Little White Lies

L is for little white lies. I used to be adept at lying. It's how I got through high school, mostly. Mainly PE class. I once faked a sprained ankle so I wouldn't have to run the mile. I was pretty convincing. I guess I had such an angelic quality about me people didn't think twice when I spun them a yarn. Since leaving college I had abandoned such practices, but as a parent I find myself telling more than a few little white lies to my son. "No, Aidan, you don't want that cookie. It's yucky." "Aidan, don't put your cars down the central vacuum hole. A monster lives down there and he will eat them." "Aidan, eat this broccoli, it's yummy." Should I feel bad about this? Because, honestly, I don't. You can't reason with a two year old, they just don't have the capacity and when I find that he's on the winning end of an argument it's just so much easier to misdirect him, if you will, than lose my dignity. So what if he grows up afraid of monsters that live down vacuum holes or thinking that cookies are yucky? And I'm sure he won't forget, either. After all, he still thinks a hammer is called a knock-knock despite the fact that it was over six months ago that I erroneously told him that's the sound that a hammer makes and have been trying to tell him otherwise since. He does not let things go.