Dinnercraft helps bring your (and our) protracted adolescence to an end. Our authors cover topics ranging from cooking and eating, to home and garden, to crafting and DiY, and all the rest of the things you find yourself caring about these days.
Honesty? Don’t You DARE.
If you’re not familiar with the DARE program, as a parent, you’re likely to run across it someday. It’s an anti-drug program where members of your local police department go your kid’s school and tell them – in excruciating detail — all the reasons why drugs and alcohol are bad.
Yes, it’s a little fascist, but essentially harmless. At least we thought it was.
The culmination of the DARE program occurs at the age of 12, when the soon-to-be graduate writes an essay about what the program has meant to them.
It’s simple. It’s a no-brainer. And it’s also where Jessie, my 12-year-old stepdaughter (who lives with me and Joel), hit the wall.
Jessie really, really had a problem with DARE. She thought, as a lot of kids her age do, that it was a complete and total load of crap.
Where she differed from the rest of those kids is that she felt compelled to be honest about this fact.
The night before the essay was due; she came into our room crying.
I can’t do this! Its total bullshit and I can’t say it’s not! I know lots of people who have taken drugs and haven’t ruined their lives!
(Oh, God. I hope she wasn’t talking about me.)
As a professional writer, I gave my stepdaughter my best professional advice. I told her to lie and tell the DARE people what they wanted to hear. And to let us go to sleep.
Three hours later, she was back. And this time, she was sobbing.
I’m sorry. I can’t do it.
She couldn’t lie. So Joel had another idea.
He told Jessie to tell the truth. After all, it would probably be valuable for the school to know that the program didn’t work for everyone. It might start a debate – she might be embarrassed or called up in front of the class – but if that was her honest opinion, then telling the truth was probably the best way to complete the assignment if she could deal with the consequences.
Jessie said she could, in fact deal. She finished the essay and turned it in. And we pretty much forgot about it.
A week or so later, we got a phone call from the school. Could we come in to “discuss Jessie’s progress?”
We set up the appointment. We went in.
And were greeted by three teachers, the school principal and a uniformed police officer.
Apparently, that whole telling the truth thing wasn’t such a good idea.
After an hour before the tribunal, we managed to convince the group that Jessie was not on drugs, that we were not on drugs, and that there was no danger that any of us would be on drugs in the near future.
When we finally got home, I told Jessie the next time she gets an assignment like that, and she just can’t bring herself to tell her teachers what they want to hear, to come to me. I’ll write it for her.
After all, I’m the professional.
