Before you judge me, you need to reflect on your own life mister…or madame, because you have fibbed to your kids too. What seemed like innocent white lies a few years ago, however, have outlived their usefulness and soon my daughter will figure it all out.
She will discover that all is not well in the cradle world, for example. When she was very young I changed the words from, “And down will come baby, cradle and all”, to, “And daddy will catch you, cradle and all.” She wasn’t ready, in my opinion, for the life altering concept of an infant plummeting to earth due to high winds and a faulty bough.
Who doesn’t like Uptown Funk?
They don’t “funk you up” in my house. They “funky woe.” And Bruno Mars doesn’t say, “Too hot, hot damn.” He says, “Too hot, hot dog.”
In “The last farewell”, Roger Wittaker doesn’t sail his warship into hell, he sails it through the swells.
I won’t even get into all the childhood legends and holiday fantasies out there that we all – all of us – gleefully perpetuated.
But she is getting older. The kids at school talk. It won’t take long before she feels the betrayal. Her loving father who could do no wrong will be revealed as a liar and spreader of nonexistent utopian legends.
It is inevitable and a little depressing to know that she will begin to lose the wide-eyed innocence that she has known her entire life. Reality will creep in, slowly, inexorably. She will see the world through wiser, sadder eyes, and begin to take what I say with a grain of disenchanted salt.
Eventually I will have to talk with her, grown up to grown up. I will look into her wary eyes and tell her the truth.
I will tell her that if asks too many questions, Santa will put coal in her stocking.
