Did Your Parents Lie About Your Age To Get Lower Ticket Prices, And Did That Scar You For Life?

During yesterday’s New Fantasyland post, I referenced a recent Dear Prudence in which Prudie provides the following advice to a parent concerned about the ethics of lying about kids’ ages to avoid paying extra for Disney tickets:

Tell your youngest to say, “Ga-ga, goo-goo,” as you enter and don’t worry about ripping off Disney — your group will be dropping a bundle.

So now I’m curious: did your parents ever lie about your age (or a sibling’s age) to get a cheaper ticket? Did you realize that’s what they were doing, and did it change the way you thought about ethics and morality?

And now that you’re an adult, have you ever lied about a child’s age to save some money?

It’s interesting that the argument always seems to be “if my child sees me lying, my child will know that it is okay to lie,” and never “if I lie about my child’s age, a company will lose money.” Or, for that matter, “if I lie about my child’s age, I will be doing something wrong.”

It only starts to feel wrong when the child is old enough to catch the parent in the lie, which is the truly interesting moral lesson at the heart of this quandary.

I don’t have any recollection of my parents ever lying about my or my little sister’s age. On the other hand, the other day my bus card was out of money, and I tried to refill it at a machine but it would only accept cash, so I got on the bus and pretended to be surprised when my card came up empty so the bus driver would let me ride the bus home anyway, which means that I am no better than any adult who lies to Disney.

It’s a good thing I didn’t have any children watching me.

Photo credit: Jared

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