Lying is an occupational hazard of being a parent. You don’t plan to do it, it just happens…
“Fingernails don’t grow at night.”
Add lie #137 to the list.
For some reason, my four year old daughter Lucy is terrified that her fingernails will grow at an expedited rate while she’s sleeping and she’ll wake up with eagle-like talons in the morning.
The only way to alleviate this fear is to tell her that nails don’t grow while you’re sleeping. So that’s what we do; we lie to our daughter.
(We’ve also had to tell her that hair doesn’t grow while you’re sleeping. We can thank Rapunzel for that one.)
So we’ll just add this to the ever-growing list of lies we tell our kids.
So far on the list (this is by no means a complete list, just a few examples):
“Sharks don’t eat people.” (No, it’s not that common, but it has happened, so it counts as a lie.)
“You’re too small for that ride.” (I don’t care if they’re tall enough; there is no way I’m letting my 4 year old go on those flying swings at Playland!)
“It’s way past your bedtime.” (It’s 7pm.)
“I don’t know where your Scooby-Doo ring is.” (I threw it away in a pre-Christmas purge.)
“We all won the game.” (Nope. There was a winner and there was loser.)
“I don’t know where your painting is.” (It’s in the garbage with the Scooby-Doo ring.)
“The big slide at Granville Island is closed today.” (The big slide is in the Kids Market. The Kids Market is always open.)
And now:
“Fingernails don’t grow at night.”
It’s not like we mean to lie. It’s just that sometimes the truth is too involved or too complicated or too exhausting… and the lies just slip out. They just fall out of our mouths before we even realize what we’re saying. Lying is an occupational hazard of being a parent.
It just happens.
I can’t wait to see what we’ll come up for lie #138…
