The Mama Test

Sherri_CinVin

Sherri_CinVin

Cadet
The Mama Test
I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter. She picked up
something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that. 'Why?' my daughter asked. 'Because it's been on the ground, you don't know where it's been, it's dirty, and probably has germs' I replied. At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, 'Mama, how do you know all this stuff, you are so smart.' I was thinking quickly. 'All moms know this stuff. It's on the Mama Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mama.'
We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information. 'OH...I get it!' she beamed, 'So if you don't pass the test you have to be the dad. ''Exactly' I replied back with a big smile on my face.

Sorry guys couldn't resist :smiley:
 
I've never understood why people make up little white lies like "The Mama Test". I mean, why not just say the truth? That for many years now you've been trying hard to learn something new every day, and you've done an okay job at that. If anything, that might encourage them to learn themselves! Why get into the habit of lying to your child?

I mean, I just can't understand it for the life of me. No one should lie to a child needlessly.

~Dune~
 
Dune Walker said:
I've never understood why people make up little white lies like "The Mama Test". I mean, why not just say the truth? That for many years now you've been trying hard to learn something new every day, and you've done an okay job at that. If anything, that might encourage them to learn themselves! Why get into the habit of lying to your child?

I mean, I just can't understand it for the life of me. No one should like to a child needlessly.

~Dune~
Click to expand...

Because a child who does not believe in magic is too sad for me to watch. And don't say that this isn't magic, because it is just as much as pixies and Santa Clause. It's something to believe in that makes life seem that much more interesting, amusing, or wonderful to the kid.
 
Can't you help your child to learn to see the beauty of a garden, without them believing there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Knowing the truth and believing are by no means mutually exclusive. My kid wants to believe in magic? I'm not gonna say they're wrong, because to be honest? No one's ever disproven it's existance. But just as I won't tell them not to believe in magic, I won't tell them falsely that you should and that it does exist. I'll just let them ask me about magic, and answer truthfully: it might exist, it might not, but no one can be quite sure. And I'll let them make up their own mind. But I'll tell them about how lots of people throughout the world believe in magic, and about all the magical stories I know, and they, being a kid, will likely want to believe, and I will gladly let them.

It just that belief built on even the kindest of lies will always be hollow and empty. Abusing a child's trust to give them something to believe in which can only crumble later on? I couldn't bring myself to consider it.

~Dune~
 
HJ-Pinnelipe said:
Because a child who does not believe in magic is too sad for me to watch. And don't say that this isn't magic, because it is just as much as pixies and Santa Clause. It's something to believe in that makes life seem that much more interesting, amusing, or wonderful to the kid.
Click to expand...

So when my boyfriend was younger (his mom tells this story every so often), he went to school and found out that Santa wasn't real. I guess he came home and was really upset that she had been lying to him about it. She felt really bad, so she never told her other kids that Santa (and whatnot) were real. Instead she told them that everyone gets to be Santa at Christmas, even though there isn't a real one up in the North Pole.

I think it's the better way to go. I can never remember thinking there really was a Santa, although I suppose I thought about it a lot like I think about the existence of a god. I wished there was, but knew there wasn't.
 
I was one of those kids who figured out by himself that all the common childhood magic wasn't real, and at a fairly early age also. I just came up to my mom one summer day and calmly asked "Mom, Santa isn't real is he?" She just paused for a moment and then said "No, he isn't." I then said "So no easter bunny or anything like that either?" And that was pretty much it. I just happily moved on with my life having figured out one of those little mysteries. The puzzle of "how could Santa do all that?" was answered by realizing that there was no puzzle at all. Didn't make it any better or worse to have thought that way in the first place, and I didn't ruin it for anyone else who hadn't come to that realization yet.

So my experience with those little lies we tell to kids is that they didn't harm me nor did they benefit me, they simply were and I have no positive or negative feelings towards telling them.

My family still gives "Santa" gifts to each other. Those are gifts that the other person has no clue that they are getting and would never have thought of- they are signed "Santa" instead of the real gift giver.
 
I never believed in Santa either, but that's not really the magic I was thinking. It was as Dune Walker said, the magic can exist. I think every mom does take a test to be a mama. I don't think she was lying. All she was doing was making the world seem simpler.

I told a kid this weekend that I personally knew the Easter Bunny (he(she) was there for picture taking that day). Why did I do this? They were crying because they thought the Easter Bunny was scary. I told them that the Easter Bunny was a personal friend of mine and actually a very nice bunny. I wasn't lying there..they were a nice person. Why can't we tell kids things like this?

Santa, the Tooth Fairy, yeah, I never believed in them. Some part of me though still believes that someday I'll sprout wings or a horn or something else that makes me so very unique. Some part of me thinks that, just maybe, I could move things with my mind like Matilda. That's the magic I was thinking of, and I couldn't imagine life without it. Tell them it's possible. Don't cut down on other parents for telling them possibilities too.

I'm rambling..I just think that matter of the Mama Test was cute and harmless and should be left be.

Edit: Concerning my own Santa figuring out, I figured it out when all the gifts had his name on it. How could my parents be so happy when they didn't even get me anything? Tooth Fairy, I always knew since I was a lighter sleeper than everyone thought. I never told anyone though until they decided to tell me. "I'm sorry, but...there's no tooth fairy..." "I know." "Wait, you know?" "Yeah, I just wanted the money." "Oh...okay...Can we just skip the night time thing then?" "Sure."
 
