Little White Mama Lies

Lying isn’t my thing.  I don’t ever recall lying as a child.  I was more about hiding evidence to avoid an incriminating conversation—just ask my parents.  Through my teenage and young adult years, I managed to avoid lying as well.  Becoming a mother has changed me in many ways, and weaving tall tales seems to be one of them.  

We were hiking over the weekend when our youngest managed to find a discarded red jelly bean in the middle of the woods.  This child is destined to appear on the show Hoarders someday.  The “treasures” he finds and clings to with dear life would make you want to douse yourself with hand sanitizer!  So it should come as no surprise that at the end of our hike, I pulled a bait and switch followed up with a little white lie.  He put the coveted jellybean down to indulge in his hiking reward (fruit snacks).  I scooped up that little red devil and hurled it back into the woods when he wasn’t looking.  He finished his fruit snacks and immediately started looking for the jelly bean.  He became alarmed when he couldn’t find it and asked me where it was.  I didn’t so much as flinch when I told him a bird ate it.  

As soon as the words left my mouth, I nearly gasped at the lie I just told my son.  Then I nearly laughed as I started thinking about all the little white lies that make up my day.  Here are some of my favorites:  

“If you don’t get in the car now, I’m going to leave you home alone.”

“If you don’t keep up with us while hiking a bear will eat you.”

“A monster lives in Grandpa’s barn.  If you go in the barn alone, the monster will get you!”

“Yes, everyone in Colorado is going to bed at 8PM.”

“What am I eating?  A carrot!”

Yes, it seems I’ve turned into quite a good liar, willing to say just about anything to keep my children alive and avoid meltdowns.  Which leaves me wondering about some of the things my parents told me as a child?  Did my beloved blankey really disappear by the drinking fountain at the lumberyard?  Or were they so sick of the ratty scrap of fabric that they tossed it the first chance they got?  Shakespeare must have surely been in the throes of parenting when he wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”