The truth about lying to your kids

As part of a trip to Florida in February, we made plans to visit Belle's Great-Uncle Buddy, a 93-year-old decorated World War II veteran who looked 63 and still lived on his own. He was very excited to see us and said to call when we got down there to figure out the details.

Sadly, one week before our trip, Uncle Buddy died. It was not unexpected in the sense he was 93, but the suddenness still got me thinking about everything he saw and did in his lifetime, about the fragility of life and preciousness of time.

My daughter, who knew we were supposed to see Uncle Buddy, had some other thoughts, such as:

• Why did he die?
• How do you eat when you die?
• How do you breathe when you die?
• Do your eyes work when you die?
  
• When are you going to die?
• Are you not dying because you wanted to have kids?
• Is Uncle Buddy with Winnie? (Winnie was my brother's family's dog that died last year.)
• Did Daniel's grandmother die? ("Daniel" is Daniel Tiger, a cartoon character who is only shown with his grandfather.)

She asked these and other questions multiple times each day. The first time it happened, Belle and I looked at each other dumbfounded, our minds racing to figure out anything to say, let alone the right thing.

When your children are babies, lies often help move them toward your goal. My 2-year-old some nights only agrees it's bedtime when we inform him that grandma, grandpa, Grover, Elmo and The Count are already sleeping.

By the time your children are 4 or 5, like my daughter, you can still lie. But they have questions about EVERYTHING, so you weigh the consequences of telling the truth -- thereby opening the door for another round of questions -- versus giving them the answer they want to hear just so you can have 90 seconds without being interrogated.

"I've never seen a unicorn," my daughter announced the other day, for example.

"Me neither," I replied.

"You haven't?"

I paused. I thought about explaining how unicorns aren't native to the mid-Atlantic region but decided to go with the truth. Someone had to break the bad news to her eventually.

"They don't actually exist," I said.

I saw the wheels turning in her head and imagined her reliving this exchange with her therapist in 20 years.

"Well, one day I'm going to make one with a rainbow horn and it's going to fly in the sky," she said, and we got on with our day.

With the Uncle Buddy news, Belle and I talked to our daughter about heaven and how people die after they live long, happy lives. She seem satisfied with our answers and then, naturally, moved on to questions about a global pandemic.

When the coronavirus closed her school and limited who we could see and what we could do, we explained how there were a lot of germs everywhere and how we needed to stay home as much as possible for everyone's safety. She randomly drops "coronavirus" into her monologues, and there were some tears during her virtual preschool graduation (mostly from her parents), but otherwise she has adjusted to the new normal.

Little kids have the ability to be wise beyond their years and eat their own boogers, sometimes in the same five minutes. You want to protect them but also prepare them for what lies ahead (pardon the pun). And you never know what kind of reaction or response you will get to something you say.

All you can do is what you think is best, even if it means "agreeing" to ice cream for dinner just so you can finish that work email you've been trying to write for an hour. And then shower them with love after you put chicken and vegetables on the table.

Now, can anyone tell me the best way to explain to my daughter how the tooth fairy is able to find her room?