lying:

[wisdomeagle]

How can you lie to your children?

Today in Soc. of Death and Dying, we talked about children and death, and there were shared anecdotes about parents telling children truly atrocious lies about dead grandmothers who were "on vacation" and dead pets who had "run away." It was hideous. It made me twitch more than any discussion of what they do to dead bodies. (Okay, maybe not that much. I can't really deny the fainting spell. Still. Intellectually, larger twitch.) How can you do that? My parents never lied to me, not when Pete was stillborn, not when my parakeets died, not when any of the people from church died... I suppose by the time I was fourteen and Jeane died, they couldn't have lied even if they wanted to, but the thing is, they never did. Heck, they didn't lie to me about Santa Claus.

I don't understand how parents can lie to their children. I really don't. I don't get the Santa Claus thing either, for the record. You know you're setting your children up for disappointment later... how can you lie to children and expect them to trust you?

Then again, honesty is like, hugely important for me.

Anyhow.

I finally finished my honors thesis proposal. I had to wake up extra early to do it, but it's done. Just needs some signatures and the approval of the committee. I'm almost hoping they won't approve it, so I won't have to write the paper. Ugh.

Now, it is lunchtime.

Today, I ate breakfast!

Tomorrow is election day. If you're a registered voter in a swing state, vote Kerry. Please. Do it for me. I want a shiny new president for my birthday.

I have so much work to do! And so much sleep I haven't gotten! *twitches*

And, um, fannishly, um... I like Tara. sage_theory wrote me Wes/Tara. It's shiny.

Comments

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

I don't get the Santa Claus thing either, for the record.

Aww. I love the Santa Claus thing, a lot. My little scientific mind was crazy with the concept of Warp-powered reindeer and the size of the planet... but I think it's just an awesome thing. My sister and I had a Santa Claus Revival when I was about 15, when we decided that not believing in Santa Claus kind of sucked, so we were going to believe in him again :)

So yes, I'm a little too attached to the magic of it. *is a big fan*

[wisdomeagle]

Huh. I never had Santa. Never ever. Never really wanted to. But then, I am an incurable cynic. Which is probably because I never believed in Santa Claus, or in much of anything, but there you are.

[mylittleredgirl.livejournal.com]

You could always start now... *tempts with frivolity*

[tripoli8.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a really interesting class...it's a tough question, and it's something I've had a really hard time with (not that I have kids to lie to, but someday I might). I don't like the idea of lying to children, but I also don't want to raise my children with any ideas about an afterlife or a higher power.

I think it's really comforting for little kids to hear that so-and-so is in a better place, but for me, it would just be a more extreme version of telling them the person was "on vacation". All I've been able to come up with is one of those "Well, some people believe X, and some people believe Y, but nobody really knows." Which is about as close to knowing the truth as I ever expect to get.

[wisdomeagle]

It could be an intersting class, adresses lots of neat issues, but it's a little too unacademic for my tastes. But that's neither here nor there...

See, my parents are both deeply religious, but I don't remember them telling me much about an afterlife. I remember other people telling me about an afterlife, and trying to comfort me, but I remember it not being very comforting.

After my first parakeet died, we heard birds chirping in the chimney one day, and I said, "Maybe it's Blueberry," and I remember not really thinking it was true but that it was a Beautiful Story. I'm sure lots of parents would have leapt on it as a Beautiful Story and a condolance to a poor, bereaved, birdless daughter, but my parents said, "No, sweetie. Blueberry is dead. You know that, right?"

There wasn't really much overt religiousity about my death education... I guess it must have been there somehow... anyhow, I think my point is that it's possible to tell children about death, and even to comfort them, without lying to them or preaching to them.

[tripoli8.livejournal.com]

It could be an intersting class, adresses lots of neat issues, but it's a little too unacademic for my tastes.

See, that's why I've never taken a sociology class. Every semester, I hear they wind up turning into group therapy.

anyhow, I think my point is that it's possible to tell children about death, and even to comfort them, without lying to them or preaching to them.

I certainly hope so :-)

My parents were always pretty honest with me about death, but since there weren't any major deaths in my family until I was seven (and even then, it was my dad's grandmother, who I'd only met twice), it was pretty easy for them to start with the small stuff like goldfish. My best friend lost all four of her grandparents between the ages of eight and thirteen, and ended up having to help her parents through a lot of it; I have to assume that's a harder conversation.

[wisdomeagle]

Every semester, I hear they wind up turning into group therapy.

Yeah, pretty much. I once had a good soc class, soc of religion, but the professor was a temp and they didn't hire him, choosing instead the young pretty somewhat inept soc prof who wore shorter skirts. It was sad.

Well, my brother was stillborn when I was four, and my parents both took it really hard... I don't have too much recollection of how they handled it, but I suppose I survived. :/

[http://users.livejournal.com/if_/]

it strikes me that there are far worse things some parents do to their children, which makes the thought of simple lies being "appalling" somewhat superficial by nature. in theory, i do understand what you're saying, but i don't believe that a lie about santa claus is the most ridiculous or horrible thing to enter into a parent/child relationship. having had a fair number of deaths in my life (that sounds significantly more tragic than it's meant to), i can understand the parents' perspective yet at the same time realize that the fact that i know has helped me immensely.


and i'm glad you're interested in the election. it was so sad when a long way back you said you weren't voting. now you see i do people a service by getting up their asses about things. *grins*

[laynamarya.livejournal.com]

I really dislike it when parents lie about things like death. My mother used to get mad if someone metioned a woman had a "baby in her tummy" and would remind us forcefully that food goes in tummies, babies go in uteri.

of course we all knew this, and found my mother's reminders embarrassing on occasion, but she was truthful.

