The U.K. website Netmums has broken the news: Parents lie, and not just to their kids. Parents lie to other parents, and their fibs are designed to make them seem like better parents, according to this BBC report about a Netmums survey.
Granted, most of these lies are small ones, about limiting TV time or banning sweets. My favorite is the tale told by the napping mom, who explained her failure to answer the phone by saying that her hands were covered in flour because she was baking cookies!
Netmums is beginning a campaign, called the Real Parenting Revolution, to combat the idea that parents should be perfect. Infallible parents are tough for kids to relate to, for one thing, and make children feel bad about their own shortcomings, for another. Not to mention that other parents may be fooled by the facade of perfection and feel like failures in comparison.
So I wonder: Do grandparents lie, too? I've heard of grandparents who lie to their children. They might, for example, give their grandchildren sweets and then lie to the parents about it. Sometimes they even enlist the kids in supporting the falsehood. Do they lie to other grandparents, padding (so to speak) their grandparenting resumes? I'm not sure. What do you think? Leave a comment below.
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I know that my in-laws and my parents would never lie to me about my children. They know that that would be a horrible example for the kids.
But, Papa (my father-in-law) does sneak them candy all the time. We both know that I see it, and he would never do it if he thought I really minded, but the kids do think they are getting away with something. It happens right as we leave their house each Sunday. My husband and I go to get into the car, and Papa takes each kid back to the candy stash, whispering and giggling as they go.
In truth, I don’t like my kids to have candy at that time of night, especially since they often fall asleep in the car on the way home and then don’t get their teeth brushed. Yuck! But, I do feel it’s a grandparent’s prerogative to spoil their grandchildren. They are always extremely careful not to step on our toes as parents, so how can we deny them this? I love the bond they have, so I pretend to be oblivious to their little trick.
I would never lie to the kids. I agree with Carey that it would set a terrible example. And I would certainly NEVER try and encourage Amara to fib to her parents.
Amara on the other hand has been known to fib to her parents about what Grandma and Grampy let her get away with! I have never told her it was OK to jump on the bed but when caught jumping on her own bed at home Grandma has been accused of letting her do it!
This is a fascinating topic, ands one which I think I might expand upon on my own blog sometime. I have noticed, especially during the years I had custody of my grandsons,
that there seems to be a lot more pressure on young parents these days. Among these is the overwhelming pressure to have your child enrolled in multiple activities, to provide a constant barrage of educational experiences and classes of every sort. I also think there is a greater pressure now to be seen as the perfect nurturer. This, at times, can lead to a type of lying or fibbing as a kind of self-protection.
I would never encourage my grandchildren to lie to their parents. I do have a friend who once caught herself saying, “This is Grammy’s little secret just between you and me.”, when giving her granddaughter a forbidden treat.
And then there’s bragging, and I’m definitely guilty of that, myself!