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What do you get when you combine "honesty is the best policy" with "Do as I say, not as I do"? Here’s an interesting study showing that parents lie to children surprisingly often:
"We are surprised by how often parenting by lying takes place," said study researcher Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, Canada. "Our findings showed that even the parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty with their children engaged in parenting by lying."
Lee and colleagues acknowledge that their work is preliminary, bringing to the forefront an issue that is rarely studied. They are not sure the implications of parental lying, but suggest such tall tales could give kids mixed messages at a time when they are trying to figure out how to navigate the social world.
Lies could also harm parent-child bonds, said study researcher Gail Heyman of the University of California, San Diego.
It could even keep children from learning certain rules. "If I am always lying to the child in order to get the child to do X, Y, or Z, then they have never learned why they should do X, Y, or Z," said Victoria Talwar of McGill University in Montreal, who was not involved in the current study. "If it’s constantly being used, [lying] may be preventing learning opportunities for the child."
Guys, when your wife or girlfriend asks "Does this clothe makes my butt look big?" what’s your answer? Did you tell a little white lie?
Well, not Cathal Morrow. The 43-year-old Welshman decided to be brutally honest for a year as a personal challenge … and was surprised with his wife’s reaction:
Throughout our marriage, Patti has always asked my opinion about the clothes she buys and her weight. She goes through stages where she’ll eat loads and, to be honest, it shows.
Before, I went on auto-pilot and made reassuring noises about how lovely she looked. Now, when she asks me if I think her bum looks big, I’ll tell her it does.
It might sound cruel. But what I’ve learned over the past year is that how you tell the truth matters. So I’ll say “yes, your bum does look bigger, but I like it that way”. And I honestly do.
Another time white lies used to arise was when I was going out with the lads.
I’d fly to meetings in London and stay at a friend’s house while Patti stayed in Madrid looking after the boys. When she asked me on the phone what I’d done with my mates, I’d avoid telling her we went to the pub because she’s probably been bored stuck at home and no man wants to risk an ear-bashing.
But now I’ll tell her the truth, that we went for beers.
I’ve discovered that the fear of people’s reaction to the truth is often much worse than the reality of it.
