Thou Shalt Not Lie!

When my older son was six years old, he asked me for a sentence with the word mail.

As a caring parent, I went ahead and constructed it as I didn’t want him to fail.

After spending seconds to construct a simple sentence, I told him to write: “I sent a mail to my friend.”

However, instead of thanking me for my effort, he told me his teacher didn’t ask him to write lies.

With such a response, I quickly searched my old brain for another,

Though an inner voice said he was too ungrateful and that I shouldn’t bother.

Anyway, I didn’t listen to that inner voice because after all, I’m his dear mother.

After minutes of deliberating, I told him to write: “My mother gets mails from the postman”,

But unfortunately, that too was an issue. The word mail shouldn’t have been pluralized.

You see, I wasn’t and am still no ‘English’ major, and that he should have realized.

As a matter of fact, based on the type of behavior he had exercised,

It was obvious he didn’t like how my sentences were constructed or organized.

Later when I reflected, I admitted to telling a lie in the sentence; he didn’t send any mail to his friend.

However, I was only trying to be creative but didn’t know I would have been seen as a liar.

I just believe that boy was thinking way too far outside of the box, the mailbox!