Lies We Tell Kids

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| May 2008Adults lie constantly to kids. I'm not saying we should stop, but
I think we should at least examine which lies we tell and why.There may also be a benefit to us. We were all lied to as kids,
and some of the lies we were told still affect us. So by studying
the ways adults lie to kids, we may be able to clear our heads of
lies we were told.I'm using the word "lie" in a very general sense: not just overt
falsehoods, but also all the more subtle ways we mislead kids.
Though "lie" has negative connotations, I don't mean to suggest we
should never do this—just that we should pay attention when
we do.
[1]One of the most remarkable things about the way we lie to kids is
how broad the conspiracy is. All adults know what their culture
lies to kids about: they're the questions you answer "Ask
your parents." If a kid asked who won the World Series in 1982
or what the atomic weight of carbon was, you could just tell him.
But if a kid asks you "Is there a God?" or "What's a prostitute?"
you'll probably say "Ask your parents."Since we all agree, kids see few cracks in the view of the world
presented to them. The biggest disagreements are between parents
and schools, but even those are small. Schools are careful what
they say about controversial topics, and if they do contradict what
parents want their kids to believe, parents either pressure the
school into keeping
quiet or move their kids to a new school.The conspiracy is so thorough that most kids who discover it do so
only by discovering internal contradictions in what they're told.
It can be traumatic for the ones who wake up during the operation.
Here's what happened to Einstein:

Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached
the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not
be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic freethinking
coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being
deceived by the state through lies: it was a crushing impression.
[2]

I remember that feeling. By 15 I was convinced the world was corrupt
from end to end. That's why movies like The Matrix have such
resonance. Every kid grows up in a fake world. In a way it would
be easier if the forces behind it were as clearly differentiated
as a bunch of evil machines, and one could make a clean break just by
taking a pill.
ProtectionIf you ask adults why they lie to kids, the most common reason they
give is to protect them. And kids do need protecting. The environment
you want to create for a newborn child will be quite unlike the
streets of a big city.That seems so obvious it seems wrong to call it a lie. It's certainly
not a bad lie to tell, to give a baby the impression the world is
quiet and warm and safe. But this harmless type of lie can turn
sour if left unexamined.Imagine if you tried to keep someone in as protected an environment
as a newborn till age 18. To mislead someone so grossly about the
world would seem not protection but abuse. That's an extreme
example, of course; when parents do that sort of thing it becomes
national news. But you see the same problem on a smaller scale in
the malaise teenagers feel in suburbia.The main purpose of suburbia is to provide a protected environment
for children to grow up in. And it seems great for 10 year olds.
I liked living in suburbia when I was 10. I didn't notice how
sterile it was. My whole world was no bigger than a few friends'
houses I bicycled to and some woods I ran around in. On a log scale
I was midway between crib and globe. A suburban street was just
the right size. But as I grew older, suburbia started to feel
suffocatingly fake.Life can be pretty good at 10 or 20, but it's often frustrating at
15. This is too big a problem to solve here, but certainly one
reason life sucks at 15 is that kids are trapped in a world designed
for 10 year olds.What do parents hope to protect their children from by raising them
in suburbia? A friend who moved out of Manhattan said merely that
her 3 year old daughter "saw too much." Off the top of my head,
that might include: people who are high or drunk, poverty, madness,
gruesome medical conditions, sexual behavior of various degrees of
oddness, and violent anger.I think it's the anger that would worry me most if I had a 3 year
old. I was 29 when I moved to New York and I was surprised even
then. I wouldn't want a 3 year old to see some of the disputes I
saw. It would be too frightening. A lot of the things adults
conceal from smaller children, they conceal because they'd be
frightening, not because they want to conceal the existence of such
things. Misleading the child is just a byproduct.This seems one of the most justifiable types of lying adults do to
kids. But because the lies are indirect we don't keep a very strict
accounting of them. Parents know they've concealed the facts about
sex, and many at some point sit their kids down and explain more.
But few tell their kids about the differences between the real world
and the cocoon they grew up in. Combine this with the confidence
parents try to instill in their kids, and every year you get a new
crop of 18 year olds who think they know how to run the world.Don't all 18 year olds think they know how to run the world? Actually
this seems to be a recent innovation, no more than about 100 years old.
In preindustrial times teenage kids were junior members of the adult
world and comparatively well aware of their shortcomings. They
could see they weren't as strong or skillful as the village smith.
In past times people lied to kids about some things more than we
do now, but the lies implicit in an artificial, protected environment
are a recent invention. Like a lot of new inventions, the rich got
this first. Children of kings and great magnates were the first
to grow up out of touch with the world. Suburbia means half the
population can live like kings in that respect.
Sex (and Drugs)I'd have different worries about raising teenage kids in New York.
I'd worry less about what they'd see, and more about what they'd
do. I went to college with a lot of kids who grew up in Manhattan,
and as a rule they seemed pretty jaded. They seemed to have lost
their virginity at an average of about 14 and by college had tried
more drugs than I'd even heard of.The reasons parents don't want their teenage kids having sex are
complex. There are some obvious dangers: pregnancy and sexually
transmitted diseases. But those aren't the only reasons parents
don't want their kids having sex. The average parents of a 14 year
old girl would hate the idea of her having sex even if there were
zero risk of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.Kids can probably sense they aren't being told the whole story.
After all, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are just as
much a problem for adults, and they have sex.What really bothers parents about their teenage kids having sex?
Their dislike of the idea is so visceral it's probably inborn. But
if it's inborn it should be universal, and there are plenty of
societies where parents don't mind if their teenage kids have
sex—indeed, where it's normal for 14 year olds to become
mothers. So what's going on? There does seem to be a universal
taboo against sex with prepubescent children. One can imagine
evolutionary reasons for that. And I think this is the main reason
parents in industrialized societies dislike teenage kids having
sex. They still think of them as children, even though biologically
they're not, so the taboo against child sex still has force.One thing adults conceal about sex they also conceal about drugs:
that it can cause great pleasure. That's what makes sex and drugs
so dangerous. The desire for them can cloud one's judgement—which
is especially frightening when the judgement being clouded is the

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