So when is honesty no longer the best policy?

Here's the deal. I'm driving my kids (ages 7 and 2) home last night after work. I hit and killed a raccoon on the drive home. It was unavoidable.

Because I drive a Mustang and the kids really can't see out the windshield, they never saw the raccoon. They did hear the poor thing thumping along the bottom of the car though.

The 7yo of course asked me, "Dad. What was that noise?" I froze temporarily. Do I tell them the truth? Do I down play it and fib and tell them I hit and likely killed something less adorable, say a squirrel? Do I lie outright?

The boy asked me two more times, and I was still mulling it over when he offered me my "out." The Mustang's a stick and I had missed a gear a couple miles back. So the 7yo asks, "Dad, did you mis-shift again?" I went with it. "Yes, son. I did. Pretty silly, eh?"

So my question to the community...how would you have played it? Would you tell the unvarnished truth? Tell a partial truth? Lie outright? We want our kids to be open and honest with us. I want to be honest as I can be with them, but not this time.

Oooo. Tough call. I def. wouldn't have divulged the truth with the 2 year old in the car. (We haven't exactly explained why our 2 cats (whom we lost within a week of each other this year) cannot "come back home.") TheBoy misses them and talks about them often.

It really depends on what you've explained so far to the 7 year old. Does he understand death yet? If yes, then it might not be so bad to be truthful with him. With any future committing of murder by Mustang! I wouldn't really go back and say you lied about this time. OR, if you feel you must, explain that you didn't want to upset the 2 year old.

But for the incident at hand, I probably would have went with I 'hit something in the road. I think it was a bag of trash or something."

And because it apparently happens all too often, learn to shift your Mustang! Stop abusing it!

Nik -- interesting point about possibly divulging to the older but not the younger.

Even in the moment, I was more concerned with shielding them both from what happened. Never even considered that I'd go back and tell the 7yo later.

Gotta say, at this point, I think I'm going to let it lie...(ok, that might not have been the most tasteful turn of phrase right there). I'm just not going to revisit the situation.

As for my driving, all I'm going to say is I don't miss gears when I'm alone in the car. Something about having two kids under 8 doing all the things that kids that age will do will harry the BEST drivers.

With young kids, tough subjects pop up like, well, raccoons in the middle of the road. And we're not always ready with the perfect answer. In that case, it's okay to swerve to avoid the oncoming varmint.

Which you didn't.

Okay, this metaphor is breaking down fast.

Mortality, sex, drugs, divorce -- all out there needing to be addressed. You know it, you've even given it some thought, but when the subject crops up, you're often too much in shock to give a cogent answer.

This happened to me and my oldest with the subject of drugs. He raised the subject -- and I was so stunned I sputtered some "missed a gear" equivalent and moved quickly on. But I knew I'd have to circle back.

You will, too. You've stalled a bit with your white lie. To give yourself some time. Well worth it. Now it's front of mind, time to think about how you want to address this issue with your kids.