The Little Lie That My Son Threw Back in My Face

When I was an expectant father, I was excited by the prospect of deciding which lies to tell my future subservient spawn. I found it a little weird that it’s so commonly accepted that parents will outright lie to their children. Sure, Santa – but also the BIG lies. Like if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything and good things happen to good people. Ha! Good one, ma! I decided that I was going to be real with my kids. At least about the big stuff. Santa – well that’s a rite of passage for kids today. Of course, I also didn’t figure I’d ever serve my kids scrambled eggs from the floor, much less eat them myself. Yet, here we are.

But the lies I was looking very much forward to were the fun ones. The harmless little lies that make life a little more fun and dads a little more cool. Don’t throw the ball in the living room, the Slender Man will hear you. If you eat enough green vegetables, you can actually see through walls at night. For the love of God, please get out of the car or the Slender Man will be hiding under your bed until you fall asleep tonight! And my wife thought showing them Pan’s Labyrinth was a bad idea.

More seriously, I decided this would be funny. While at the playground the other day, Morris started whining about something stupid. Like maybe the fact that we would have to go home at some point. I guess he thought we could just live there forever. I don’t specifically remember what, but I remember it was stupid. To an adult. And he yelled through his pouting session that he wished I wasn’t his daddy. That’s his new thing. I’m confident he doesn’t mean it, but hey – let me call your bluff, Playground Boy.

OK, I guess we can fill out the paperwork when we get home.

What, Daddy? He stopped whining. His mood changed. The stakes had just been raised.

Yeah, we can officially file a Change of Parent Form when we get home and you will be placed with a new daddy.

When recounting this for my wife, I could actually feel her brow furrow and her head cock.

Yes, Morris, you’ll be placed with a new daddy, and I can’t promise what he’ll be like or where you’ll live, but if that’s really what you want, we can look into it when we get home.

This went on for a while and I talked about how because we have another child, Mommy couldn’t necessarily go with him either (OK, even I started to feel like I was maybe going a little too far), but we could look at it when we got home. Maybe we could visit each other.

I was preparing to do some damage control after all this. I riffed pretty hard on this and with very little provocation. It was like a drug. But my smart, wonderful, loving, and beautiful son perked up as if he had a great idea and said this instead.

Quote of the Day 8/14/2019

“Well Daddy, I want to look at you for a long time first.”

Oh, really? Why is that?

“So that when I give them the paper, I will draw a picture of you on it, so that they’ll give me back to you!”

Well, I’ll be damned. Maybe good things do happen to good people. Thank you, Morris. I love, you too.

Lying and Loving,
The Jokester Daddy.

Still Standing Right Here…

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