I hate being wrong. I really do. It's one of those things that I've always struggled with. My first reaction when discovering I'm wrong is to immediately figure out how to turn things around so I'm not really wrong, so much as just not 100% right. I know, it's one of my shortcomings, and it's something I do try to work on.
That being said, for the past several years, everyone has told us that there would come a day when we would lose our angel of a boy, and instead find a dumb, slow, lazy squatter who eats us out of house and home. We didn't believe it. We laughed it off. Our son was so awesome. He was brilliant; far too brilliant to fall victim to Teenager-hood. He was a hard working young man; far too hard working to fall victim to Teen-laziness. We thought, certainly, that we had the exception to everyone else's rule.
It happened.
It happened this past week. Like a switch flipped. Suddenly, Levi was gone, and a male version of Aergia was living in our house. With the laziness came the dishonesty. With the dishonesty came the heartbreak, fear and panic. It was a downward spiral of despair. I'd like to think that the change happened at Boy Scout camp, and that this was a result of something positive gone horribly wrong, but the reality is, this happening the week after Boy Scout camp was probably sheer coincidence.
Now, this is not to say that we had not been lied to before. Levi was famous for telling us that he brushed his teeth, only to fail a tooth-check, and then twist it to say, "Well, I didn't brush them very well." After telling him so many times that not brushing them well was the same thing as not brushing them in the first place, we gave up, and quit asking. Instead, we'd tell him to brush his teeth, and if he complained that he already had, we'd simply thank him, and ask him to do it again, anyway. We have toothbrushes at home, his grandmother's, the shop, and Colgate Wisps in every vehicle. Those teeth WILL be brushed.
No, the occasional untruth would pop up here and there, but this week was different. This week, he lied and lied and lied and lied. He lied about filling his rabbit's water bottles, he lied about taking a shower, he lied about feeding his dog, he lied about eating his dinner, he lied about how much he had read, and he lied about telling us that he'd quit lying. We were reeling. Our world felt like it was spinning out of control. There were declarations that we'd not go through what we went through with her; that we refused to live with another one of her.
We ran through the gambit of how our parents addressed the 'change' in us, and I yanked every 'Love and Logic' parenting book I had off the shelves, their spines wrinkled and worn from endless referencing with her, and read through them in record time. We had little parenting pow-wow's, discussing in hushed whispers how we were going to react to the latest lie, or not react in some circumstances. We had a game plan. And just when we thought it was working, he'd change it up with a swithcheroo that would knock us off our horses.
After a looooong night of chores that took five times longer than they should of, incensing both his father and his grandfather, I finally told my husband, "It's over. Let's face it. We have a teenager." It hurt almost as much to say, I imagine, as if I had told him we needed marriage counseling, or some other similarly life-shaking declaration. Yes, we have a teenager, again. After four blissful months, we have another teenager in our home.
The thing is, every child is different. He wasn't lying maliciously, like her. He wasn't making up a story about someone to hurt them, or lying for the sheer fun of it to see how much smarter he was than we were, or how convincing he could be. He was lying, because he enjoyed being lazy. He is at a point in his life when he truly can be entertained just by his thoughts, stare off into space, and let hours slip by without realizing the day had come and gone. These were not creative lies that he was telling. These were not lies that he had stewed on, and crafted, and spun into fantastic yarns that he was eager to have the opportunity to test the moment we gave it to him. No, these were simple lies.
This morning, as he got dressed to go hang out with more teenagers to work on a Boy Scout Eagle Project, I didn't know what to say to him. We were so depressed over the idea that we had lost him. You can only spout Thou Shalt Not Lie, and Honor Thy Mother and Father so many times before it begins to fall on deaf ears. The fact is, when it comes to teenagers, God has often lost them too.
