Once upon a time, eons before the advent of tweeting and fake news, a lie was a lie, period. No ifs, no ands, no buts.
One day, as my brother Michel and I were returning home from Saint-Germain, the parochial school we attended in an upscale neighborhood of Montreal, we were scared out of our wits by an unusual occurrence. As we crossed Maplewood Avenue, the street where we lived, a police car zoomed by, siren blaring. Police were shooting at the car ahead, both cars speeding in a blur.
Michel and I raced home and gave our mother a breathless account of what we had seen. I could tell she couldn’t make sense of what we were telling her. Nothing of the sort had ever happened on Maplewood Avenue, where one of the greatest hazards kids faced was frostbite on cold wintry days when sledding on a nearby slope of the Mt. Royal.
“What gunshots?” she asked and told us it would be best for us not to lie or embellish what must have been a pretty ordinary sighting of a police car driving by.
Her lecture on the importance of telling the truth was reinforced when our father returned from work. Nobody who lied could be trusted, they pointed out.
We didn’t argue. Our parents had spoken. Back then there was no TV and no online media. News traveled at a snail’s pace. It wasn’t till the next day that Michel and I were vindicated. “La Presse,” a widely read newspaper, carried the news. Indeed, there had been a car chase. And yes, police had opened fire on the suspect, a 17-year-old who was riding in the car he had allegedly stolen. The suspect had peacefully surrendered to police after crashing the vehicle against a tree in a pocket park where a handful of mothers and maids were watching little children play in the sand.
Our parents were indignant. They joined a chorus of neighbors who clamored that the police had acted recklessly. They apologized to Michel and me. It was a lesson I still remember.
Flash forward to 2017. Today’s parents are faced with a much more challenging task than parents of bygone days. What should they tell a child who asks, “Why is it wrong for me to lie? The president lies all the time?”
Let’s face it. Our president is a bully, a hatemonger, and a liar. He is an appalling role model for our children and an out of control leader of the free world.
Monique Begg
