Pretend Pinky Promise

I will never forget the day I was told that the reason behind the 7 year old breaking a Pinky Promise was because it was a "Pretend Pinky Promise."

Back in, I think, December, I was trying to get the 7 year old to do his homework fast so he could get ready for swim practice. Keyword: Trying! It was probably around 4pm and I had to get him to swimming by 6pm, and he had yet to begin his homework because he kept on wasting time eating his snack and watching TV. He was being difficult and I had no idea how to handle this, so I told him that if he pinky promised to behave, listen to me and be nice, I'd give him a mystery "price". Boy was I wrong to believe a pinky promise would have the same meaning it had back in the '90s. After he got his homework done, with barely time to spare, he didn't feel he needed to listen to me when I told him he was going to be late to swimming. His response, "I don't like swimming anyway. If I'm late, it's no big deal. My parents let me do this." Riiiight, because trusting a child when they tell you that their parents let them do things all the time is probably the worst thing a babysitter or nanny can do. So, I ignored his comment and got him to hurry into the car. After swimming, he was the last one of the boys out of the locker room and later when we got back home, he wouldn't turn the TV off when I was trying to get him to go to bed so I could read him a bedtime story. Then, after about an hour of having his sisters and I tell him what to do, he finally listend to me.

Once in his room and having his teeth brushed, I asked him, "Dude! What happened to our Pinky Promise? If you break a Pinky Promise, bad things happen. Do you want bad things to happen?"
Him: "No.." Me: "Then don't break a Pinky Promise." Him: "But that was a Pretend Pinky Promise." Me: "....A what?!" Him: "Yeah. A Pretend Pinky Promise. It's like a Pinky Promise, except it's pretend." Me: "There's no such thing as a Pretend Pinky Promise. It's either real or a lie. And if you lie, your nose grows and bad things happen. Also, if you break a Pinky Promise, the person you broke the promise to is forced to break your pinky. I don't think you want that, do you?" Him: "No."

I'm pleased to say that ever since this conversation happened, there have been no more Pretend Pinky Promises, whatever those are.