Jen Hogan: I tell my children lies — lots of them

I tell my children lies. Lots of them. Small white lies, mostly, for their own good, you understand. To preserve the magic of childhood. To protect them, sometimes, from the horrors of the world in which they live. And to make them eat their corn and broccoli.

So it has been and so it shall always be, I figure, until I can find an alternative way to make things less upsetting for them — and vegetables more palatable.

And so on a Saturday evening drive along the M7, as we played the “guess what time the car clock will read when we pull into the driveway and whoever guesses closest wins and the winner gets a prize, though I’ve no idea what that prize will be because really I’m just trying to distract you all from fighting” game, my honesty was called into question, once more.

Somehow a conclusion was drawn that the meat eaten here comes from animals who died of natural causes

Looking around him, to establish his current exact location, and thereby increase the accuracy of his guess, a younger child noticed a truck driving by with trailers on the back and animals inside. “Oh look, horses”, he said spotting an animal’s nose sticking out of a gap in the trailer, before correcting himself, “oh wait, no it’s actually cows”. His little brother looked up immediately, eager to spot some bovine friends.

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“Where are they off to?” the older of the two asked. “To visit their friends on another farm”, I responded without hesitation. “I was worried they were on their way to get killed”, he replied, the relief evident in his tone. “Why would anyone kill them?” the younger one asked. The question hung in the air, unanswered, as I waited for the usual conclusion to be drawn.

You see in my house, somehow, somewhere along the way, and without me having corrected it, a presumption made by one of the children about where their food comes from became fact. Well fact in their minds, and yet to be challenged by their mother. Somehow a conclusion was drawn that the meat eaten here comes from animals who died of natural causes.

I am loath to correct it for two reasons. One is because, recently, a child cried his heart out at the memory of a dead baby mouse found under our decking — four years ago. The other is because I know the discovery of the truth is likely to lead to me being suddenly plunged into a world of raising vegetarians. But they’re not so great with vegetables.

And I feel confident in this assertion, as this same thing happened to me at a similar age.

I loved sleepovers at my nana’s house. Aside from the fact that I was spoiled rotten and bedtimes didn’t apply, I loved watching something together. When we watched Superman 1 on the television one evening and Lois Lane died because Superman didn’t get to her in time, leaving me inconsolable, she explained to small-child me, that Superman had flown back around the world at such speed that he caused time to reverse. And so when presented with a second opportunity to save Lois, he made sure to get to her on time. I had missed this bit as I was hysterically crying at the time.

She chose not to take the simple option of explaining, it was just a film and none of it was real. An option I feel certain my mother would have preferred her to take the next time we watched a film together and I became distressed.

He has discovered The Incredible Hulk television series of my youth. We watch it together some evenings and he is utterly entranced by the sheer size and strength of the Hulk

This time it was a western. And all was going grand until I saw the cowboys roasting a pig on a spit. “Nana!” I screamed. “They killed a pig!” “Ah that’s just where your sausages come from, Jennifer”, she explained, kindly. And that, dear reader, was the day I stopped eating meat.

Like my beloved younger offspring, I wasn’t much of a fan of vegetables either, and so years of dinnertime battles ensued with my parents. These days, following cravings of Phoebe from Friends type proportions, during pregnancies, I now eat minuscule amounts of it on an extremely irregular basis, and I don’t want my kids to go down the same road. At least, not yet.

He, who loves all living creatures, no matter how gross, slimy, or vermon-like they may be, has discovered The Incredible Hulk television series of my youth. We watch it together some evenings and he is utterly entranced by the sheer size and strength of the Hulk.

“How did he get so big and strong?” he asked excitedly the first time he saw it. Rather than explaining David Banner’s backstory I seized my opportunity. “Eating carrots, corn and broccoli”, I replied. Another lie perhaps, though I prefer to see it as putting in the groundwork before a different whole truth breaks.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.