I’ve lost count of how many clients have claimed, “I don’t lie to my kids,” as rationale for sharing completely inappropriate information about their ex. It’s never ok to say negative things about the other parent to a child, but this assertion, this moral high ground, gets used as a shield of protection.
The context usually goes something like this: “So when they ask, ‘Did Mom or Dad have an affair?’, I’m going to tell the truth because I don’t lie to my kids.”
Um, yeah, right.
I react to this statement as if I’ve been punched in the gut because I don’t believe it’s true. I’m not asking anyone to lie to their children, but let’s be honest: we all either filter what we say to our children to protect them, or we hold back information that is not age-appropriate.
You can’t tell me you’ve shared everything about your own past with your kids! Drinking too much, hooking up, trying drugs, behaving recklessly. Very few people have completely vanilla pasts, and most adults don’t reveal their teenage mistakes to their children because they don’t want them to use the information as excuse for poor behavior.
It’s not lying. It’s choosing what information to share because you want to protect your children and guide them to be better than you.
Think about it this way. When a young child doesn’t want to go to bed, adults often say there’s nothing to miss and everyone in the house is going to bed. We say that because we know it’s in their best interest to get to sleep. We say that even if we plan to munch popcorn on the couch and watch a movie.
That’s a lie. And it’s one we willingly tell because it’s in their best interests.
Another example is sharing the details of our teen years with our own teens. Drinking at the water tower with friends and running from the police. We did stupid things that we weren’t supposed to do, but we are careful about what we share with our children because they can look at us and say, “But you did that.”
Teens push boundaries, and we don’t want to hand them permission slips to go even further. My kids are now in their mid-20s, and I’ll tell them some funny stories about when I got in trouble in college, things I I might not be so proud of, but they’re at an age when they can handle that information and they’re not going to use it to make excuses for poor behavior.
All parents make very conscious decisions not to share certain information with our children. We may tell our children that they had enough dessert and then after they go to bed, scoop chocolate chip cookie dough into our mouths.
So when it comes to telling them something negative about their other parent, why is it ok to not lie to them? Why are we not making every effort to protect them from what could be potentially be the most damaging information?
Even when parents say to me, “Oh when they’re 18, I can tell them all about the horrible things their parent did,” I want to say NO in big red angry letters because that information will be so damaging for the children and for their relationship with the other parent.
If there is some life lesson to learn about relationships that you want to communicate to your children, there are other ways to do so. You don’t have to use your ex as the scapegoat.
If your spouse had an affair and you want your children to grow up appreciating monogamy, you’re teaching them that if you’re living in another monogamous relationship. They’re learning by what you’re doing and how you model behaviors.
When it comes time for them to be in relationships, there’s a way to have conversations about your values without putting the other parent down. Or involving them at all.
When people say, “I don’t lie to my children,” I say, “I feel like that’s an excuse and a shield, you are rationalizing to yourself why you’re saying such terrible things about their parent. And in the long run the emotional damage the child will feel hearing those things from you are more significant than any emotional damage of you ‘lying to them’.”
This information can be shameful, and children internalize the shame of something the other parent did, as if they themselves had done something wrong. It’s not for them to know, ever.
If the other parent wants to share their personal business as an informational tool, that’s up to them. It’s not your business.