When is it okay to lie to your parents?

A sign of maturity is not having to lie to your parents or to your children. A life of integrity means not having to have a secret.

My ex have never lied to our kids, not even saying “yes there is a Santa Claus” but rather, “we still believe”. That’s about the closest to a lie we ever told them. But we have always given them age appropriate information.

Children are far more perceptive and interested then we give them credit for. I think we must give them as much real info as we can because we are the people that are supposed to guide them. Usually we want to protect them or take the easy way out, but if they can’t trust us and don’t get the answers they want they will seek elsewhere.

As far as parents are concerned there needs to be more explanation as to why you are lying. I think parents are easier to lie to. They have busy lives and may not examine everything. There are also a variety of circumstance that might make lying advantageous.

Lying however is like placing boundaries around people, levels of separation. Some of that is not all necessarily bad. But all situations are highly individualistic and at which point we must ask ourselves why we are lying what it accomplishes and if the consequences are worth it.

It depends on what the lie is. On the way home from work today, a tree fell across the road, and I got stuck in the mud trying to go around it. (In other news, I learned how to use four wheel drive today. Major car milestone, lol.)

I didn’t tell my aunt (who I live with) about it, because she would only have worried, and she’s not a calm, rational worrier; she’s the type to get overwhelmed easily. She’d be like, oh nooo! That tree could have fallen on you, and you could have died! You could have been raped out there! etc.

A lie to protect them? That’s ok, under some circumstances. A lie protect yourself, usually not so much.

Dude, you lie to your parents when they are oppressive, manipulative, and hateful, and you want to have a life.

The idea of lying to children scares me, even white lies like Santa Claus, and is one of many reasons that I won’t be reproducing.

It depends on the parents. If they are punitive beyond what is reasonable and have ridiculous rules lying might be best at tines, but for the most part I hope children don’t feel the need to lie to their parents. Most parents have rules to protect their children. Adults understand risk and cnsequence much better than children. Some kids lie because they are afraid their parents will be angry, but all too often it is not really true. What a child perceives as being in trouble or angry parents is actually freaked out parents or worried parents. Even here on fluther we have had Q’s asked by young people who are having a problem and jelly after jelly will tell them to talk to their parents. Every Q I can remember, if the OP finally did talk to their parents the results were good. Their biggest fears never were right, and often it brought great relief to tell the truth.

As far as parents lying to kids. I think it is fine to lie to a child about going on a date. I generally think purposeful omitting is lying, and I would think parents omit information all the time. But, parents need to be good at lying when they do it. Kids know when something doesn’t sound right.

When you’re a 14yr old boy & your mother walks in mid-wank…“err, mum, I was only itching a scratch!!” Getting your words slightly mixed up through nervousness & shock.

Of course it’s okay, when you don’t want your parents to know what you do, where you go, etc. So.. it’s always okay, I guess. Unless it’s about something too serious, then you might have to tell them the truth.

——(I could move to L.A. and tell my mother I’m in Italy, for example.)——

If you trust them and have a good relationship, with mutual respect, you shouldn’t have to lie. When the relationship is toxic and they’re most of the problem, then it’s fine. it’s just important to know who’s the problem. If it’s you that is the problem lying is only going to make it worse.

When the harm of telling the truth is greater than the harm of the lie.

Of course, it is often difficult to calculate the ultimate harm of either lie or truth, and young children are particularly bad at these calculations because they don’t have much experience in predicting the future consequences of any action. Thus we tell children to tell the truth all the time, because parents can then help them make more accurate predictions about the effect of their actions.

But once you’re on your own, you’re on your own, and responsible for balancing the harms of truth and lie, using your best estimate of what could happen in the future.

The problem with lying to parents, is that if you get caught, that could have much more serious consequences than from lying to a court, for example. You have a family relationship with parents, and if you break those ties, you lose a lot more than if you get thrown in jail, in many cases. You might lose a whole community if you hurt your parents enough.

Of course, if your parents are a liability, then it is probably pretty easy to decide to lie.

Anyway, that’s the best formula I can give you. I can’t tell you anything about specific circumstances because I don’t know your circumstances. Also, the formula is applied to constantly changing conditions, and thus the output of the formula will always be different, even in slightly different situations.

It is better not to lie to anyone. I think in the case of parents or children lies of omission (not telling them something) are OK.

I would hope you don’t have to lie. I would always avoid lying. It’s never good to get into that habit. If you must lie, the smallest lies; the white lies are the best ones. The bigger the lie, the more potential for disaster. But avoid lying if at all possible.

When your parents are addicts or suffer from a mental illness.

What are you talking about, @mattbrowne? You’re saying that since I’m mentally ill, my kids have carte blanche to lie to me? I’m sorry. That’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard! Addicts and mentally ill people are people, too, and deserve honesty. Do you really mean what you wrote? I can’t believe it. That is not like you.

I had a talk with my daughter last night, and she was talking about when I first got ill. She was 11. She didn’t understand what was going on, so she just didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to hurt me if she said the wrong thing. But mostly she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t understand.

I told her that mentally ill people don’t understand, either. That what matters is that people care and they try to help. Lying about your life doesn’t help anyone.

@wundayatta – Sorry, I should have been more specific. Of course it depends on the mental illness. One example would be a severe anxiety disorder. Suppose there’s a field trip and the child wants to protect his mother from worrying too much. Things can happen during field trips. Maybe there’s some climbing involved. Another example would be psychosis with internal voices warning about doom when a child does this or that. When the child learns what could trigger this she might use some lies about what she is not doing at school when in fact she does. Or let’s take a cleanliness obsessive compulsive disorder. A child can’t wash his hands every time he opens a door. But if a parent insists and reasonable talk isn’t possible a lie might offer the best solution.

Suppose your mother is a meth addict already suffering from some brain damage and a child has to deal with this. Sometimes this might involve lying so the child can protect herself.

Many mental illnesses do not require lying at all. @AnonymousWoman was looking for examples. Hope this clarifies the issue :-)

Thanks, @mattbrowne. That makes more sense.