(no subject)

I have a bunch of entries that I keep meaning to write and post-- things about writing, about responsibility, about awkward truths, about lies we have to tell our kids, about other things currently escaping me-- but they slip my mind when I sit down with time to write. Therefore, I'm starting with a meme. I don't promise absolutely to carry through on suggestions, but I do promise to try.

So, the meme:

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Tell me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

(no subject)

cherydactyl asked, in response to my last post, what I mean by 'lies we have to tell our kids.'

When I use the phrase, I'm thinking of all of the promises that we make to our kids that we might not be able to keep. We hope to keep them. We intend to keep them. Life happens, however, and sometimes we can't.

We can't say to a pre-schooler, "Mama will be back after class unless she has a heart attack or gets hit by a truck or has a building fall on her or..." Instead, we say, "I love you. I'll be back at three." When I say that, I intend to be back. I expect to be back. I just don't *know* that I will. I know that I'll try. I know that the odds of my being able to return are quite high. I know that I'm not going to do anything to make them worse. I still think it's a lie. Even when I make sure that, this time at least, I really am there.

I suspect that the fact that I regard this stuff as lies comes partly from my anxiety. I can't put aside the conditionals that attach to promises, not even implicit promises. My anxiety manifests not so much as unreasonable worry about harmless things or an overstating of risk. I know the odds. I just can't ever forget the possibilities, not unless my brain stops working enough that I have trouble functioning. I also know that, when the unlikely happens, it being unlikely doesn't mitigate the effect. That is, there being a 0.00001 percent chance that something will happen doesn't mean that, if or when it does happen, it's any less disastrous. You don't get a fraction of a fire or a tornado or a cancer.

My daughter's four. The world is filled with a lot of uncertainty that I can shield her from by simply not showing her everything yet, by not adding the conditional statements that ring in my head about things like clean water, food on the table, antibiotic resistant TB, etc. I'm telling her lies that, with luck, she will only gradually realize are lies. The truths I'm showing her first are the ones she can have some effect on, wearing her seatbelt, looking both ways before crossing the street, not eating things that aren't food, getting her vaccinations. She's not really ready to understand, for example, the politics of global warming.

The fact that I can wait and explain things as I think she's ready is a privilege. I wish that it was one that all parents have. I'm unlikely to have to explain to her that Daddy won't come again because the odds of Scott dying are pretty low (as are the odds of him skipping out on us or being kidnapped by a death squad). I'm unlikely to have to explain to her that we're skipping meals because we can't afford food. I'm unlikely to have to explain to her why someone's using racial slurs or other specific derogatory language in talking to her.

There's a fine line between deceiving a child and simplifying complicated things. I'm simply not sure that good intentions make something not a lie. There's a lot we don't explain to kids until we have to, either because they start to discover it themselves or because something's gone wrong. It's a gamble because very small children do better when they feel secure-- honestly, I think most people do-- and because very small children don't always understand explanations, especially not explanations they're not ready for.

So that's what I mean when I say 'lies we have to tell our kids.'