“So that's what you want for your birthday? Okay"
- When Christopher Isherwood interpreted Patanjali’s Sanskrit sayings from the 4th century BCE, he quoted the yoga wise man as saying, “Verbal delusion arises when words do not correspond to reality.” (How to Know God, 1981, page 25.) Isherwood points out that jumping to conclusions exemplifies such delusions, as does the variable symbolism encoded into family values and the American way of life (speaker and listener have separate interpretations).
Of course, outright lies epitomize verbal delusion.
- On a trip to visit my mother’s folks in balmy Tampa when I was six, I was struck with the tall palm trees that lined the Florida streets. To a kid from the New York City suburbs, a royal palm of 100 feet looks like all of the tropics on one pedestal, so I asked my grandfather if I could have just one branch. Why a kid needs a full palm branch, who knows, but I loved nature and my father was showing me by then how to cultivate a garden and plant tulips.
My grandfather told me he would put a branch in a box and send it to me, but the branch never arrived. I must have asked about it later, and it still never came.
From the ground, the branch must have been appealing because it was so grand, but I did not understand it was the size of a walk-in closet. All I would have needed, since shipping a 10-foot branch was ridiculous, was a simple no with an explanation and maybe an offer of a substitute. A miniature, potted palm would definitely not have done it for me, but getting a choice is nice.
What is wrong with the traditional approach that children should be seen and not heard? Is it so wrong to humor a little kid by saying yes to a stupid request and figuring he will forget it? Yes.
Guerilla Tip: Do not humor a little kid by saying yes to a stupid request and figuring he will forget it.
Four reasons make it wrong:
1. You infantilize a kid when you decide for him that he cannot possibly understand an issue so you do not give it a try.2. This form of humoring is the not-so-funny kind, a bad joke at the kid’s expense. Humoring shows that you are giving your words no weight because of whom you are humoring.3. Not giving your words weight shows you are not even good to your own word, let alone the lightweight you are speaking to. If I humor you with words I give no honor, I am showing you also that I give you no honor.4. As for forgetting, who forgot?
Instead of a palm branch, all I got was that no one was man enough to break off a branch, but everyone was man enough to break a promise.
Guerilla Tip: Whenever you tell a kid you will do something, the kid hears a promise. Every time you make a promise you know upfront you cannot keep, you make yourself a liar.
- Another reason to set an example of carrying out your promises is that you do not want a reputation as a hypocrite. Consider the example you are setting. While I promise not tell on you, everyone else will already know, and then what?
The Buddha said, “Better than a thousand hollow words is the one word that brings peace.” Either you knew your words were hollow when you said them, or your intentions were good, but your follow-through, hollow. Make sure that, when you translate it into action, your one word brings peace.
On the other hand, in looking after your kids’ health, allow yourself a little innocent stealth. When our ketchup bottle was at the halfway mark, I started filling it with marinara sauce again and again, because the tomato sauce was real food, healthier than all the white vinegar and white sugar of the ketchup.
Guerilla Tip: At the halfway mark on the ketchup bottle, substitute with marinara.
After a few fill-ups, it was all marinara. Now they know.
I follow my anti-hypocrisy lecture with my marinara story of sort-of lying to my kids—though passively, and for their own good. But lying will always be rationalized for ‘their own good.’
It is better to do good and to advocate for doing good, than to be a goody-two-shoes and feed your family a daily diet of American fast food. Note that an occasional burger & fries eaten out as a treat means once a month, not five lunches a week. If you cooked it at home, you would know what actually went in. So, don’t be a hypocrite, but don’t be hamstrung by Boy Scout notions of honesty.
Guerilla Tip: Don’t imitate others unless you want their results, and don’t look for a policy where one size fits all.
- For my kids, I found a better way to say no, where one good promise replaces another. When my kids wanted each and every toy advertised on TV, I got a little tired of saying you can’t have everything, my mother’s favorite line. Reasoning that if a toy looks appealing, it is easily granted at least on a fantasy level, I reversed my response. “So that’s what you want for your birthday? Okay.”
The stage was then set for saying yes each time instead of no—with no lectures or broken promises when the very same kid wanted the very next toy advertised. Instead, I was ready again with the very same line each time: “So that’s what you want for your birthday? Okay.”
Guerilla Tip: Replace one good promise with another.
- Today when I look over a catalog from a garden nursery, I treat myself the same way. I first mark up everything that looks appealing, wanted—and granted at least on a fantasy level. Then I go back another time and star those very few things I will actually order and spend money on.
- At a birthday party for one of my preschoolers, a neighbor’s brat started pouting and sulking. I asked her privately if there was anything I could do to make her more comfortable or if she wanted me to take her home three doors away. Underlying message—shape up or ship out. Although the party was not actually about her, accommodating her would be better for everyone than strangling her.
Guerilla Tip: Do not use idle threats. Use threats. And carry through soberly.
The girl thought about my ultimatum and settled down.
My mother was visiting at the time and was sure I was not serious, but it was neither a joke nor an empty threat. After all, if a four-year-old is not happy to join in, it is no punishment but pure kindness to let her go home, whatever the reason. It did not matter much if she was agitated from too much excitement, or it was the shock of being at a party without being the center of attention. This party was my kid’s birthday, and it was my job to keep it in balance.
- A cry for attention is a cry for love, even when the attention is the most negative kind that makes you want to strangle…something or to run away from home. Guerilla Tip: For kids, love is deserved even when it is not earned.
When you are trying to balance a few things at once—and who isn’t?—let the kid you cannot attend to know you will get there as soon as you are free. Then if you say you will, you absolutely must follow up carefully. Getting this one across can take many months—it took me about 24 of them—so start when they are two with some assurances.
Guerilla Tip: Train kids to trust you. “I will help you as soon as I possibly can. I know you don’t trust that it will happen, but you’ll see that you can trust me.”
- Swami Rama of Bengal, India wrote, “It is parents who are responsible for creating mistrust and that’s why children do not trust them. When children do not trust their parents—who are supposed to be the best friends of the children—then they start making experiments independently on their own,” and he does not mean that in a good way.
Guerilla Tip: Your kids will trust you if you act trustworthy, not if you preach it.
- Dr. F. of Bayside, NY, thought he was being cute when he tried distracting me from my fear of injections with phony conversation that by second grade you would know as hogwash. “What are you learning in school?” “How many brothers or sisters do you have?” Or, “I have to give you a shot, but count to three,” and the shot came on 2! Is that clever? No, it’s deceptive.
Guerilla Tip: If you’re a doctor, you can do better than trickery. If you’re a parent, don’t deceive your kids or help a professional do it, either.
- With his background, my father was once asked a rabbinic question when our rabbi was out of town. A woman wanted to know if she should begin reciting the mourner’s Kaddish for her father, as she learned that he had just died. She had heard nothing of him since she was very young, when he deserted the family. My father responded, “You would say Kaddish for a stranger? I am sorry, but your father died the day he left you years ago.”
A colleague asked him what precedent he used for his response. “Chutzpa,” was his guerilla response about his original guerilla response. He meant that if you do not take on the mantle of parent and hang in there, making a baby does not make you a parent forever. Like people say, any man can be a father—only a real man can be a dad.
