Faced with losing the trust of my son—or worse, with the possibility of him thinking “well, if Mom does it, I can do it, too,” as I did, when, at age six, I stole two MORE’S from my mother’s patchwork-leather purse and would have smoked them if not for the fact that I did not know how to light a match—I do what any responsible mother would do: I start lying.
First, I look at him with squinted eyes, as if I wasn’t paying attention but now my laser beams are focused on him. “What’d you say, buddy?” I’m aware of the fact that I reek.
“You heard me: were you smoking?”
“Me? Of course not.”
“Well, then what was that smoky thing you were holding in your hand?” “Huh?
“Smoky thing…well, that was, uh, I found this thing that fell out of the barbeque and was smoking on the deck. You mean that thing?”
“It fell out of the barbeque?” He quizzes me like I’m the object of an FBI inquisition.
“Yeah, I think so. I was worried about a fire.”
“Then why did you take a big breath of it and then blow out the smoke?”
“Did I? I don’t think I did,” I offer, lamely.
He looks at me in utter disbelief, while I reel from the stench of bullshit weighing down the air.
“Anyway, sweetheart, it’s bedtime. Go on upstairs and I’ll come up in a little bit to give you a kiss.”
Dissatisfied, he spins around slowly on his heels and shakes his head all the way up to his room. I begin to hyperventilate. This is one of my worst fears come true. Hadn’t I just been reading about six-year-olds and the importance of their moral development? Yes, now I remember…according to Piaget and other developmental psychologists, “…Children up to the age of seven have great respect for rules as they do not have the cognitive ability to see them as anything but sacred. [Children] have unilateral respect, where the adult has the control and the child cannot experience mutuality in the relationship. Rules are seen as coming from the adult and being reinforced by them. The child respects the adult and therefore is more inclined to obey. They believe that those who have done wrong should be severely punished.”
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