The Whole Truth

I am pro-whimsy.

I love putting magic into my kids’ lives. I do the “Elf on the Shelf” thing at Christmastime, and I go all out. One time I deliberately made a mess in my kitchen at night, put several of my kids’ stuffed animals and dolls around it, and then in the morning scolded them for making a mess while playing, just so that they would be convinced for a while that their toys came to life at night and caused mischief. I love the dad in Calvin & Hobbes.

As my kids got older, this sharpened their bullshit detectors (a welcome side effect!), but they also started playing along, creating fun whimsical tales of their own to explain the world to me.

But, as in all things with children, you must be careful of their hearts.

My son recently told me that he was worried that if he asked me a serious question, I wouldn’t tell him the real truth. More importantly, he said that this belief made him hesitant to even ask me important questions in the first place. That is a dangerous place to be, and I never want that.

So first, I apologized to him. Genuinely. I told him that his trust was the most important thing to me, and that I would tell him the whole truth from now on.

He told me he still wanted the funny stories, though. So his suggestion was to give me a code word that meant “I want the real truth this time.” I thought that was amazingly mature of him (he’s 7!), and I gave him my word that I would always adhere to the code word’s command.

Whimsy, magic, and wonder are all vital. But all children deserve truth from their parents when they request it.