I always liked Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy stories because, well, i like stories. One of my favorite activities was making up fairy tales about my vegetables.

[wisdomeagle]

Sex is another thing my parents never lied to me about. One time a friend of mine had a long discussion about exactly how she'd explained childbirth to her son, the convoluted not-exactly-true things she'd said, and it confused me and angered me more than a little. I was given a very nicely illustrated children's book about reproduction and it was read to me and that was that.

There was a tooth fairy in our family lore, although I learned the truth when I was four or five and never looked back. I think my parents disliked the idea of Santa Claus because they wanted to be credited for the presents they gave me. And since my mom made me some pretty fabulous presents when I was a kid, that's more than fair.

I understand liking fairy tales and the need for myth, but the thing about fairy tales is you know they aren't true. Stories aren't the same as deceit. (One time, I tried to tell my friend Erik about the Tooth Fairy and his mother got very angry and told me that they liked to preserve fairy tales in their family, like Cinderella, and I was confused because everyone knew that Cinderella was just a story.)

Maybe if I'd ever believed in Santa Claus, it would hold the lovely blurry location of myth for me, something true and yet not literally true and yet on another level OH so true. But there was never any Santa Claus in my house.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

*reads entry*

*reads comments*

Sociology of Death and Dying sounds like a really interesting class. I suspect it would make me both depressed and frustrated with people, though. (And i have had more than enough class-as-group-therapy going to a leftist women's college thankyouverymuch.)

Honesty is one of my big things. (Consistency's another one. The two are obviously entertwined.) Santa Claus is definitely the one i most often get riled up about, because it's so prevalent and everyone says it's so benign and everything. I really loathe the idea of lying to your children; i think it teaches them that you can't be trusted, and if you their parent can't be trusted, then who can? (Or alternatively, they'll trust other people but never you.) Also, since Santa isn't real, you're setting them up for disappointment. Sure, most kids grow out of it without pain, but there's all that angst about older kids knowing and telling younger kids either accidentally or maliciously and so on.

When i was a kid all my Christmas presents had tags on them saying who they were from, and i knew my mom filled the stockings (in large part because they were mostly her yummy baked goods). I remember thinking there was no reason for Santa to come to my house when i already got so many presents from my family but really wanting to believe that there was a Santa so that the kids whose parents couldn't afford presents still got presents.

I definitely did the Tooth Fairy, but i remember knowing at least vaguely that it was my parents. (And i lost so few teeth naturally that it was almost a moot point.)

My parents tell me they were very wishy-washy anytime we questioned them about that sort of stuff, not really wanting to say definitively yes or no either way.

I don't remember how i learned about sex. I remember my mom giving me some comprehensive age-appropriate books when i was 11 or 12 and feeling like i knew almost all of it already and wondering how that had happened. My parents have always been very open and matter-of-fact about that sort of stuff, though.

No one close to me died until i was in middle school, but i know i was aware of death, as a natural and real and final thing. I was raised Christian (my father's agnostic, my mother's a spiritual Protestant) and was certainly familiar with the litany of "gone home to be with the Lord" from Sundays, but i also knew that death was something that people mourned because for intents and purposes in this lifetime the dead person was gone. It seemed like a natural part of existence (the fact that people will die, that is) and while i understood not allowing young children to come to wakes/funerals because it would be too weird/depressing/whatever, the idea of actually hiding the fact seemed absurd. My best friend had a sister who died of SIDS at only a few weeks if not days old when we were in elementary school, but her parents never talk about it, and granted it's depressing and stuff, coming from such an honest and open family i boggled that she didn't even feel she could ask her parents where her sister was buried.

My victim-of-the-60s aunt recently answered her young (age 5 or 6) son's question about what cemeteries are for with "That's where they keep the statues." My immediate family, we who are big with the blunt and the truthful, nearly keeled over.

[wisdomeagle]

I really loathe the idea of lying to your children; i think it teaches them that you can't be trusted, and if you their parent can't be trusted, then who can?

Agreed entirely!

I also don't remember learning about sex or death or anything explicitly, really. I think it was just part of the discourse in my family. Of course, the events surrounding my brother's conception and stillbirth probably added to that. I knew my parents were trying to have a kid, knew my mom was pregnant: she was trying to have a home birth and what all those funny instruments were and what they would do. And when he died, well, they had to *tell* me. We had two little books written just for kids about stillbirth and miscarriage, and I still remember them, so I guess it stuck.

Actually, my parents taught me lots of stuff out of books.

hile i understood not allowing young children to come to wakes/funerals because it would be too weird/depressing/whatever,

I attended my brother's funeral when I was four but skipped funerals after that until someone close to me died when I was 14.

My parents were always big on having me there for special occasions. They still regret that the hospital wouldn't let me in to see Pete or hold him, and they had me at the funeral and then when my little sister was born, I was in the room, watching my mom give birth. I was seven.

So life and death and birth and funerals have always been part of my experience, and hey, I like to think I'm the better for it.

Sorry, this was big and rambly, but there you are.

Welcome to the flist. :)

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Hey, it wasn't as long as my comment was :) [My friends and i have totally had comment exchanges that exceed LJ's character limits. Ph33r us.]

I've been reading your LJ for a while and finally decided to friend it. (I'm weird about friending; don't ask 'cause i don't have an articulate explanation.) Thanks for friending me back.