Liar, Liar

It’s that time of year again.  I know I’ll be seeing the videos pop up in my Facebook and YouTube feed.  I like you Jimmy Kimmel, I really do, but I hate the Halloween candy thing.

Are you familiar with this?  Following Halloween in 2011, Jimmy Kimmel challenged parents to tell their kids that they ate all their Halloween candy, video record the children’s reactions, and then post the videos to YouTube with the title Hey Jimmy Kimmel, I told my kids I ate their Halloween candy. In Jimmy’s own words he admits, “I guess I didn’t expect so much crying.”  He laughs, the audience laughs, and he proceeds to show a montage of kids crying about the misrepresented loss of their Halloween candy.

This doesn’t make me laugh.  I REALLY don’t like it, but I feel like I’m in the minority here.  This has turned into a very popular annual segment with last year’s video (5 minutes 38 seconds) garnering 5.4 million viewers. 

Most parents (including my parents and myself as a parent) have lied to their kids.  It’s almost an unwritten rule that parents teach their kids about Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny.  For some parents it’s a reluctant peer pressured following of the crowd.  Others really get into it, spinning elaborate tales that grow more outrageous with each passing day.  I know a dad who would spend the whole month of December trying to see how many outrageous stories he could get his kids to believe.  “I heard on the news that Santa got arrested for peaking in windows,” he would say.  “I think he was just trying to find out who was naughty and nice, but I sure hope they let him out of jail before Christmas Eve.”

I worked with someone who had a no-harm, no-foul rule about lying to his kids.  He and his wife had four children aged five and under.  The five year old got stuck on the idea that he ‘needed’ to go to Disney World.  He passed the itch on to his four year old sister and soon these two kids were begging and pleading every day to go to Disney World.  The young couple finally couldn’t take anymore and told the kids they were going to Disney World.

The next Saturday morning, they packed the kids into the car.  And even though their intended destination was only fifteen minutes away, they drove around the countryside for an hour (they told the kids it had been four hours) to give the illusion of a long trip.  Finally, they arrived at 42001 Ford Road, Canton, MI (Chuck E. Cheese’s) and told the kids they were at Disney World.  I was aghast when he told the story at work on Monday.  “They had a great time,” he said.  “There were a few questions about where Mickey Mouse and Cinderella were, but we just kept them busy.  They thought it was fabulous!”

As I pondered all this parental lying, my son reminded me that not only had I lied to him when he was a child (apparently saying ‘we’ll see’ when the answer is really ‘no’, is considered, by some, to be lying) but I’d recently lied to my friend’s child as well.  I’d sort of forgotten.

My friend was having some trouble with her four year old listening to her and picking up his toys.  It’s a common problem with young children, but she was getting frustrated.  As he was (and still is) a huge fan of Batman, I sent him a note (on a Batman notecard) that said something along these lines.

Dear Josh,

I hear that you are a big fan of mine and I wanted to say thanks.  It makes me happy to have good kids like you be a part of my team.

I understand that you have a lot of Batman toys.  Good for you!  Be sure to take care of your Batman toys – and all your toys.  Remember to be careful with them and put them away when you are done playing so they don’t get lost or broken.

Batman

I may, or may not, have also included some encouraging words about eating green beans.  Was that wrong?

When I was a kid, I worried about being abducted by aliens.  (No, I’m not lying.)  My mom told me that aliens didn’t take people that didn’t want to go with them.  I was so relieved.  I trusted her.  I believed her and it all worked out.   

Which brings me to my point about Jimmy Kimmel’s Halloween candy prank.  It’s not the lying that bothers me.  Parents lie to kids to amuse them, tease them, protect them, and yes, to get them to pick up their toys. What troubles me is the raw emotions that come spilling out for everyone to see. In the candy montage, one little boy asks through his tears, “Why are you taking a video?” Its the vulnerability of the kids.  They are being emotionally manipulated for the entertainment of adults. I think it’s great when people can laugh at themselves, not so great to be manipulated by others so they can laugh at you. What are we teaching kids? Am I taking this too seriously? I guess we won’t know for sure until these kids grow up and report back. Maybe by then we’ll see videos on YouTube entitled, “Hey Jimmy Kimmel, I told my parents I’m putting them in a nursing home.”