In my 17 year veteran parenthood, I have discovered the virtues of being able to tell some really good lies. There are somethings a kid just ought not to know about their parents, especially in the financial department. It helps, to be sure, if there are other families in your neighborhood with a similar economic standing as your own.  

But the lies must be truly creative in nature or there is really no point in telling them. Like, for instance, in order to have 10 minutes to sit down and write this post, I had to tell my excessively hyper and noisiest kid on earth, that I had to immediately sit down and write to the governor, imploring him to mandate that schools lay off the homework until after the Christmas break, at least.

This particular child of mine, the youngest - if she's not sleeping, she's talking or singing or just making annoying noises to hear what they sound like.To be able to keep a thought in my head long enough to make it through the grocery store with all the things we needed, I had to tell her I had been to see the doctor who told me I had a rare ear infection and that too much listening would cause a vein that runs from my ear directly to my brain, to burst wide open. And that this would not actually kill me, but would certainly render me an invalid, requiring her to change my diapers 10 times a day due to the strong laxatives I'd have to take to keep the pipes cleaned out.

One day she asked me one of her usual, impossible questions; "Mommy, what's a sweet tooth?"

I said, "It's a tooth in the back of your mouth that causes you to crave sweets all the time, and when you hit puberty it gets so big and fat and heavy that it drops down into your butt and from there ever after, you have to resist the craving for sweets or it will grow and make your butt fatter and fatter.

She looked me over and said, "Yeah, but your butt's not fat, Mommy." (she herself has learned the benefits of a good, well told lie)
I said, "That's because mine got lodged in my stomach halfway down."

Now I realize all those, "when I was a boy..." stories my dad used to tell me, were not because he wanted me to think I had it so much better than he did. But they were a circling the wagons kind of maneuver to prevent me from realizing the truth of the matter.

"Dad, I don't want to ride the bus."
My Dad - "When I was a boy we had to walk five miles to school. In the snow. With no shoes. And then five miles home. in the rain." To avoid admitting that we couldn't afford the extra gasoline expense of chauffeuring my ass to and from school everyday. A more modern version of this might be, "Mom, I want a cell phone. All my friends have them."

Me: "One of my friends bought a cell phone for her daughter when she was just 7 and within 2 years all her hair fell out from the radiation that comes off the battery. There's a lot of whispering and suspicion going on about it in the cell phone world so I think we should wait till the dust settles a bit." (it beats the hell outta telling your kid you are too poor for another cell phone. That's when the lines between the haves and the have nots become painfully clear and seemingly hopeless. Lying is just a better option for the sake of their mental stability and healthy self image.)

Untruths are also great at avoiding the opinion that you, as a parent, might have some misplaced loyalties.
"Daddy, I don't want to go to school today."
My dad: "Well if I don't make you go to school, the police will come here and take me away and put me in jail for 10 years. Then you'll be stuck with just your mama and then what'll ya do?"

Sometimes I have forgotten to delve into my bag of bullshit when my kids ask me certain specific questions and, from that point, getting back on the road to BS is bumpy indeed.