Mum talk - good lying

Three o’clock in the morning and I’ve broken into a cold sweat. My heart is pumping. I’m feeling decidedly seedy. It can’t have been the garlic prawns at the country pub – and the two champagnes I quaffed were well within limits. I open my eyes wide as the full horror hits.

The EASTER BUNNY!

My husband, six-year-old son and I are spending Easter in a motel in Creswick. Ian and I have prepared well and smuggled the Easter eggs into a box in the boot of the car with nary a whiff of suspicion from He Who Knows All. We’ve just forgotten that vital extra step - bringing the cargo into the motel room to prepare for the early-morning hunt.

I shove my garlicky face into Ian’s in house-on-fire panic: the Easter bunny! Ian rolls over. ‘I’ll do it when he’s in the shower.’

Men just don’t get it. You can’t hold off Easter bunnies. I creep outside in my nightie, creep into the boot, creep into the box, creep back into the room. The cellophane on the footy egg sounds like 80,000 people at the MCG scrunching their pie wrappers in unison. Now closing the door ever so softly…

Josh sits bolt upright in bed. ‘It’s alright,’ says Ian brightly. ‘Mum’s just getting something from the car.’

Fantasy is a beautiful thing. Every parent on earth gives good lying to their child for as long as they will take it. And with a stash of chocolate and a sackful of Santa things every year, who’s going to question the chicanery that adults conjure up?

The Tooth Fairy packs a little less punch in our household perhaps because teeth refuse to fall out – or perhaps because she is a girl. Anyway why would someone as pretty as a fairy actually want to pay for old teeth caked in Mini Ritz? This one takes a lot less explaining though the ground rules are hazy - $2 for the first offering and $1 thereafter? And for God’s sake don’t forget to take away the tooth!

Ah yes, God. God is a good ‘man’ (now why would Josh assume that?) and he lives in heaven with Grandpa and Peggotty, the schnauzer. Heaven is much much higher than the clouds so dead people don’t have to dodge aeroplanes. Josh knows that God will never have a heart attack, unlike us mortals. Josh doesn’t know his parents are agnostic.

But it’s Jesus who really captures the imagination of the kids. I must admit I had more trouble dealing with Jesus than with God. ‘And so Jesus died on Good Friday.’ ‘How?’ ‘Some bad people killed him.’ ‘With a gun?’ ‘No.’ ‘With a light sabre?’

Thanks to Religious Education in school, the heat is off now. Josh does all the explaining to me. He recalls that Jesus built a chair once at age 16, he was nailed to the cross, he was placed in a cave, his body vanished overnight. There is something very Harry Potter about Jesus: ‘like Jesus best when he’s a ghost.’

Explaining death is the really big one. When my father died I tried to keep things upbeat and explain that Boz wasn’t far away. ‘He’s here in spirit,’ I explained obliquely.’ What’s spirit?’ ‘When you think hard about someone it’s like they’re here with you.’ Looking at the door, ‘Will Boz come back with jelly beans if I think of him now?’

In the immortal words of a girlfriend: ‘Telling the truth is highly overrated.’ This was meant in the kindest way and I employ the philosophy often to feed the fantasy and give my kids a feel-good childhood – even if they do need therapy later in life for a mother who lied.

It is 6am and Josh is racing around the motel room pouncing on eggs in places obvious and obscure. He has completely forgotten my nightie night foray. A box of Smarties is in the shower recess and a white chocolate rabbit is perched self-consciously on the toilet cistern. (You don’t have much choice in a motel room.)

Suddenly there’s a squeal of delight as Josh scoops up something from the floor by the door. ‘Look where the bunny left our car keys!’ Silly bunny.

by Jo-anne Stubbings

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, May 2006.