Soap Eaters Unite!

One of my daughter's favorite activities is bath time.  She loves it!  She hears running water and she starts to do this little dance where she runs in place, and it's totally adorable because she can't run yet.  She just holds on to the side of the tub and lifts her feet up and down very quickly like she's running.  The other night at bath time, I noticed her putting her face to the water and I realized she was eating the bubbles.  No joke, eating bubbles!

At this point I got very worried.  You see, one of a parent's biggest weapons to combat lying, cursing, and backtalk is the threat of "I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap!"  Although very few parents actually follow through with this threat, and I'm not recommending that you do, it's a very powerful threat - unless your kids actually eats soap already.  I suppose that parents threaten kids with this to let them know that there are consequences for lying.  The theory goes like this: children are too immature to know the actual consequences of lying; therefore, they need to have a real, physical example that will teach them the lesson.  There are other examples of this premise as well.  Take Pinocchio, for example.  He found that his nose grew longer with each lie.  Then there is the saying, "Liar, liar pants on fire" derived from William Blake's poem, The Liar.  I think someone would stop lying very quickly if their trousers were set ablaze every time they fibbed.

The moral dilemma that I find extremely funny is that parenting is the ultimate art of deception.  It's true.  We lie all of the time!  One major way that this happens in my home is at meal time.  We know my daughter will eat rice, so if she does not want to eat her veggies or her chicken, we squish these things into a ball of rice.  She gets veggie burgers cut up instead of meat sometimes, but it still call it meatballs.  She also is not very fond of cow's milk, for whatever reason, so in order to make sure she gets enough calcium, we put milk in scrambled eggs, and we mix it with drinkable yogurt.  Just yesterday, she wouldn't eat turkey lunch meat, so I smashed it into an English muffin.  All of these actions are riddled with deception, even if it is for the greater good.  Holidays and customs also cause parents to lie to their children.  How many lies can parents chalk up to Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy?  Most parents will say that they do this for the joy and laughter of the child.  We tell our children little lies to distract them, make them feel better, get them to behave and to get them to be quiet - all in the name of good parenting.  After all, if we had to suffer the consequences of lying, every parent would be a long-nosed, soap eater with flaming pants!

Unfortunately, due to my daughter's bubble consumption, I have one less threat to use on her when she eventually starts lying, cursing or back talking, but if we follow the principal, we're all soap eaters anyway.  So here's to us, fellow soap eaters, be proud that you're a good parent, master your art of deception, and always use your powers for good!  I'll just have to think of another threat that I can use in the meantime.