Quietly, we sat in the car as I drove to Lewisburg. Then, from the backseat, he says, "I just need to not put myself in situations where I want to lie." This was a good sign. He obviously wanted to talk about it, and he opened the door to the conversation. I told him, "You're talking about temptation. Do you know what temptation is?" He said not exactly, and asked if it was a feeling. I explained to him that temptation was want and desire. We used candy as a benign reference. I held up a sucker. I asked him if he wanted the sucker, to which he responded yes. I asked him if he wanted a sucker before he saw I had a sucker to offer, and he said no. That was temptation. I agreed that his idea of removing himself from temptation was a good one, and definitely a good start back to the right path.
Levi said he wanted to be a good kid. It broke my heart to hear this. Levi isn't a BAD kid. He was just behaving badly. We talked about the difference between BEING good, and TRYING to be good. Trying to be good is a good thing. Removing yourself from temptation is, in my mind, TRYING to be good. However, when faced with temptation that you can't remove yourself from, making the right choice is BEING good, and being good is a GREAT thing.
We talked about how dishonesty is the ultimate betrayal. I know some of you are thinking, "What about stealing?" Well, think about it. Would stealing hurt as bad if you didn't have someone there saying they didn't do it? If the person who did it stood up and said, "Yes, I took that." Yes, you'd be angry that someone took something that didn't belong to them, but you wouldn't be nearly as frustrated, wounded or confused as if you had no idea who had done this horrible thing. Some of you will probably think, "What about adultery?" Again, a horrible, horrible sin. But, I ask you, would adultery hurt as much if the person who was cheating on you wasn't lying, telling you they weren't doing it, that you're seeing things, that they still love you and only you? I dare to think not, because while yes, your heart would be breaking, you would not be questioning YOURSELF. You would not be questioning if there is anything there to salvage, twisting your brain into ignoring the little signs that point to a cheating spouse, ignoring the gut wrenching fear that you're a rube too stupid to notice when a relationship is dead, believing what you're told to be placated by a scheming adulterer. Lying really is the ultimate betrayal.
While discussing why it was important to tell the truth, naturally, the biggies came up. It was important to tell the truth so someone doesn't get hurt, or be 100% honest when answering about details, such as whether or not you even saw them. If you didn't, just say you didn't. Don't fabricate. These were all good things. He was solid on what I'd call Urgent Honesty. He wasn't making mistakes with Urgent Honesty. Urgent Honesty are like the cords a rope is made of, by which your relationships with your father, mother, step-mother, friends, etc hang by. Levi's mistakes were with Everyday Honesty.
Everyday Honesty are the tiny strands that each cord is made of. Every tiny fiber is a truth, and when you lie, that fiber is cut. It may take many tiny lies to sever a cord, but while they are tiny, they are still compromising that relationship. Lying about brushing your teeth, lying about filling a water bottle, lying about taking a shower. All of these little lies are cutting tiny fibers in the cords that make up your rope. And while it's very very hard to take a pair of scissors to cut a whole rope, it's not that difficult to nip away at the fibers in the individual cords and eventually cut through.
Recovering addicts wake up every morning and say, "Today, I'm not going to drink, smoke, etc." This declaration is a conscious 'reset' every day. Lying, to me, is much the same thing. Waking up and saying, "Today, I'm going to tell the truth." It starts the day off with a mindset of honesty. Eventually, the honesty will become habit. Yes, the truth may not be pretty. Yes, the truth may hurt. But the truth also heals. It heals those fibers. It heals relationships. It builds trust, and bonds. It's the Everyday Honesty that relationships are predicated on.
And the thing is, we HAVEN'T lost Levi. The fact that he can talk to us about his shortcomings, and see that he needs to improve, that's our Levi in there. Sure, maybe he makes mistakes, but our Levi is still in there, and while we may not see immediate return on this investment in parenting, and may even think it's falling on deaf ears, my mother assures us that when he's 20, he's going to say something, or do something, and it will be a giant beacon to show that it stuck. And like God, we need to not give up on him just because he's a little lost right now.
For my readers, I had originally planned a long drawn out tirade on social media, the ridiculous nature of some people to posture on Facebook, how birds of a feather stick together, and how a lot of those birds are the pathetic kind that eat poop... But, this seemed more apropos.
