Undoing the Lies of Childhood

I often think about the lies I have been told. There are a lot of lies that come at us all every day, and we each have to sort them all out for ourselves. Some of the hardest lies to get over are lies we were told as children. I think that a good topic for a book would be a collection of lies that children are told. Then, any young person could pick that book up from the young adult or children’s section of their library and learn what they need to relearn.

With the changing times, of course, we would need to make multiple editions to add to the new lies. It would be a great tool for the future to understand our time, what lies we tell our children says a lot about us.

For instance, I was told that if I went to college, no matter what my major was, I could easily get a good job.

We could include simple ones, like the idea that certain areas of a tongue taste different things. The stories about Columbus, Thanksgiving, all of those history lies such as the ones in Lies My Teacher Told Me. There is, at least, that book to tell us about those lies, but we need to go further.

Your dog is in doggy heaven. TV makes you stupid. If you don’t eat your vegetables, you will stunt your growth.

Boys are tough and girls are pretty.

Perhaps even a section or another book to cover the things that adults say kids should do and then don’t do themselves. The way parents talk about sharing, I’d think we’d be a communist society. Become a teenager, though, and we learn it’s really every man for himself. Yes, altruism does exist. Good people don’t want to reward bad people. This does not apply to money for most people. It’s messed up that we teach kids to share then throw them into a Capitalist system that follows no such rules.

When you’re a kid, everyone is telling you not to do drugs. When you’re in college, everyone looks at you funny if you don’t do drugs. Why do most people decide that doing drugs becomes OK in college? I don’t know; I have never understood it. Perhaps it’s because there are so many things that kids are told that turn out to be lies.

Lie to a child about all of the little things you think don’t matter and don’t be surprised if they reject other things you told them, too. That stuff about Columbus turned out to be sugarcoated bull, so teens decide that their parents lied to them about drugs being bad, too.

Liars are not to be trusted. If we want kids to trust their parents, maybe we should lay off all the lies. Until then, if you have the ear of a child, make sure you let them in on some truths others may have conveniently left out or lied about.

Don’t believe people when they tell you sugar makes you hyper, Timmy. If you want to eat right before swimming, don’t let anyone stop you. Reagan was a jerk. Your face won’t stick that way. And, most importantly, not all adults are smarter than kids are.