An Article – The lies we all tell our children
Photo credit: kontakts99 from morguefile.com
Growing up I was often told that my childhood moments, although they may have seemed like hard times then would be the easiest times of my life. That was one of the few truths that my parents ever told me. Once I had reached the age of 13 the invisible line between the buds of childhood and gentle fruits of being a teenager. I started to realize the things that my parents told may not have been necessarily true.
For example one of the simplest things like that there is no monsters in the closet or under the bed. However what they don’t tell you about are the monsters that are just outside the door, the ones that look just like you and me or even the ones that stem from our own minds that keep you up at night.
Or when a child asks where do babies come from, and you find yourself pulling up some outrageous story of a stork or a store that sells babies. While those small stories may seem like insignificant things because they are just that stories, things that you tell your kids so that they can sleep happily at night with out fear, they truly are something bigger. Then you start to get into the bigger lies, the ones that you tell your kids without realizing it.
When they come home heart broken after their first breakup, parents pat them one the back and tell them that they weren’t deserving of their time and that you will always be there to love them when no one else will. The problem does not lie with the comfort that you are giving your child but with the statement that you will always be there to love them, death seems to be the one thing that can stop that from being true.
Once that parent is gone the child even in adult hood is left alone, here is where the next lie come in, “They will always be watching over you and will always love you” as a teenager you question that, you question whether or not they are watching over you and the pain in your heart grows with each thought, this one lie can stop all that.
It is a simple phrase that holds no more meaning then what is actually being said, it is enough it makes up for all those moments where they are out of your life all those important moments that they will miss like prom, graduation, weddings, and even the birth of a child. Now many of you are probably saying, whats wrong with those lies they are giving comfort and helping ease distress, and they are. I am not pointing them out as bad things just thing that to consider next time you tell your kids something.
__END__
