Single Parenting

What Harm Can a Little Lie Do?

By:

Kari West

              Many years ago, I caught my 12-year-old daughter in a lie.  While Melanie’s specific falsehood  seemed unremarkable, I will never forget her excuse:  Daddy lies and gets away with it, so why can’t I?”

              Melanie’s words concerned me.  I knew too well how lying had ruined my 20-year marriage, and I longed to protect her from such a painful loss of innocence.  I also worried that my past gullibility had provided a poor model for her.  My daughter’s question raised these fears once again.

              Emerson wrote,  “Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of the community.”  All concerned parents want their children to adopt Emerson’s view on this issue – to become truth tellers.  But in a world where lying comes so easily, how should we respond to questions like Melanie’s?

LIES-R-US

              Many people tell occasional fibs.  The phone rings, and they whisper to their children, “Tell them I’m not home.”  What others don’t know won’t hurt them, right?  Or they dump Aunt Gladys’ fruitcake in the trash, then write a thank you note about how much they enjoyed it.  After all, they don’t want to hurt her feelings.  We give these lies a benign size and color:  “little white lies.”

              But untruths and half-truths also come on a larger scale.  Prepackaged advertising hype and political spins manipulate us into seeing things in certain ways.  They shade or ignore the truth to tell us what they think we need to know – and what we often want to hear.

              Unfortunately, lies of any magnitude often lead to greater abuses.  From philandering spouses to scheming politicians, the more liars succeed, the better they get at it.  They learn to evade issues and sidestep responsibility by telling us that we’re the ones with the problem:  “I suppose you’ll make a big deal out of this.  Can’t we just move on?”  And “benign” lies can grow into malignant ones.

              If unchecked, lying becomes an end in itself.  Habitual liars relish the idea of hooking others into “the game.”  Charming and convincing, they know we often confuse liking them with trusting them.  (For more information on this, see “How to Become a Lie Detector,” right).

THE LURE OF DECEPTION

              Lies tend to work.  That’s what makes them so appealing – and tempting.  Consider Tom, an East Coast businessman who asked me to change his name in this story.

              “As a child, I just told my friends that my mother was dead,” he says.  “Their  questions stopped.  I didn’t have to explain why she left Dad and me, drank too much and wasn’t around.”

              Not surprisingly, untruths go all the way back to the beginning.  Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44), cunningly confused Eve and discounted her insight about God’s will by  telling a lie wrapped in a truth (Genesis 3:2-5).  Eve’s desire for wisdom superseded the truth she knew – God’s only restriction for residence in the Garden of Eden.

              Satan isn’t the only liar in Scripture,.  Abraham told King Abimelech that his wife, Sarah, was his sister (Genesis 20:2).  David covered up his affair with a murder (2 Samuel 11).  Peter denied he knew Jesus (John 18:25-27).  Ananias falsified the amount of money he received from  the sale of his property (Acts 5:1-11).

              Like all of these biblical figures, we use deception to get what we want, including love, money, approval and protection from our mistakes.  Unfortunately for us, lying usually produces results.

WHY NOT LIE?

              Given the effectiveness of lies, how can we convince our kids to speak the truth?  Try this ideas:

Go for realism.  Don’t ask your children to pretend that lies – and liars – don’t exist.  For instance, when Melanie lied to me that day many years ago, I said, “I’m sorry you had to find out that people you love don’t always tell the truth.  But I cannot and will not have a liar living in my house.  I must be able to trust you.”

Admit your mistakes.  Respond to the question, “What harm can  a little lie do?” by telling your kids how some of your small deceptions created big problems.

Show how even small lies affect the tellers.  Emphasize that white lies undermine credibility.  To make the point stick, ask your children, “Who will confide in you after you’ve lied to them?” 

Use real-world examples.  “After the Lewinsky scandal broke, I felt it was important to sit down with each child and talk about it,” says Jim Willits, a father of seven from San Leandro, Calif.  “Yet my older two girls ho-hummed.  I could tell they really didn’t catch the importance of telling the truth – until we talked about the moral values we stand for.”

Stress actions, not words.  “I advise my children to watch where people’s footsteps are leading, not what they are saying,” says Jon Drury, a pastor in Castro Valley, Calif.  Remind your kids that actions do speak louder than words.

Remember God’s view.  Cliff Coons, research chemist and father of six, puts it this way:  “The heart of lying is that we want to be like God, who spoke into being the universe.  So we speak into existence the world we want to see.”  If your kids want to hear about honesty straight from the source, read them Leviticus 19:11:  “Do not steal.  Do not lie.  Do not deceive one another.”

We can’t force our children not to lie.  Society, friends and even family members may encourage them to tell everything from little whites to big whoppers.  But we can impress on them the value of truthfulness and model for them a life of integrity.  Through our words and our deeds, we can teach them what harm even  a little lie can do.

That’s the truth our kids need to hear.