Never lying to your kids is a stupid idea. The world is full of liars and kids need to learn how to identify and respond. Lying to kids is a very important part of teaching critical thinking. However it needs to be age appropriate and done correctly. It's not something you do randomly and cruelly.

For example when my kids were in kindergarten and they got home from school I would come up with stories about what their teacher called to tell me about their day. Stuff like they made a parachute for the class snake and tossed it from the top of the school. Obvious lies that got them comfortable detecting a lie and defending themselves.

As they got older I came up with more creative lies that had them researching online to prove what I said was obvious bullshit. I often tossed in unusual facts that kept them on their toes. They never could quite trust what I told them until they researched it themselves from reputable sources.

Over the years, I have had some very proud moments when then call bullshit on other adults.

That being said how the parents lied in the above story was obviously a bad one. It was not age appropriate for the kid to detect it and call them on it. It caused the kid to worry because he didn't know what was going on.