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David Carkeet
How to Lie to Your Parents

Girl, you’re good at this, and they’re not. That’s point number one. You’re good at it because you lie all the time, not just to them but to everybody, even your best friends. You exaggerate, you distort, you flat-out lie. If you didn’t, you’d be dead. But your mom and dad hardly ever lie, so they’re not only bad at it, but when they see a mouth moving, they assume the truth is coming out of it. Ha!

Don’t sit down. They’ll say, “Sit down. We need to talk.” Don’t do it. Stay on your feet. If they say, “I asked you to sit down,” lean your butt on the edge of a table or on the arm of the sofa. If they get all mad at that, you’ll have to sit, but you’ve already worn them out. (They tire easily.) You’re ahead of the game, and you haven’t said a word yet.

There are two kinds of “sit-down” talks, the you-did-something-bad talk and the we’re-not-going-to-let-you-have-fun talk. The first is about the past, and my advice here might surprise you: let it go. Let them do their thing. Confess, apologize, and take your punishment. You see, your best argumentative tool--I mean besides bluster and volume and body heaves and percussion from contact with walls and furniture--is vagueness, and the past lacks reliable vagueness because it’s full of actual facts. If you lie about these facts and are found out, you put all future lies at risk. Dad in particular is nuts for facts--haven’t you seen him reading those twenty-pound history books? The facts’ll kill you. Accept them, admit to them, and take a short-term hit for the sake of the long-term gain of future fun...

Excerpted from I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers Copyright 2005 by David Carkeek