I have become a pathological liar. And I am okay with it. Mostly.

Perhaps some back story will be helpful. There was a time, in college, when I smoked cigarettes. I started in the middle of my freshman year and quit about a year later. Then, my senior year of college, I resumed smoking for a time. I did not announce that I did it; I just did it.

My father confronted me about it one day and called me a liar. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I didn’t tell you I wasn’t smoking. I just didn’t tell you that I started again.”

“You lied,” he said. “You lied by omission. It’s the same thing.”

My father’s argument was that withholding material information equated to lying, pure and simple in his eyes. My belief was that not offering material information is very different from offering false information. (Yes, I made legalistic arguments even prior to becoming a lawyer.)

For the record, I stopped smoking again, for good, before I started law school which is beside the point of this story entirely, but I don’t want to be accused of withholding material information.

Cat and Tate are now at the ages where they are starting to ask me difficult questions, almost daily. They pepper me with questions about profanity, death, religion, sex, politics and anything else that pops into their brains, daily, before I have had caffeine, usually on the drive to school. (“When did you first have sex with Daddy? What is a Democrat? Is the F-word the worst curse word or are there other ones just as bad, and if so, what are they?”)

I want to have the kind of relationship with them where I can tell them the truth.

Wait, that is a lie. I don’t really.

I want to have the kind of relationship with them that has a high degree of “truthiness” (to borrow from Stephen Colbert.) But I also want them to divorce my life experience from what will be considered acceptable behavior for them. And I want to maintain their innocence for as long as possible, until it is shattered when they learn that Mommy is a big fat liar.

I have settled on telling them what I like to think of as age-appropriate versions of the truth; such versions become truer as their age and ability to understand the implications increase.

For example, when she was younger, Cat asked me lots of questions about God. This was a tough one for me, tougher than the sex questions, because I don’t believe in God. So when Cat would ask me about God I would answer, “Well, some people believe (insert summary of major religion here), while others think (insert alternate theory.) When you are older, you can decide what you think.” When pressed for an answer as to my beliefs, I would say, “I think that is a big question from such a small person. People have wrestled with that for thousands of years.”

My answer was truthy. Nothing in it was false but I was omitting material facts.

Cat cornered me more recently and asked, “But what do you believe?” And I decided at age 7, to give her a more straight-forward answer. “Mommy doesn’t believe in God honey. Mommy knows lots of other people do and Mommy respects their right to do so, but personally, Mommy doesn’t believe in God.”

“But you still believe in Santa, right?” she asked.

“Santa?” I hadn’t prepared a recent briefing paper on Santa. “Yes, Mommy will always believe in Santa.”

My only salvation in all of this will be how Cat and Tate decide to define material facts. If the fact that Mommy loves them, wants only the best for them, tries her damndest and tells them what is important, then my reputation for veracity with them will remain relatively unscathed. But if they define lying as the delivery of all of the facts, unvarnished by sentimentality or concern, then I’ll be wearing the scarlet L.

At least it will match my hair.