Acceptable Lies

The age was wrong on Niece D’s birthday card. I incorrectly transferred the information from 2005 calendar to 2006 calendar. An incorrect age is not difficult to believe in a family where lying about our ages is acceptable. Our matriarch has been claiming to be 29 for so many years that her grandson is currently the same age. The patriarch of our clan claims to be ‘damn near’ whatever his next birthday will be. I mimicked Dad’s habit of claiming to be ‘damn near 55’ for seventeen months when I began early retirement.

Our family has a conflict between, “Don’t lie” and exceptions to that rule. We were often punished severely for lying or withholding information. We were often punished for telling the truth to people outside the family, especially when those outside the family did not need to know our business. Beliefs about acceptable lying had to be as flexible as a judicial ruling that selects punishment. Beliefs about withholding information are even more flexible. We learn to accept the pretense that 29 will last for more than forty-six years, and we accept that time is fluid enough its estimate for schedule completion will fit into everybody’s schedule. An example of that is the date of these blog entries: I edit the dates to show when I start the essay and not when I finish it. How many other pretenses are acceptable?

Our unexpressed emotional feelings are often a pretense. We try on different roles in stories as we learn acceptable interpretations about events and memories. We learn to use “Fine” until a better interpretation fits the experience. “Fine,” may also be code for “Just you wait until my side is told.”

Incomplete medical information sometimes looks like a lie when it is not. Its incompleteness and unknowable quality does not stop some family members for acting as if they are being lied to or not told the whole story. Fear they are being told lies triggers emotionally manipulative behavior that aggressively damages relationships.

That brings us to the lie that we will be forgiven and our mistakes forgotten. Why forget a mistake when it can become an instructional story to be used to teach others to fear the mistake and inflict punishment on the perpetrator again? Even if you learned your lesson, your mistakes is now an object lesson.

I retain the information that Niece D had a thirteen birthday. I marked a mistaken 13th birthday on the 2006 calendar. On the 2007 calendar I will note the year of her birth