the boy will soon disguise his debts to his mother who has over the years buttered him loaves and checked his head for lice.

[street_princess]

Hi dear all,

I´m translating "On the charm of boring places" from Alain de Botton.

There is a paragraph that talks about a painting of de Hooch and I couldn´t understand what the writer is trying to express with the sentence below ;

´the boy soon will soon disguise his debts to his mother who has over the years buttered him loaves and checked his head for lice.´

what does ´disguise his debts´ mean here ??

below I am giving the whole paragraph;

" In A Woman with a Young Boy Preparing for School, a mother butters some bread for her son, he stands dutifully beside her, a little man holding his hat, dressed in a neat grey coat and polished shoes. If the scene is both unsentimental and moving, it is because we are made to feel the evanescence of these intimacies of mother and son. To the left of the canvas, a corridor leads to an open door and out to the street, where there is a large building marked Schole. The boy will soon disguise his debts to his mother who has over the years buttered him loaves and checked his head for lice. "

so I guess, I need your help

 

[panjandrum]

The boy owes a great deal to his mother.

Soon he will forget this and/or behave as if he owed her nothing.

 

[xqby]

When the boy is a bit older he won't be quite as affectionate towards his mom, apparently.
He owes his mother a lot, for obvious reasons, but when he is more of a man he will hide his feelings.

 

[street_princess]

Oh ok. I understand now.
Thank you so much panjandrum and xqby