In general, lying is never a good thing, except if you have kids. Then, it’s almost essential to have a few little white lies in your arsenal to pull out when needed. A Reddit thread has moms and dads admitting theirs by asking, “What’s the most unethical parenting hack you know?”
They may not be totally honest, but they’re useful, and these are some of the best responses:
- "I recently flew internationally with my toddler, and to keep him chill in the long security lines and customs lines, I would tell him if he didn't stay quiet, they wouldn't let him on the plane. And then, once on the plane, if he started getting cranky, I'd tell him if he were too loud, they'd have to turn around and take him home. 😅 I made it through 12 total hours of flying with 10 minutes of crying, so I'm calling it a win."
- "Ensure your kids won’t bother you by telling them to wake you up in an hour so we can start cleaning the house. They will do anything to avoid waking you up."
- "Told our daughter that kids' ears turn red when they lie, but only parents can see it. She would enter rooms with her hands covering her ears, and we knew we were in for a lie."
- "My mom would literally change the clock so that it would display our bedtime. And then she'd be like, 'Oh, ten more minutes 'til 8:30, see?'"
- "I had a friend whose parents told him he was allergic to alcohol. They said they found this out when he accidentally drank some as a toddler. They told him he was in intensive care and nearly died. On his 18th birthday, they told him they made it up so he didn’t drink when underage."
- "Tell your kid that they snore in their sleep often; that way, you’ll know if they’re pretending to sleep because they’ll fake snore."
- "My dad convinced us that the sunroof in the car was an ejector button that could send us flying to the moon. He threatened to press it when my siblings and I misbehaved or fought with one another in the backseat, and it worked like a charm to get us to sit quietly."
- "My kid went up four reading levels during Covid lockdown. Everyone thought I was really putting in a big effort with his reading. The truth is, I just turned on subtitles on the TV."
- "I tell them their tongues will turn purple if they lie to me. The hesitation when you ask them to show you their tongue if they’ve lied is a dead giveaway. The hack was ruined when my three-year-old had the rest of my kids all sit in front of the mirror, tell lies, and check one another’s tongues."
Source: Reddit