The Mama and The Dada have a pretty intense honesty policy. We are really candid with The Kidling about almost everything.* It typically takes a pretty serious situation to get me to fib, but every once in a while, a moment of weakness overcomes me. Like when I looked in the rearview mirror the other day and saw The Kidling pick her nose and promptly pop the booger into her mouth.
Ick.
I, of course, told her not to eat her boogers, to which she replied, “Boogers are just so yummy, Mom!”
Double ick. So I whipped out the big guns and lied through my teeth, “Well, boogers will make you sick, dear. You can’t eat them.”
And you know what? I didn’t even feel bad about it. Because no one wants to be friends with the girl who eats her boogers.
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* I summarized this honesty policy to a friend like this: “. . . we almost always tell her the truth. The whole truth whenever possible and a big, fat lie if it feels like the right thing in that particular instance.” The perfect guideline, if you ask me.
kidlingville 
I lied to my kids all of the time about stuff like that. And they turned out just fine…I think.
Whew. Thank goodness. We hardly ever lie, so I have incredible guilt. Thanks for the reassurance!
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One of those “big fat lies” actually terrified me when I was little and the lie wasn’t even intended for me. My brother had a propensity for swallowing his bubble gum so my father told him his stomach would eventually explode if he kept it up. Later that day, my brother swallowed an enormous piece of bubble gum. He didn’t seem worried, but I ran crying hysterically to my father worried that my brother was going to die. Thankfully he revealed that it was a “trick” to get my brother to stop swallowing gum. Shows how well that worked.
Oh no! Poor little girl Shannon! I am fairly certain someone has told Alice some type of fib about gum, as she was very concerned the other day when she swallowed some. I told her to fret not, as it would exit her body the same way the rest of her food does.
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