Liar, Liar - Pants On Fire!

What’s one of the first ‘rules’ you remember your parents teaching you?

Don’t lie. Tell the truth. Be honest. You might hear, "Liar, liar – pants on fire!"

What’s one of the first things you remember trying to teach your toddler once those words started forming?

Don’t lie. Tell the truth. Be honest.

We praise our children for telling the truth. We praise them when they’re honest about what they’d done in school to get into trouble.  We ask, “who left that trash outside?” We expect the truth, but feel most times that we don’t get it.

Are you always honest? Tell the truth. That’s what I thought.

Questions that we sometimes answer honestly, and sometimes dishonestly;

“Do these jeans make me look fat?”

“Doesn’t my hair look great?”

“Wasn’t supper good?”

Why aren’t we honest more often? We don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or make them angry with us.  When we ask someone a question, do we really want the truth or are we fishing for a compliment?

One night, after my son hadn’t eaten as much for dinner as I’d expected him to, I figured he didn’t like the meal, so I asked him, “is there anything that I cook for you that you crave or look forward to eating?”

There are a few choices I thought he might mention or that I’d hoped he would mention.

Those few seconds were the longest I’d experienced in a very long time.

He finally said, “no. I can’t think of anything.”

As soon as I'd recovered from the blow to my motherhood and chefhood, and before I let my feelings get hurt, I reminded myself that he was being honest. What more could I ask? 

But ... I might have to teach him about fine lines soon …