Big Pickles

Last night I'm giving Timothy a bath right after he watched the Great Pumpkin special on TV.

"Dad, why does Linus keep going to the pumpkin patch when the Great Pumpkin never comes?"

"Because he thinks the Great Pumpkin will come next time."

"But the Great Pumpkin isn't real."

"Lots of people believe in things that aren't real."

"I don't."

"Yes, you do."

Then he looks up at me and his voice gets quiet. "Santa Claus?"

I neither confirmed nor denied, but I have to admit that it's fun to see the wheels turning.

Labels: parenting

I think I've linked to a couple of Paul Graham essays before. He seems to have a way of zeroing in on the heart of complex matters.

In Lies We Tell Our Kids, he doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, but he presents it in a straightforward manner that can sometimes be unnerving. As a parent, it really gets me thinking about the influence I can have in shaping my kids' view of the world.

I especially liked the last footnote. It's amazing how early teenagers begin lying to their parents for the same reasons their parents lied to them just a few years earlier: the truth would freak them out. It's not to avoid getting in trouble, but to spare their parents from knowing things that might devastate them.

Labels: parenting