The Stories My Mom Found

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I have the best mom in the world¹.  She’s always been there for me, supporting me, telling me that I’m fantastic and can do anything I set my mind to.

Also, she lies.

She lies, as she would say, “like a dog in the grass” – not about anything important or life-altering, just little fibs I like to call  “Mom Lies.”  In my many travels, I have learned that pretty much all moms lie to their kids.  Mostly when they’re little, because who wants to try to reason with a three-year-old…or an eight-year-old…and for damn sure, not a 13-year-old girl, hormones all akimbo.  My mom has always been a champion Mom-Liar, and I’ve always been quite gullible.  It’s just how I’m wired.  So she was at an advantage from Day One.

One Mom Lie that left a particularly strong impression on my young psyche was when she told me that she had to use my whole life’s savings to pay for the library book I lost.  At 6 years old, I knew that my grandmother put money in a savings account for me on every birthday and Christmas AND I had won a $25 savings bond for my sweet clown costume (made by my Memaw) at the Halloween costume contest at Brookshire’s (the local grocery store) so I just knew that there had to be a fortune in there, at least fifty whole dollars.  I tried to figure out why a book would have cost so much money.  My imagination took over, and I was convinced that there was a special warehouse for library books, with their little plastic covers.  And I suspected that the plastic that covered all library books was a special, scientifically-proven, book-protecting plastic.  Once the belief took root, it remained in a corner of my subconscious, unquestioned for…well, let’s just say entirely too many years.  When I finally asked her about it, called her on her lie, her only response was, “Well, did you ever lose another library book?”  No.  I did not.  Well played, Mom, well played.

Then, there was the time that we were on vacation in Galveston.  We were staying at a hotel with an indoor pool that shared a wall of windows with the hotel’s restaurant.  I was about five or six, probably.  We had one of those awesome above-ground pools at our house, so I was a really good swimmer for my age.  And I knew it.  I flew past the “guppy” level at swim lessons, and power-stroked my way to “shark” in no time at all².

Anyway, we were on vacation, and we were swimming in that indoor pool.  I remember feeling like I’d been swimming for awhile, but still, when mom said it was time to go, I politely said, “Please, may I swim for a few more minutes?”  No, wait, that wasn’t me.  I whined, “Noooooooo…I’m not tired…I looooooove swimming…please don’t make me get out!  Just five more minutes!  Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaseeee!!!!”  She looked around, towards the restaurant, where people were starting to show up for supper, then back to me with deep understanding and compassion in her eyes.  She said, “I wish we could, but all of these people are coming to eat dinner.  They’ll see you in the water and think you’re drowning because no one will be able to believe that a girl as little as you can swim so well.”  I said, “Oooooh, well, I don’t want to scare people when they’re eating.  Let’s go!”  And I happily got out of the pool and dried off without any further argument.

I’m telling you, she’s good.

My friend, Laura, has great affection for another one of my mom’s Mom Lies, and by that, I mean, she loves to tease me about it to this day.

As a kid, I didn’t have much of an understanding of “indoor voice” vs. “outdoor voice.”³ I don’t know when she started it, but for as long as I can remember, when I was being loud, mom would say, “Be quiet. Don’t wake the baby.” Initially, I accepted this, saying “Oh, okay,” and lowering my voice.  I thought I sure was being loud, and I would hate to wake up a poor little baby.  By the time I was five, I realized there were no babies around us, and the exchange went more like this:
Me: “I’M TALKING! AND SINGING! AND LOUD!”
Mom: “Jennifer, be quiet.  You’ll wake the baby.”
Me:  “HA!  I SHAN’T FALL FOR THAT AGAIN!  THERE AREN’T ANY BABIES IN OUR HOUSE!”
Mom: “Well, somewhere there is a baby, and you are being so loud that you will wake it up.”
Me:  “Oh, okay.”

This also remained effective for a little longer than it should have, and even after I figured out the truth, it stuck around, eventually becoming a joke.  When we were in high school, Laura found out about “Don’t wake the baby.”  It became one of her favorite things to say to me when I was being loud.
Well played again.

I look forward to the day, in the distant future, when we’re all getting around on jet packs, that I can use Mom Lies on my kids. Laura’s sister convinces her son to increase his protein intake by telling him that Buzz Lightyear can fly because he eats his meat. Laura’s got a daughter of her own now, and I know she’s going to use Mom Lies too.  My husband said his mom had some Mom Lies of her own.  Whenever he would beg to go to McDonald’s, she said, “They’re closed on Sundays.”  And that answer satisfied him, even on Tuesday.  Moms have skills, I’m telling you!

At this point, some of you might be thinking that parents should be honest with their children, tell them the reasons behind their decisions, and other hippie crap like that.  And yes, most of the time, that’s probably true.  But I’ll wager that someday, when you’ve got a whiny kid who just wants their way, and reasoning with the creature has failed on multiple occasions, and you just want to get to the part where they obey you, you’ll depend on a Mom Lie. Plus, “because I said so” is so uncreative and just plain lazy.  And, moms, you’re better than that.

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1. My dad is more awesome than yours too, but this is a story about my matrilineage.
2. That’s what he said. Heh.
3. Some might disagree with my use of the past tense here…

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