A Tale of Tattling

The other day I was putting clothes away in the boys’ room and I set a bunch of hangers up on the top bunk. Abby and Gavin were climbing all over and they decided to head up to the top bunk to hang out. I told them to watch out for the booby trap (referring to all the hangers). Gavin must have been using the word “booby trap” while playing because later Abby came to me and said, “A booby is something that mommies give their milk out of and we shouldn’t say that.” I was so confused. Where did this come from?  What was she was talking about? I was trying to figure it out when I heard Gavin say the word again. Then it hit me, and I realized she wasn’t really tattling on Gavin, but on me, since I was the one who said it in the first place. Abby had no idea what a booby trap really was, but she knew it is a word we shouldn’t say.

I hated tattling so much as a kid. It always seemed like people would get in trouble for the silliest of mistakes, or choices, because someone chose to tattle. Kids tattled out of spite – with the sole purpose of getting others in trouble. I vowed to punish my kids strongly when they tattled, just because of my dismay for it. I’ve calmed down with age, but my kids know that unless it is earth shattering and very dangerous, I will often ignore whatever the crime is they are tattling about. My response to the tattler is often to remove yourself from the situation if you don’t like it. Until this point, I had never thought about what to do when they tattle on me to me.  

No matter how I feel about tattling, it is a part of our culture. It is that way for many reasons. Just the fact that we are all sinners who can’t live up to God’s standards creates a motivation/reason for us to look at others and say why they are worse than we are. It makes us feel better about ourselves. Maybe tattling helps us feel like we can clear the world of evildoers, until we realize that we are evildoers also.

This weekend we take time to reflect on another story during the journey of Jesus to the cross. This week’s stop takes us to some tattletales and Jesus’ response to them. It brings us back to focus on God’s call to repentance and what He came to do on this journey for us.