Tell them the truth, but they can't grasp everything that it entails at certain ages. You might have to simplify or even obfuscate a little, but plain out lying isn't the way to go. Yes, please let them soar with their imagination. I doubt anyone on this board would disagree since we all share a similar interest that relies heavily on being imaginative.

Point being, they deserve the truth. They might understand more then you give them credit for. Heck, giving them the start of the truth might spark thier imagination on how such truths work if you don't give them the details. What we take for granted, everyday things like engines, they could see as magic even if they know exactly how it works.

However, if you lie and give them just simply answers that just seem plain and self explanitory or are just "magic" and that is it, that could kill creative thinking. Why worry about how something works when you can just think it is magic? How does that engine work bobby? Oh, magic? You don't think there is any other reason? You see where I am going with this?

I get this point of view from all the kids I have seen. They don't seem interested in thinking really. It is pretty sad. I like it when a kid surprises me with some form of insight or knowledge that I wouldn't think one would know at such an age. However I am constantly and consistantly disappointed.

DON'T MAKE STUPID/IGNORANT KIDS! That is all.
 
I've worked with kids (and had my own) for over twenty years. In my experience it's the people with no kids or have some childhood scar they've made larger than life that tend to shoot down the idea of storytelling. Yes, storytelling. Those little magical wonder stories that some are calling little lies. Those stories that spawn some of the greatest fiction books in history. The ones that teach our minds to see beyond what reality is shows us. They are part and parcel to creating an interesting person, someone not afraid to play.

The "theory" that exposing children to magical moments will blind them to reality, make them day dreamers, cause them to be unable to function in real life is just that -- a theory. No one Expert has ever proven it right or wrong.

I am thankful that I was given a father that told me tales which spurred me onto writing and gave me a deep love of reading fiction and thousands of non-fiction books.

Sometimes a moment has an air about it that simply calls for a little lie, a tale. It's not a matter of whether they'd understand the truth or not, it's a matter of magic, inspiration, sharing a moment, a laugh, of bonding. We're all far too disconnected from each other now days.
 
I think we should look at the "real" world as a magical world. To me it's filled with small little things that amaze me all the time. I think we grownups tends to forget that and we really like to look at the world as something we can measure and laws of physics, dirty engines and capitalism is all there is.

I was out walking with my kid (as Sherri did) early one morning, he was about 5 years old. It was still morning dew on the ground. We didn't talk about anything special but suddenly he stop and started pointing at something we just walked by. He pointed at a spiderweb on small bush. And I told him, as a father should, that this was a spiderweb and spiders do those things to catch insects, and so on.
But he interrupted me and said "I know, but look!" and I started to look.
The spiderweb was covered in dew, and the early sun shined through it and created a colourful prism on the ground at the shadowside of the bush.
We stayed there for about five minutes until the light effect disappeared as the sun moved out of the spiderweb. Not really a big thing but it surly was magical. I dont think he cared about what really happaned or how light refracts in water... but we really talked about how cool and beautiful it looked and how lucky we were to catch it in the right moment. Without his eyes I would have missed this.

So, my point is that my kid open my eyes to magical things and I don't think you need to make up stories about wizards or heroes to encourage a magical creative mind. I also believe that most of the great artists got, and get, their inspiration from the "real" world, they just look at it in different ways and then try to paint/write/make a film or game about it.
 
My uncle once got a nosebleed that wouldn't stop. He had to be hospitalized, and every time they got it to stop it would start again. He was in danger of dying from this, so they had to do something radical and they temporarily cut off one of his jugular veins, I believe it was.

That fixed him and he's been healthy now for decades. It did leave a rather visible scar though.

When me and my brother used to visit my uncle, he told us he wrestled with a bear, or a tiger, or a lion. I forget which it was. We thought he was so cool.

Was he supposed to tell us the entire gruesome story, instead of turning it into something that delighted me in childhood, even though I later found out none of it was actually true?

Personally, I think he did the right thing, and I don't see anything wrong with the "little white lies" people tell their children. Hell, personally I'd just call them embellishments.
 
I have to agree with eniko. It's not like someone is telling their kids "And on Christmas day, Santa will leave lots of presents under the tree!" And then when the day comes there is nothing there. There are presents there, they just were brought by a different source. Santa = mom and dad (or whatever guardians the kid has). In Eniko's story wrestling with a lion = "wrestling" with life and death. Outright lies? I don't like. Embellishments or glorifying of the truth, I have no problem with.
 
OMG everyone is way too serious lol It was a joke :smiley:

My daughter sent it to me saying Hey Mom this is something you would do
hehe

My Dad grew up in Scotland and we grew up on stories of the Lockness Monster and it did us no harm.
Hell kids have to endure life a lot sooner than we did, at least make it fun for them.

And remember this was a joke not real life :smiley:
 
I don't see a problem if it were real life. It's a "kids say the darndest things" moment.

One time, my youngest sister had a headache. Mom told her "Oh no, sounds like your head is going to explode." What did my littlest sister do? She hurriedly got on a hat, asked if she was safe, and then started foisting hats on everyone else in the house to keep their heads from exploding to. Now, I did tell my mom that she was evil for this, but Cayla, the sister, is not any the worse for wear for it. She pretends all sorts of things that remind me of that time.

I think whether or not it's a good thing depends largely on the child.
 

Similar threads

T
The Ring Test
Replies
1
Views
583
Bondgal2007
B
F
Testing
Replies
14
Views
900
Furtivus
F
I
The UN-telligence test
2 3
Replies
46
Views
1K
Itz da MT
I
Back
Top