Honest Candy Tastes Better...

I’ve always loved candy. Who doesn’t love a sweet treat every now and then? However, my family has always been more health-oriented. One Halloween candy a week, go out for dessert once a month. This was definitely the healthier and better choice for all of us. But for a child, healthy = not delicious, and unhealthy = delicious. The choice was obvious for me.

We don’t keep much sugar in the house. Baking supplies for when we occasionally bake a cake or dessert, or leftover candy from some occasion. When I was a kid, one candy was never enough. I’d always beg for more, and I’d always be kindly rejected by my parents. If only I had stopped at that, I might have saved myself a lot of trouble.

I began to search for hidden stashes of sugar in our house. Halloween candy bought for distribution and never opened, chocolate chips for baking. I’d watch closely until I was sure my parents weren’t looking, and I’d grab a small candy or chocolate. If I only took one, they’d never notice the difference! This went on for a while, me waiting for a lapse in attention and quickly sneaking in a candy.

This all continued until I was nearly caught. I had just grabbed a small handful of chocolate chips and ran outside to a corner of our backyard, where I was sure my parents wouldn't see me. At one point, I accidentally dropped a chocolate chip, and, seeing my mother coming near, quickly grabbed it and shoved it in my mouth.

My mother was horrified. I can imagine that was a concerning sight: her child outside in the backyard picking up something from the ground and eating it. She ran up to me and asked me what could have possibly compelled me to eat something off the dirty ground. In my childlike panic, wanting not to be caught, I said that I saw something that looked like a chocolate chip. Very stupid choice of words. Now not only was I eating off the ground, I was eating what “looked like a chocolate chip.” If I was my mother, I would have been just as horrified.

My mother’s disgust slowly turned to teasing. Whenever she got the chance, she’d laughingly bring it up and I’d just humor her, for some reason preferring the teasing to telling her the truth about why I’d done it. Years passed by, and still whenever I claimed in any conversation that I was “smart enough not to do something stupid,” she’d bring up the incident. At one point, I decided that it was time to fess up: enough time had passed for me to not get in trouble for what I had done. The next time she brought it up, I gave her the whole truth. She was shocked that I had preferred seeming foolish to just telling her the truth. I couldn’t really explain what had compelled me to hide the truth for so long: I think I preferred my parents thinking I was naive over making them disappointed because of my intentional wrongdoing.

I can’t say that I have completely embraced the idea of telling my parents when I’ve disappointed them. It’s hard to choose the path of admitting error and accepting disappointment when avoidance can be such an attractive option in the moment. But I do hope that in the near future, I’ll be able to easily admit my fault in the moment, and that I don’t take the path of least resistance and least scolding. I’m still working on it!