Lying to Children - Elizabeth Kay

Wikipedia

 I was talking to an old friend of mine recently about something I’d read; children who have been lied to assume that everyone lies, and therefore have no compunction about doing it themselves. But if you delve into this a little more deeply, it becomes very interesting and relevant to what we write for children. Both about lying, and telling the truth.

My children found the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons much funnier than I did. Calvin is a six-year-old boy and Hobbes is his stuffed toy tiger, whom he addresses as a sentient being although all the other characters treat him as a toy. Calvin has a vivid imagination, and comes out with some great one-liners such as : “Reality continues to ruin my life.” But it’s the stories his father tells him that made the impact on me. He makes up ludicrous explanations to some of Calvin's awkward questions such as where do babies come from: “You can buy assembly kits at Sears and K Mart.” Or how the load limit for bridges is calculated: “They build the bridge, run trucks over it until it breaks, then weigh the last truck and rebuild the bridge.” These are funny to adults simply because we know they’re not true. But at the same time aren’t we laughing at children for swallowing everything they’re told?

You don’t have to be six to ask difficult questions, though. I was walking back from the shops with my daughter who was in the pushchair, so she can’t have been all that old, when she suddenly said, “Why are we here?” I took this very literally, as adults tend to do with small children because they assume they can’t do abstract thought, and said, “Well, because we turned left up Acacia Grove and we’ll go to the paper shop on the way home.” To which she said, “No, no, why do we have to live?”

If I were religious I would probably have some sort of an answer to that. But I’m not, and I refuse to lie, so I simply said, “I don’t know.” Later on I would talk about evolution and self-awareness, but the question took me by surprise. And to this day I still appreciate people who have enough honesty and self-confidence to say, “I don’t know,” rather than trying to fabricate something to make them look cleverer than they are. The political commentator Chris Mason impressed me enormously when he simply said he didn’t know, about the likely outcome of some issue or another. My Polish father was always absolutely honest with me, and never balked at discussing current affairs. I assumed everyone’s family was like this, as you do, which was why I was surprised when my teacher at infant’s school was taken aback when I asked how to spell Khrushchev. The topic was My Weekend, and Sunday dinner. Having a banana for pudding didn’t seem quite as interesting as Russian politics.

But there are knock on effects, and big ones. I expected the rest of the world to be as honest as my father, and it landed me in plenty of trouble as I was very gullible and believed everyone unless I had a very good reason not to. However, the opposite can be even more damaging. When you don’t expect anyone to tell you the truth the consequences can be catastrophic. I have a friend who is very bright, but tends to think people exaggerate, or distort facts to suit their own agenda. When this is applied to the medical profession it can be disastrous. Though not a heavy smoker she nevertheless refused to believe the evidence that it was bad for her. It’s an emotional reaction, not a logical one, and emotions don’t behave in predictable ways. She is one of those people who “cut down” whenever they have a cough. As an ex-smoker myself, I know that this simply never works. Although it’s now decades since I had a cigarette, I know that you have to give up completely. Once again my dad set the example. I remember, at the age of four, saying “Daddy, I don’t like the smoke.” Whereupon he stubbed out the cigarette and never had another. And when I had a medical condition diagnosed, a long time ago, I was able to do exactly the same thing.

But back to my friend. She carried on smoking (not as much) after one small dose of cancer. Than, a year later, she had a much worse case and is now on chemotherapy. As she is not stupid by any stretch of the imagination we were able to talk about it, and she has finally given up completely. One of the consequences of her treatment was constipation, so I suggested something I use myself which has no side effects and always works, although it may take a day or two. I have always followed the instructions to the letter, as I do with all medication, but she immediately took two sachets instead of one. It worked, obviously, but we discussed why she did this and she then came up with other examples of when she didn’t believe what she’d been told. For some people, disbelief is almost routine.

If we think historically, there were times when you really needed your children to be quiet. In times of war, or at night when there were predators about. Keep quiet, or the demons will get you. And when natural phenomena such as thunderstorms, and comets, and volcanic eruptions happened with no apparent cause there were always people ready to invent explanations, frequently for their own benefit. The plague is caused by bad air, buy my pomanders. If you managed to disprove something to your own satisfaction, why should you believe anyone about anything? Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and God may easily get lumped together, and depending on your outlook this may be brilliant or appalling.

So think very carefully before you write anything for children. I don’t have any answers, other than Shakespeare's one – to your own self be true.

And here's a pine marten I saw recently in Scotland,
for no reason other than it's beautiful.