Dear Baby,
I strongly suspect that in the coming years, I will tell you a great many lies. They will come from a place of concern. They will come from my not wanting to be a terrible parent. But they will be lies, nonetheless.
"Yes, Santa Claus is real," I will tell you. I don't know why I'll tell you that. I don't know why anyone tells their children that. I've thought about it a lot. What I've come up with is that it's fun for the adults to see you the children believe in magic. They get to tell you that magic exists. And you're the only ones who believe them. And maybe that allows the adults to keep believing in magic a little bit. Or maybe we just unquestioningly follow the traditions that our adults laid out before us.
I often wonder why we don't just tell you that the presents are from us. You'll still be stoked about the presents. And you won't be devastated when that little bitch in 2nd grade tells you there is no Santa. But you won't experience the joy and wonder of believing. I don't know. But I'm going to lie to you about Santa.
"When you die, you go to Heaven," I will tell you. This one I can explain. You'll be super young and looking for answers, and I won't have any. And rather than trying to console a five-year old with a long philosophical discussion about how no one really knows what the hell is going on, why people die, or why anyone exists in the first place, but that it doesn't really matter because we're here so we might as well enjoy it, I'll just lie. Confidently. "You go to Heaven."
"How do you know?" You'll ask.
"I'm your dad. I know everything." And you'll go to sleep. With one less grandparent perhaps. Sad. But true. That shit's going to happen.
Later, you'll see your first scary movie. You won't be able to sleep, because you'll be worried that Michael Myers is going to get you in your sleep.
"I'll protect you," I'll say. Again, lying. Sure, Michael Myers isn't going to get you. Michael Myers doesn't exist. But if someone wants to kill you enough that they'll break into a third story apartment and find their way to your bedroom? That kind of conviction is going to be tough to stop.
Let's back it up a step. I'm 5'7". If someone really wants to kill you in broad daylight, I'll try to protect you. But in all honesty, I'm kind of a candy-ass.
There will be some lies of convenience told to get you to stop doing some unwanted behavior. I can't predict what these will be. But some of the more scarring ones my mother told me included:
[Scene: 6-year old me, having developed a habit of chewing off hangnails even when there are none.]
GRANDMA: "Don't chew on the skin around your fingernails."
ME: "Why not?"
GRANDMA: "It will give you cancer."
Scars.
[Scene: 3-year old me, in the bathroom, pulling my foreskin over the tip of my penis because it makes it disappear. My mom enters the bathroom.]
GRANDMA: "Stop doing that."
ME: "Why? It's funny."
GRANDMA: "If you keep doing that worms will come out."
Scars.
[Scene: 8-year old me, comes home from baseball practice.]
GRANDMA: "Go wash your hands for dinner.
ME: "But I don't want to."
GRANDMA: "Go wash your hands! There are germs on them."
ME: "What are germs?"
GRANDMA: "Microscopic things you can't see that can get you sick."
Scars. Sometimes even the truth leaves a mark. Point being, we're going to lose patience with questions at some point, and I'm just going to lie to get you to stop doing something. Because it's easier than coming up with a reason. Second point...your grandmother is a crazy person.
When you get to sex education class, whenever that is taught these days, you'll learn about the birds and the bees. If you're anything like I was, it probably won't make much sense to you. You'll be too busy giggling over mentions of "penises" and "vaginas." And in your school's effort to make it all make sense, you'll have a homework assignment to sit down with your parents and ask about your birth.
"Were you ready for me when I was born?"
"Of course!" I'll say. But that's going to be a big load of bullshit. "Your mother and I knew exactly what we were getting into," we'll tell you. But the truth is, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing right now. I know that I have a long and illustrious career of neglecting plants though. Most recently I bought a cactus four months ago and have managed to kill it already. So I'm really hoping I have better luck with you!
And I know that by the time you're asking me this, your mother and I will have probably done all sorts of weird accidental emotional damage to you. We'll have been trying so hard to not overschedule, underschedule, overcompensate for our own weirdness, cause any dependency issues, this, that, and the other thing, that something will go wrong somewhere. And that will continue for your (and our) entire lives. Not only did we not know what we were doing, we will never know what we are doing. Nobody does.
But not knowing what we're doing? That's what makes it all so interesting. And that's the truth.
Waiting for your arrival,
Dad
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