Expert view: In defence of the ‘white lie’
Guest contributor Lowri Turner on the home truths about family fibbing.
‘Honesty is the best policy’. That’s what we were all taught, right? It’s still a phrase many of us parrot at our kids. But, maybe it’s time we revised that rule.
I recently had eye laser surgery so that I could stop wearing glasses. In a fit of post-operative euphoria, I announced to my nine year-old son: “I think I look much younger. I reckon I could pass for 35.” He surveyed me with the unflinching gaze of Strictly Come Dancing’s Craig Revel Horwood after a dodgy rhumba, then commented: “No, you’ve got too many wrinkles.”
If this was a one-off then it could be excused. But, while mums routinely edit what they say to their children – horrible splodge picture brought home from school, cue mum going bananas: “It’s beautiful, sweetheart!” – kids feel no reciprocal need to spare our feelings.
About four months after my daughter, now two, was born, when I had finally managed to make a dent in my baby weight, my then four year-old son watched me get out of the bath and declared: “Your tummy’s gone right down!” I was chuffed. For about three seconds. Then, he added: “Your legs are still fat though.”
Now, this has clearly got to stop. Honesty may be the best policy when it comes to paying for stuff in sweet shops, but when asked for an opinion on the way mum looks, kids must be persuaded, if not drilled in the art of the white lie. All together now, children: “No mummy, your bottom doesn’t look big in that.”