of decency was sleeping" isn't going to hold much weight.

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Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them

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