Top 10 Lies Kids Tell

Varda Epstein

10 years ago

lies, pinochio, nose grows, lies kids tell to parents

Kids lie. They just do. Some do it more frequently than others while an especially rare form of child will lie just once, never to sin again.

Yeah. Right.

“You are so busted,” said big brother to little brother, who sported a chocolate mustache while yet denying he’d used up the last of the chocolate milk powder.

“What are talking about? I didn’t make chocolate milk. Seriously. I don’t even like the stuff.”

“Idiot. Go look in the mirror.”

They lie to their siblings, but worst of all, they lie to YOU. They do it to get out of unpleasant tasks. And they do it because they think you’re too stupid to know better.

The first time it happens you feel crushed. He betrayed your trust!

But when it becomes habitual, you just sigh, resigned to the fact that he’s doing it again. Except for those times you feel fed up and completely lose it.

Yeah. That happens, too.

I thought about this when I walked into my kitchen this morning and saw that one of my children had washed the dishes. Except something didn’t make sense to my eyes.

Contrary to popular dish-washing child belief, this rack for pot lids has no special powers and will not clean pot lids when they are returned to this space after usage (photo credit: Varda Epstein)

The day before I had made grilled cheese sandwiches. So the skillets were washed and in the dish drain, as were the other dishes and utensils I’d used. So according to my mental inventory, everything was there except for the pot lids I’d used to cover the skillets. They were in the handy dandy pot lid rack the DH and I had purchased at Ikea.

I had this hunch, born out by experience, that the child who washed the dishes, had put the pot lids back into the pot lid rack, without washing the lids. He thought I’d never catch on.

Except that this had happened before.

I took the lids out of the rack and sure as shootin’ there were spots of congealed butter on their undersides.

It was a lie so predictable, he shouldn’t have bothered. But he did. And so enters another lie kids tell, for the annals of our family history.

*sigh*

To soothe my frustration, I decided to compile a list of the ten top lies kids tell, at least in my home:

1) They didn’t look dirty to me-e. This is what my son will say when I confront him about the pot lid rack with magic powers. He will say he didn’t wash them because they didn’t look dirty to him. Even though he knows and I know that the lids were used to cook yesterday’s supper
2) Of course I washed the outsides of the pots, pans, glasses, and dishes. This is the lie your kid tells you, even as you confront him with the encrusted underside of a plate or a perfectly placed lip print in Revlon Raspberry Pie Lip Butter on the rim of a glass .
3) It wasn’t me who didn’t replace the empty roll of toilet paper. This one is almost believable, until not one of the seven people who live in my home will confess. One of them did it. One of them lied.
4) I put my clean laundry away. Um, no. Putting your pile of laundry in your ROOM is not the same as putting it away where it belongs, in bureau drawers and closets.
5) I cleaned my room. This one kinda sorta fools Mom until she opens the closet door and is felled by an avalanche of STUFF.
6) Yes. I dusted that (choose one: piano, shelf, picture frame, chair). This one works because if Mom is asking the question, it means she won’t check. WRONG.
7) It wasn’t me who left a tissue in my jeans pocket. This one used to work until Mom got wise and purchased colored tissue, one color per child. The rest is all about the forensic evidence which is all over the dark load.
8) None of my friends have to clean. That’s not what their mothers tell me. I checked. Fooled you. Nyah.
9) I don’t have any homework. You could call the teacher to check, but your kid is betting on the fact that you won’t bother. This works well until the teacher calls home to find out why your child NEVER does his homework.
10) I did my homework. This lie kids tell usually occurs after the teacher has called home to find out why your child NEVER does his homework. For the next week or so, having been read the riot act according to Mom, the child will duly do his homework, each day after school. That is until the child realizes that he can get out of doing his homework by telling you he already did it.