IT’S never too soon to teach your offspring to lie if it saves you hassle, time and money. Here are the times when telling the truth is wrong and lying is what good girls and boys do:
Telling the nice train man that you are four
Train travel is a rip-off and young children get closer to needing a ticket every year, so you need to brief your little poppet to tell the ticket inspector they are four and not five years of age. You save money and it’s unlikely that associating mummy’s love with lying will have negative consequences in the future.
Not repeating what Mummy said about Auntie Emma
It’s good to teach children to express their feelings, but not your feelings. Perhaps you inadvertently called Auntie Emma an entitled bitch for asking you to buy your nephew a Nintendo Switch for his birthday, or accused Nan and Grandad of being ‘holiday-obsessed bastards’ for pissing away your inheritance. Make it clear that remarks made at home are classified information and repeating them is treason. Now might be the time for some extra home study about what they did to Guy Fawkes.
Saying you’re off school with a bad tum-tum, not a trip to Zakynthos
A stomach bug can strike at any moment, but a discounted holiday to a Greek island comes but once a year, so raise your children to fake illness for personal gain. Everyone knows that school terms were created by Big Travel to allow them to hike prices in late July, probably, so teaching your child to play the system is fine. They’re practically Robin Hood!
Crying in front of the ladies in the toilet queue because you need a wee-wee
Until the toilet builders of the world realise that women don’t have super-efficient, multi-purpose urine pipes like men, there will be long queues for ladies’ loos everywhere. Thankfully, a hysterical child who looks set to wet themselves is a guaranteed queue-jumping tactic. Encourage your little one to cry and jump up and down, possibly with a bloodcurdling scream of ‘MUMMY I’M GOING TO WEE EVERYWHERE!’. The toilet queue will part like the Red Sea, in one of the few perks of parenthood alongside Easter Eggs.
Pretending you like Charlie so Mummy can see his family’s new kitchen
It’s not possible to be friends with everyone, but it is important for children to learn that certain alliances are strategic. Perhaps you really want to see someone’s new house refurb? Or maybe there’s a school parent who could be a useful work contact? Engineering friendships for your little one, regardless of how they feel about their new ‘friends’, will benefit you and teach them the vital future skill of sucking up to people you don’t like.
Assuring Mrs Ryan you don’t even know what YouTube is
Leaving your child in front of YouTube Kids while you get on with worthwhile adult life is frowned upon by many, and you want to avoid disapproval from teachers due to your child’s three-second attention span and vast knowledge of internet pranks. Therefore it’s essential that they deny all knowledge of tablets, streaming content, and indeed the audio-visual format itself. Get them to react with wide-eyed disbelief when shown a video in class, and ask if they can ‘go through the magic portal’.
Keeping quiet about Daddy’s trips to the drive-thru
What happens between a man and his local Burger King drive-thru is not to be shared with spouses, family, friends, or medical professionals. And your jumbo Coke, large fries and triple-cheeseburger is a problem if they’re watching from the backseat. The solution of course is to bribe them with a supersize fat and sugar-laden fried treat of their own. If they accept this deal, you bear no moral responsibility. It’s their choice if they want to die from a heart attack aged nine.
