Truth or Happiness?

[Caesar517]

Everyone must learn of death everntually, but must an 8 year old child always learn it then? Wouldn’t it sometimes be better for the child not to know every detail at the time?

 

[Caesar517]

Always trying to ‘head off’ unhappy truths with ‘happy untruths’ has a bad cumulative effect on the character of the one telling the untruths as well. And that will spill over into all your interpersonal relationships in one way or another.

Well said.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Everyone must learn of death everntually, but must an 8 year old child always learn it then? Wouldn’t it sometimes be better for the child not to know every detail at the time?/QUOTE

Now Caesar, you didn’t say ‘every detail’ in the original post. . .and nobody said it after.

You tailor your words to the child’s age and development. An 8 year old does not need to know every detail of death including when the puppy went into rigor mortis, and how the crematorium is going to handle the disposal, etc.

What your original post (and we’ll stick to it) said was that a child’s pet died and the option was for the parents to say that puppy had gone to live with somebody else.

First, if I had tried that with my offspring, the first question would have been, “Why?” “When can I see him?” “Can’t they send us a picture then?” etc. Once you start a lie it snowballs. You have to start adding on other llies to explain all the ‘whys’. . .and if you DON’T answer, don’t think that they won’t suspect something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Kids don’t just ‘let things go’ and parents don’t always remember what lie they told little Mike 2 years ago, and what one they told Susie, etc.

A simple, loving explanation: Honey, I have some sad news. . .Buster is dead. (Wait for the tears, listen for the questions). Hold on if child is willing, let child run to bedroom to cry if not ready. . . wait and be patient, and then gently and lovingly explain whatever details your child is capable of understanding. . .making sure to get him/her to ‘repeat back’ periodically what you said so you KNOW he understands, and realizing that they aren’t going to take in all that much, and will come back for days if not weeks every now and then asking questions which you already answered. Be patient.

But always be truthful.

 

[Marsha_Adams]

You are 8 years old. Your family pet dies, but you don’t know about it yet. Your parents tell you some cover story about the pet going to live with someone else, or some such thing to spare you the emotional distress.

Did they do the right thing, or should they have told you the painful truth? You have nothing to gain by knowing your pet’s true fate, it can only hurt you.

What happens two weeks later when Nana who has been living with you dies while sitting in the living room one night and your eight year old child is first out of bed the next morning and finds her there, an interesting shade of blue, cold to the touch and stiff as a board? You’re not going to get away with - “she’s gone to live with someone else”.

If you had been up front with the child over Fluffy’s demise, it would be easier to deal with Nana’s passing. Now the child is going to put 2 + 2 together, figure Fluffy’s bought it too, and wonder what else you’ve lied about. Now you’ve gone from a happy untruth (Fluffy’s gone to live in Greenland) to a unhappy truth (Nana has died) to a VERY UNHAPPY truth (Mom and Dad can’t be trusted, and if they can lie I can too.)

 

[Caesar517]

Hmm… Maybe I shouldn’t have used an example that is a natural part of life. What about this one:

The mother of an 8 year old gets raped while she is alone somewhere. She is emotionally distraught afterwards and the child knows senses that something is wrong. He asks why she is crying. Should she tell him that she was raped and try to explain rape to a child who likely doesn’t know about the facts of life, or should she use some form of a cover story to explain why she is sad (i.e. “someone was very mean to me”)?

 

[Marsha_Adams]

Hmm… Maybe I shouldn’t have used an example that is a natural part of life. What about this one:

The mother of an 8 year old gets raped while she is alone somewhere. She is emotionally distraught afterwards and the child knows senses that something is wrong. He asks why she is crying. Should she tell him that she was raped and try to explain rape to a child who likely doesn’t know about the facts of life, or should she use some form of a cover story to explain why she is sad (i.e. “someone was very mean to me”)?

For the child this is not a “happy untruth” it is the “unhappy truth”.

 

[DL82]

Hmm… Maybe I shouldn’t have used an example that is a natural part of life. What about this one:

The mother of an 8 year old gets raped while she is alone somewhere. She is emotionally distraught afterwards and the child knows senses that something is wrong. He asks why she is crying. Should she tell him that she was raped and try to explain rape to a child who likely doesn’t know about the facts of life, or should she use some form of a cover story to explain why she is sad (i.e. “someone was very mean to me”)?

This case is not really an untruth, it is what could be called ‘mental reservation’. It is true that someone was very mean to her, but that is not the whole of the truth. It is the whole truth as far as an 8 year old girl needs to know, or is able to understand, and that is good enough. It’s not a lie/untruth in the strict sense.

A more accurate example cannot be given without stepping outside the basic premise of Christian faith, that God is both Good AND True. If we are prepared to accept a universe in which that truth is not true, then good counter-examples can be given (for example, between believing a faith that brings you joy and not believing because there is no God, as both end up with non-existence, but one person is happy for the years they live, the other unhappy) but it’s impossible to answer such a question from a Christian perspective, because the existence of One Good True God is absolutely necessary to the existence of the created universe for a Christian.