Do You Speak in Parent Code?

Christmas time brings out the best in parents' secret-keeping skills. We downplay the degree to which we help St. Nick deliver presents. We venture into the least attended corners of our closets, drawers, and sheds to hide things we don't want our kids to find. We put on elaborate performances to trick our children into good behavior--performances that lose their power if the kids find out it's all a sham.

Image credit: Mike Roberson

My parents were expert secret keepers. If they had to discuss anything in front of us kids we weren't supposed to know about, they did it in Spanish. And that wasn't just a Christmas thing; they used their foreign language skills for everything from birthday plans to whether we should eat at McDonald's. Because once a child hears you even mention something he might like to do, you're stuck until you do it.

(This is also true of dogs. To prevent hyper rampages through our living room, we learned to never say the words walk and dog in the same sentence; we used the French marcher and chien.)

Image credit: Debi Downer

My parents' secret code evolved as we grew older. When my siblings and I got into junior high and started taking foreign language classes, my mom still spoke to my dad in Spanish but my dad responded in French. That way, no matter what language we studied, none of us caught more than half of our parents' conversations.

Pretty smart.

Now that I have children of my own, I understand more every day why parents need a special code. Saying the wrong thing--or rather, the right thing at the wrong time--can have some awful consequences when you're dealing with a child.

The Parent Code can take at least as many forms as there are children in the world.

My wife and I aren't ready to use foreign language on our kids the way my parents did. She can usually get the gist of my Spanish, but her French is worlds beyond my own. Instead, we've developed code names for our toddlers' common triggers. So, for example, if we're not ready to go yet we don't say we're going to the library; we say "book depository."

We don't verbally consider popping popcorn after dinner. We "prepare a salty, buttery refreshment."

We don't plan on watching a movie when the boys go to bed. We "enjoy visual entertainment."

The iPad is not an iPad. It's an "infernal device."

We've had to get creative, but that's the fun part of the Parent Code: inventing diverse ways to keep things from our children.

They will do it with their own kids someday. The Parent Code may change, but it always gets passed down.

Last week my mom described to me in Spanish what she bought my two-year-old for Christmas. I am now officially in the club.