The following is taken from the book I wrote about my son, Scott, called “My Son’s Search For Meaning.” These are Scott’s words.
“All through my growing up years I’ve been intensely aware of the absurdities and irrationalities of humanity around me. Even the action of my parents. It puzzled and even irritated me though then I did not have sufficient mental development to “properly” analyze it.”
My parents had long since taught me not to lie, that it was wrong, and I could see the sense in this.
In the front yard I was playing with a kid from up the street. He was being bad to me and made me very angry, so I hit him. As he was crying his mother came over and my mother came out of the house.
Through his whimpering he explained to them that I had hit him. My mother told me to apologize, “Say you’re sorry.”
“But I’m not sorry, I meant to hit him.” Probably in order to save face in front of the other mother, my mother continually demanded that I say I was sorry.
Turmoil erupted within me. I had been taught not to lie, and was determined not to lie, yet my mother was asking me to. It was like being taught to drive correctly down a one-way street and then being told to turn around and go the other way. Certainly, my mother wouldn’t see the situation from my viewpoint and her viewpoint was just as correct to her as mine was to me.
What is important, and why the event has lingered so intensely in my memory over the years, is the turmoil that resulted from the logical contradiction that came from me other than my parents. There is no blame on them concerning this, for when I hadn’t the capacity to either explain or defend my position, though I knew I was right in not wanting to lie.”
How many times do we parents unknowingly ask our kids to lie?
Carol Ann Wilson
Overcoming All Odds
720-600-5134
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