Zengzi’s wife was going to the market, and their son followed her, crying. She told him to go home and promised to kill the pig for him when she came back. When she returned, Zengzi was about to catch the pig. She stopped him. “I was only joking with the child.”
Zengzi answered: “A child is not someone to joke with. A child does not yet know anything. He learns from his parents and listens to what they teach. If you deceive him now, you teach him to deceive.” He cooked the pig. The Han Feizi tells the story under the line “When small trust is kept, great trust is established.”