You Can’t Hide Your Lying Eyes

Eagles fans know that “You Can’t Hide your Lying Eyes,” and pretty much everybody else knows that too.  Most of us instinctively know when we are being lied too.

Even “little lies” are problematic, though tempting.  When a child is whining for a cookie, for example, it may seem so much easier to say “We don’t have anymore cookies,” just to have a little peace, even when we know we have some chocolate chip specimens squirreled away in the cupboard.   But that’s lying.

Words are deeds and our word needs to be true.

I like to think about “performative” sentences:   When words really make things happen in a concrete and obvious way, such as “I take thee to be my lawfully wedded wife”  or “I name this ship the Jolly Roger.”

Words make things happen and have direct consequences, even in simpler, more everyday moments than these.

Children, like adults, know inside when someone is not telling the truth and when something is not quite right.  (Of course there are always exceptions, being blindsided by Bernie Madoff or others).  But, in general, we pick up on a lot of things.  Most of us know when we are being bamboozled, even in a subtle way.   Undermining our own integrity is never a good idea, even if it involves cookies.  Lying to children is not a good choice.  Better to say “there are no more cookies for you right now,” than to lie and say “we have no more cookies.”

There was an interesting article in the NY Times called The Moral Costs of Counterfeiting, about people’s perception of themselves when they wore what they thought were counterfeit goods (in this case, sunglasses) that they were passing off as the real thing.  Trying to pass off a counterfeit good as the real thing, a duplicitous act, takes a “psychological toll on the wearer.”  And the study demonstrated “when one feels like a fake, he or she is likely to behave like a fake.”

When we lie to our children about seemingly innocuous things, the effects multiply: on our integrity and on how we perceive ourselves, as well as on the trust that our children place in us.

That said, when children lie –for example,  “I didn’t hit Joey,” it makes sense to be sensitive to the particular situation.  Sometimes they aren’t lying, they are telling you what they wish was true.  She wishes that she had not hit Joey, and tries to make it true by saying so (practicing the performative).

Also, nothing is black and white, and when lying is concerned,  there can be cultural differences to take into account.  When I was in the Peace Corps in Niger, many people I encountered there were eager to please, and to give you the answer that you wanted.  For example,  I arrived early at the bus station to take a bus across the country, and eagerly asked:  What time is the bus leaving?  They saw I was hopeful and answered reassuringly:  “five minutes!”  Four hours later we were still waiting.  The true answer was “When the bus is full, we will leave — maybe in five minutes, maybe in five hours.”  I had to learn to ask questions without giving any hint of what I wanted the answer to be.  Not easy.

And for taking “faking” to a whole new level — check out The Office Kid.  A service which generates a fake child (artwork, pictures, and so on) so that you have an excuse to leave work and take care of him/her when he/she gets “sick.”  But keeping up the charade of having a pretend child might get bothersome and is certainly ethically problematic.

And what about Santa Claus?  The magic and the mystery of the Holiday season?  A direct question about Santa Claus certainly needs to be answered.  Growing up I remember a gradual awakening to the fact that my mother was in fact Santa Claus.  That felt right to me.  And I wasn’t surprised.  She was that kind of mother.  She was, and is, (as many mothers are) capable of playing many different roles, Santa including.

Another mother told her questioning child “Now you are ready to help keep this magic for the little ones, now you know and you can help us keep the spirit of giving alive in our family.”

The spirit of giving comes in many different shapes and forms, and sometimes Dad, or Grandma, or Mom, really is Santa.