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Why I’ll Always Answer My Child Brother’s Taboo Questions With the Full Truth
Lying to kids will only create dysfunctions later in life — and it’s time we put an end to it.
I’m 13 years older than my brother, and my one commitment since he came along has been honesty. As my brother was growing up and I was becoming a young adult with a lot of information and education at my fingertips, I became increasingly aware of society’s toxic habit of lying to children.
Having been such a child, who had to find out things on her own because no one was giving me straight answers about anything I wasn’t supposed to understand at that age, I learned the hard way how harmful that could be.
From having to learn on my own about partying safely, how much alcohol is too much alcohol, and why sexuality isn’t black and white, not to mention the deep, complex lessons of my body, I was on my own growing up.
I’m a lucky case. My parents aren’t bad; they’re just very religious and very prudish, choosing to protect their children from the taboo topics of the world. But what I learned from growing up in a protective household, where the default answer to taboo questions was “I’ll tell you when you’re older” or “that’s for grown-ups to worry about”, is that taboo topics don’t…
