Tattle tales

by Alison Lebovitz

My husband and I have always told our three boys that they can tell us anything. But lately we have started to second-guess that decision, because instead of confiding in us about certain things, they are bombarding us with everything. In the process, we have created three tenacious tattletales.

Dealing with a tattletale is a somewhat precarious proposition. That’s because discriminating between when one should share something with others and when one should keep something to oneself is often a difficult task—even for adults. And even though this is theoretically a learned ability that develops as one matures, some people never grow out of the need to “tattle” on others. Indeed, the young tattletale often grows up to be the adult gossip.

When our boys were younger, we actually encouraged tattling. As Bill Cosby used to say in his stand-up routine, we had our own little “informers” who would accurately fill us in on all the misdeeds of their brothers, without pause or penalty.

And, conveniently, they would often tattle on themselves.

“Why is your little brother crying?”

Because he fell.

“How did he fall?”

Because I pushed him.

But over time, the occasional tattling eventually grew into relentless reporting. “He’s sitting in my seat.” “He called me a baby.” “He said he brushed his teeth, but he really didn’t.” “Well, he peed in his pants and hid his underwear so you wouldn’t find out!”

“Enough!” I finally yelled one night. “Let me tell you something—I am DONE with all the tattling!” At that point my husband walked into the room and asked, “What’s going on?” And of course one of the boys replied, “Mommy just yelled at us.”

It’s rare moments like these when desperation turns into inspiration. I spontaneously asked, “Who wants an ice cream sundae?” Every hand in the room immediately shot up. Including my husband’s.

“OK,” I said, “I’ll make you a deal. If you can go a whole week without tattling on each other, then you will be able to earn an ice cream sundae.”

I then borrowed a little incentive that my son’s third-grade teacher had used to teach his students their times tables. For every day they went without tattling, they would earn one ingredient towards an ice cream sundae. Day one would earn them a bowl. Day two they would get a scoop of ice cream. Day three, hot fudge. Day four, sprinkles. Day five, M&Ms. Day six, the whipped cream. And day seven was, of course, the cherry on top. They had to earn each thing each day, I explained.

“What about the spoon? How do we earn the spoon?” our 5-year-old, Levi, was quick to ask. I eyed him and said, “I’ll give you the spoon for free. That way, even if you can’t make it a single day without tattling, you can at least hope one of your brothers will share his ice cream with you!”

Then we talked about the difference between tattling and telling us something of vital importance. If someone was hurt, I explained, we needed to know. If someone was picking his nose, we didn’t really care.

I predicted that Levi would be the first to crack. And, in fact, the very next morning he stood outside my shower, whining that he needed to tell me something. I poked my head out and said, “Are you sure you need to tell me something, and that you won’t be tattling?” He immediately winced and seemed to be writhing in pain, more tortured by the thought of not tattling than by whatever one of his brothers had apparently done to him. “Do you really want to leave this competition with just a spoon?” I added. He turned, bowed his head, and walked away in defeat.

The boys soon learned that simply informing us about something that might require further explanation was not the same as tattling, but often yielded the same results. “If you ask us what happened, and we tell you, that’s not tattling, right Mommy?” I had to give them kudos for their logic. I knew this was really working by midweek when they woke up in a frenzy, pleading, “What day is today? What day is today?” When I responded, “It’s Wednesday,” they pleaded, “No, is today the hot fudge or the sprinkles?” I smiled and said, “Hot fudge, boys, hot fudge.”

The week went by with relative ease and without incident. Or at least, if there were any incidents, we certainly hadn’t heard about them. By the following Sunday evening, it had been a whole seven days of tattle-free heaven in our home, and my husband and I had relished every moment as much as our children were about to relish their well-earned prize. As our three boys stood side by side at the kitchen counter, politely passing one another the ice cream scooper and generously sharing the many toppings at their disposal, I knew this would be one story I just had to tell.