Hey Mom! Your Pants are on Fire!

I was watching the Today Show this morning and they had a segment on about parents lying to their children. They talked about some survey that showed 84% of parents have lied to their kids. I find that to be a little low in all actuality and I think the parents who said that they have never lied are decieving themselves big time. They also said 76% of the parents who admitted lying felt guilty about it. I know there are different degrees of truths and some are worse then others. Some fibs are safety related like, "The car can't drive until your seat belt is strapped." Some are health related like "NO there are no vegetables in this chili "or "I didn't know you were going to get 5 shots on our Dr. visit!" These types of lies are actually pretty necessary to get through the early years. As the kids get older and are more mature the anti goes up though. You have to know whether they can figure out you are lying or not. If they can then the lie is no good and backfires, teaching them that lying is OK and since kids are like little mimics they will be lying to us the next day. This is when the art of half truths comes into play. When they ask you a question you just answer with as little information as possible. "Did you ever drink wine when you were under 21?" " I had a few sips" was how I answered that one...they don't' need to know a few to me might me a little more then a few to them. They were totally satisfied with that answer but I know that in the years ahead I will have to come clean and spill more truths to them. For now though I will continue to massage the truth when necessary and use the time I buy to figure out a way to be totally honest in a constructive way. Ok that was a little fib..I may never come totally clean and be brutally honest...