When my daughter was very young, I would lie to her.
Not maliciously, of course. For example, she would ask if we could go to Disneyland some day, or live on a farm, or build a big house, and I would say yes. Privately, I would think, to at least some of them, Probably not, but it was my belief that she wasn't asking as an adult, or even a grown child would ask, so that they could make plans, count on things. She was asking the way that a young child might ask if Santa was real, or if unicorns were real. She wanted something to believe in, and I would go along with it. My wife felt that it was wrong, and that you shouldn't lie, even with good intentions. Over time, I stopped -- mostly because she got old enough so that she asked reasonable questions -- and she remembered the answers.
She's been saying how one program that we record is really, really good. I told her that I'd watched one of them, and wasn't that impressed. Tonight, looking for something to watch, she said that we should watch one of them, and so we did. Halfway through, she went back upstairs, saying that she'd already seen it, but that we should watch it. I asked if it got any better, and it was instantly obvious that the question dismayed her, made her unhappy.
So after we watch the whole thing, I made a point to stop by her room and say I can see why you like it.
And I left it at that.
2 comments:
You mean Santa isn't real? :-)
And I know unicorns exist - I saw them in a movie. :-D
My wife got me into ThirtySomething; I remember watching it, lounging in parents' living room. I told my Dad it was good; he said "uhu..." (Mind you, my Dad liked "Dallas" and "24".) :-)
I had to remember that for the longest time, I didn't care for Doctor Who, either. It wasn't until the rebooted series came on the scene that I liked it.
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