The Lies Our Parents Told Us

Let’s get real; sometimes being a parent fucking SUCKS.

Instagram will try to fool you; it is NOT all rainbows and butterflies. It is bodily fluids and temper tantrums. It is unpredictably chaotic. Stressful to the max; you are in a constant state of alertness, waiting for the next thing to break—especially when your kids starts launching themselves off furniture—or for them to come home with the latest viral monstrosity that will literally knock you on your ass for two weeks. It is nonstop from the moment they open their eyes in the morning until you place them in their crib at night. On the flipside, its ridiculously mundane; if your kid is routine-oriented (my spawn obviously are), you will do the same thing EVERY DAY—down to the food you consume and the movies you watch. It is bribes—”If you clean up all your toys, we can have ice cream”—and lollipops for dinner. Privacy is gone—and when I say privacy I mean you will be peeing for an audience—and screen time—which pre-kids, you said you’d NEVER do—will save your sanity. It is internally counting to ten to cool your bubbling anger when your three-year old refuses to eat the mac & cheese he told you he wanted for dinner, but now has changed his mind because he actually wanted the rice you had earlier in the week—true story. It is messy, infuriating and there are days you just want to give up.

But its the best.

And you wouldn’t trade their little faces for the world. Even when it’s excruciatingly awful—like it’s been with my three-year old for the last few weeks—all it takes is an “I love you, Mommy,” and all the stress melts away. Does the stress return after just a few hours? Sure! But you always come running back to the little faces who make your heart sing.

That being said, I can confidently declare the following: when one becomes a parent, you understand—and respect—your own parents in a whole new way. Like hello! They survived! You survived! They had to have done something right! The mutual survival should give hope in the hard times; your struggles are the struggles everyone goes through, and eventually it will get better. Along with the common struggles, coping mechanisms cross generations. Like the art of lying to your kids.

Now, when I say “lying” I mean the harmless, little white lies you tell to either drop a subject or to get them to cooperate. Like, pretending to call their teacher—or Santa—when they are misbehaving and having a full, fake conversation. A tiny lie to save your sanity is 100% understandable. The toxic, damaging lies—like “I’m running out for a pack of cigarettes,” then you never see that person again—have no business here. No, it’s the simple lies that subvert attention and have no lasting impact.

Unless you forget to tell your grown children about said lies, and they believe them well into adulthood.

Case in point: New Denny’s.

When I was a kid, we didn’t go out to eat very often. Four kids and two parents who worked shift work didn’t really mesh well with restaurants. But when we did go out, it was usually for breakfast on Sunday mornings. Because what kid is going to have a meltdown over pancakes?! So, my parents would hustle us into the station wagon and we’d head over to Denny’s—which was our breakfast-spot of choice—hoping to beat the post-church rush. It was our Sunday tradition—and you know I’m a tradition girl.

Looking back, I don’t particularly remember the food. Like I couldn’t tell you what I ordered or really anything off their menu. Which makes the next part of this LIE particularly funny.

At some point we stopped going to Denny’s and started going to a diner that opened a mile down the road. Now this diner I remember; its still open and they had a massive salt water fish tank which we always asked to be sat in front of. We called this diner NEW DENNY’S. NOT its name by the way. But to this day, we call it NEW DENNY’S. Only recently did I ask my dad why.

“Well Denny’s had a really long wait. So we decided to go somewhere else. But you threw a fit in the parking lot because you wanted to go to Denny’s. So I told you we were going NEW Denny’s. The wheels turned in your head as you thought it through, then you looked at me and said "‘Okay!’ And everything was fine. We never went back to Denny’s after that.”

HUGE revelation for me. One that made me laugh for quite a few reasons; particularly, hearing that my neurotic tendencies—like not liking surprises and needing my routines—was ALWAYS a thing. But also because my dad’s quick thinking and little white lie solved an issue SO easily. MAN was I gullible.

Children’s innocence and gullibility is what’s key for these little white lies. Like why would I question my dad? Or I don’t know…read the diner’s neon sign as we walked in for its actual name. These lies are not malicious—like I was still getting pancakes, just not the real Denny’s pancakes. Actually they’re quite the contrary; outside of just trying to get your kid to cooperate, they’re also used to protect your kids.

Like the second white lie my parents told my sisters: The Ditch.

My childhood home was in a housing development in the suburbs of Philadelphia. All the houses were the same, the streets had sidewalks—big appeal for those moving out of the city—and there were only two streets that lead out to regular street traffic. It was an ideal area to raise a family; parents didn’t have to worry about their kids playing in the street. But they did have to worry about us playing in the massive drainage ditch in the center of the development.

To deal with flooding and run-off rainwater, an intricate drainage system was installed beneath the entire neighborhood. Water could freely pour onto the street, collect in the sewers and then dump into the aforementioned massive basin.

And yes that’s an actual picture, stolen from Google Earth.

It doesn’t look like much, but to a kid it was a free-range playground. In the summer, it was our bike hill. The winter, kids lined the summit with sleds. The open area was perfect for football or kickball. It was the central location for all activities; “Meet at the ditch,” is what we’d always say. Listing this all out, I know it sounds idyllic; the Mecca of harmless, childhood fun. But for my parents, it wasn’t so harmless. In fact, it was the source of major stress. Mainly due to the four storm drain entrances that were big enough for a person to walk through. Walk through and subsequently get lost in the winding sewer tunnels—which did happen once to a little boy two blocks over.

At first, we were forbidden from stepping foot in the ditch. That didn’t last—especially after my Dad kept catching us down there when he was on his way home from work. I guess they realized they couldn’t forbid it completely, especially if our friends were always down there. So they changed tactics; they told us we could go to the ditch, but only during the day and we couldn’t go anywhere near the sewer entrances.

“But why?” we asked.

“Because there are alligators in the sewers.”

Yes. That is what they told us. It might seem extreme—semi-sadistic—but it scared the shit out of us enough to never tempt stepping foot inside those tunnels. Well…I can’t say that’s 100% accurate; 9-year-olds are always a little too daring and will likely push boundaries. But we never went far enough that we couldn’t see the way out. We never saw the alligators, but we ran like hell if there was any sudden movement.

Now as an adult, I see the merit in telling little white lies. Especially with a three-year old who is all kinds of argumentative and too smart for his own good :)

My latest? “We have to dump all the water out of the baby pool and water table at 6pm every night, or the police will come. Its the law.”

No questions were asked. No whining. All results. Definitely a parenting win!