Telling lies to avoid walking with my 8-year-old
I’d almost made it out the door — decked in my interpretation of an exercise outfit: sweatpants, an old T-shirt with enough holes to double as a colander, a pair of headphones and a paused podcast — when my 8-year-old daughter spotted me.
“Are you going for a walk, Daddy?” she wanted to know.
My instinct was to lie. Yes, yes … please, dismount your high horse. I am aware lying to my child about something so inconsequential as whether I’m about to spend the next 30 minutes doing one of the few daily activities that improves both my physical and mental health will probably deny me future accolades as Father of the Year, but it’s not as if parents don’t lie to their kids all the time about subjects both big and small. We dress up like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and stomp around the attic. We’ll tell our kids that “Mommy and Daddy are just talking loudly” when they catch us yelling at each other over something we no longer remember. Heck, earlier this week, Arlie walked into the living room just as the death cult I organize finished sacrificing its third and final opossum, and I had to tell her it was a Bible study group.
So, it’s not as if I’m opposed to looking Arlie right in her big blue eyes, so full of love and trust, and telling her, “No, I am not going for a walk. I will spend the next half-hour rolling the trash bin to the end of the driveway.”
Yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, I have an inkling of conscience. I try to reserve my most flagrant lies for when they’re really necessary. This didn’t seem like one of those times.
I was wrong.
“Can I come with you?” she wanted to know. This was exactly what I feared.
There’s a delicate balance parents must maintain between spending enough time with the little humans they’ve created while they’re young and impressionable and haven’t yet grasped just how awful we truly are and having enough time away from the constant siren song of demands to do all the other stuff unrelated to parenting that needs to be done. So, while I cherish the time I spend with my occasionally sweet and often creative young daughter, there are days in which I just want to go for a peaceful, meditative walk around my neighborhood without being forced to pretend to be a half-dozen different characters from Disney’s 1991 animated classic, “Beauty and the Beast.”
As we did in the olden days, I tried to compromise. This works with children only slightly better than it does with adults.
“OK, Arlie,” I said, adopting my most serious “dad” voice. “If you go with me, we’re walking. I’m not pretending to be Beast or Cogsworth or Mrs. Potts …”
“What about Lumiere?”
“Nope. None of them. We’re going for a walk.”
Arlie folded her arms and pouted.
“Fine,” she said defiantly. “Then I just won’t go.”
I had expected this response.
“Works for me,” I said as I stepped through the door. I stopped when I felt Arlie tugging at a part of my shirt that wasn’t a hole.
“Wait, Daddy! Please, can I go? Please? I want to walk with you. Please?”
Three “pleases.” This suggested a certain seriousness on her part. Maybe she really did just want to walk with me. We entered a second round of negotiations. My terms had not changed.
“You can come with me, Arlie. But again, I am not pretending to be anyone other than myself. That’s enough work as it is.”
“OK,” she said, sounding somewhat deflated, but not as much as you might expect.
“And we’re walking for exercise, got it? Not for a change of venues for your imaginary friends. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said. On the precipice of getting at least a portion of what she wanted, Arlie bubbled with excitement.
“Deal,” I said, motioning her through the door. “Let’s go. But remember what we talked about.”
“I will, Daddy,” she said as she danced down the driveway, belting “Be Our Guest” at the top of her little lungs.
I’d say she made it roughly two minutes before asking, without a hint of irony or shame, “Daddy? Will you pretend to be Gaston?”
Kids can lie to their parents, too.