Parenting. No one ever said it was easy, but I’m always at the crossroads of asking myself when is the right time to have children and bring them up. This becomes especially difficult for those who have children during their teenage years. There can be several challenges that a teenage mom or dad can face besides money and life experience (emotionally/spiritually), but more importantly, the notion of being “intellectually” prepared. What does this mean? I personally believe that when a child asks you a question, you should be knowledgeable enough to answer that question to the best of your ability. Likewise, however, if you don’t know the answer, admit that you don’t know, and encourage your child to find the answer together.
The primary concern I have is when parents lie to their children out of pride in order to save face when they don’t know something. Not only will the children be misinformed, but it will convince children that the behavior of making up answers is acceptable.
This topic came about when I overheard a mother and her daughter talking while waiting in line at a grocery store. It had just rained, and as the sky cleared up, a gorgeous rainbow appeared behind the clouds, shining triumphantly through the store windows. As the mom pointed it out to her daughter, the little girl asked her mom where rainbows came from.
The mother told her daughter that clouds made the rainbow and people don’t know where rainbows end. So if people were to follow the path of the rainbow, they will be able to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The mom’s answer bothered me because the daughter was older than a toddler, so I felt that this was a serious question that deserved a serious answer. Now, I am a college graduate and my field is in the sciences. After thinking about the girl’s question, I realized that the explanation is not a simple one. However, a good explanation could as simple as: After it rains, there are still a lot of water droplets floating in the air. When the sun comes out and shines through those water drops, the white light from the sun gets refracted into all those colors you see in the rainbow. What does refracted mean? It means that water has some special ability to separate colors of light. After the explanation, I would probably show an experiment using a garden hose and spraying water on a sunny day.
The index of refraction of water droplets in the air break up the white sunlight into the colors we see in the rainbow.
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t as simple as one would hope, however, the child will at least know that water and sunlight is what makes rainbows and not clouds with pots of gold behind them. I’m worried that children would be misled and perhaps be embarrassed if they decide to share what they learn and propagate false information.
What would happen if the questions were harder? Like why do planets move around the sun the way they do? Where did dinosaurs come from? Or what is the meaning of life? Will we be able to steer our children straight?
The education that we go through as children will definitely shape the way we think, but the things that our parents teach us will model how we think. Personally, I feel like the bad habits are so much easier to pick up than the good habits. In the examples above, lying is a lot easier than being honest and telling the truth. Such notions are sometimes dangerous because it can propagate itself through adulthood for some people.
I remember a former girlfriend who attended a private high school and although she is a sharp and intelligent woman, there were some things that surprised me. We met in college and one night she told me that the church explained to her that medications such as the “morning-after pill” or “Plan B” are made to kill the developing embryo and that embryo will be aborted through your next menstrual cycle. In actuality, these medicines are designed to suppress ovulation in hopes to prevent pregnancy by 90-95% if taken within the first 24 hours. If taken after 24 hours, your chances of emergency contraception reduces to like 60-70%.
Aside from the fact that she was misinformed, there is another impact that is overlooked. There was an instance where she had to use an emergency contraceptive in the past, and she lived with the guilt thinking she had killed her own baby. After I gave my explanation of what those pills actually did, she was incredibly relieved. I was glad she even had the courage to bring it up. If she never told anyone the story of what happened and how she felt about it, that trauma could have stayed with her for a long time.
I understand that when it comes to parenting, there will be unexpected things and we can’t prepare for everything. However, I do feel nervous about whether I am capable and ready to raise children to the best of my abilities. We all love our kids; no question about that. That is why we want the best for them. But lying shouldn’t be the way to do it. If something doesn’t have an answer, let’s take their hand, and go explore the answer… together, as parent and child.
New Meridian 