Everything we tell our kids is a lie — and that’s OK

HOW do we communicate with our children openly and honestly and tell them the truth about the world we live in? Joe Hildebrand has the answer.

Joe Hildebrand: “It was at about this point that I realised pretty much everything we tell our kids is a lie.” (Pic: Nigel Lough)

THE other day, I picked my son up from preschool and he looked at me with wide, pleading eyes that were glazed over with a film of tears. “Dadda,” he said, “will Pluto ever become a planet again?”

Wow, I thought. First global warming and now this. Thanks for nothing, science. For a long time I stood there not knowing what to say, which is annoying for someone whose sole job description is to say stuff.

The only way I could make my son feel better was to violate the very foundations of science and knowledge — the essence of truth itself. I suddenly found myself nostalgically pining for the time I told him the dog died. He still thinks it’s “on holidays”.

Firstly, I know all you space purists will tell me that technically Pluto has just been demoted to “dwarf planet”, but that just adds insult to injury. For one thing the preferred terminology these days is “little person planet”.

And this is not the first time I have faced this moral dilemma. You see, my son is a huge Star Wars fan — Lord knows where he got it. He has Star Wars T-shirts, Star Wars pyjamas and countless Star Wars toys, although of course he is not allowed to take them out of the box.

Like many young boys, his favourite character is Darth Vader. He has a Darth Vader mask, a Darth Vader lightsaber and... well, you get the picture.

Darth Vader: The ultimate good guy. Right?

And now that he is a “big boy”, as we are constantly reminding him every time he pours tomato sauce over his baby sister, he wants to watch his first Star Wars movie. Naturally, the thing he is most excited about is finally seeing Darth Vader in action.

There is only one catch: my son thinks Darth Vader is a good guy. He simply assumed he was a goodie from the day he first saw him, and I never had the heart to correct him. After all, what father would have lovingly introduced their four-year-old son to a genocidal psychopath? And now he is about to watch an actual Star Wars movie and see what psychologists would call a “more complex” character.

Frankly, it is difficult to justify how a good guy blows up an entire planet, tortures his daughter and murders his teacher all in the first half of a family movie. And I say that as someone who has worked in media and politics for their entire adult life.

Joe Hildebrand’s column features in Stellar.

It was at about this point that I realised pretty much everything we tell our kids is a lie. If our child is holding something in his hands and another child randomly comes up and grabs it, we tell our child that it’s important to share.

But if an adult is holding something in his hands and another adult just randomly comes up and grabs it, we tell the police that we have just been mugged. Likewise, if someone says to a child “Give us a kiss!” we say: “How cute!” If someone says it to an adult we say: “That’s sexual harassment!” And of course we then monitor them, follow them and ask their teachers to report on any unusual behaviour. In the adult world, that’s what used to be called East Germany.

Which brings me to the ultimate question: how do we communicate with our children openly and honestly and tell them the truth about the world we live in?

Nah, only kidding. I just want to know how to lie more convincingly.

Joe co-hosts Studio 10, 8.30am weekdays, on Network Ten.