My wife and I don’t plan on doing the whole “Santa Claus” thing with our kids, because when she was a kid she was very upset when she found out
Santa isn’t real
and doesn’t want to put her own kids through it.
I have noticed that most of our married friends have similar plans. And on another discussion board, the majority who piped up on the topic said they weren’t going to do the Santa thing.
There was a thread about it here in 2004, but it didn’t go very far and its probably not worth resurrecting.
I actually have a factual question despite the overall IMHOishness of the post. Are there alot more people today not telling their kids about Santa than there used to be? If so does anyone know or have any good theories as to why this is?
As to IMHO: Are you/do you/did you tell your kids Santa is ferreals, and what are/were your reasons?
Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and God. What do these four things have in common? I wasn’t upset at all then I realized these were fake. Santa Clause went first (in 1st grade) followed by the Easter Bunny, then Tooth Fairy, and finally God in 5th grade.
I mean haven’t you ever seen “Miracle on 34th street” or read the “Yes Virginia” letter?
What I meant to say is that we did indeed go with all the classic myths. Santa, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. We even have created a myth. “Ghosts are afraid of cats”. So if you have a cat with you, you do not need to worry about ghosts.
Both kids had picked up a fear of ghosts somewhere along the way. This helps.
I really do not see where Santa causes such grief. I stopped believing in the Jolly fat man when I was six. My daughter lasted until 8 and my son is still going at 6. My daughter is a willing co-conspirator. It is a fun myth. My daughter’s only regret is that Christmas was more magical when Santa delivered some presents.
There has been more than one thread on it, IIRC there is at least one each Christmas time. The majority seem to chime in with “it was no biggie when I found out, or I don’t remember even finding out, I just sorta knew one day” with a few “how DARE you {{{{ *lie * }}}}to the precious children, you FIENDS” thrown in for excitement.
I like what my brother and his wife are doing with their children, and would strongly consider doing it with any children I have. They do Santa, at least in the sense of having stockings for everyone. But their 3-year old is being taught that Santa is just pretend, and it’s really the grown-ups filling the stockings.
(We also this year, separated our religious celebration from our gift-giving celebration. Friday evening, rearrange family room, put out stockings, arrange all gifts under or near tree. Saturday morning, no one goes downstairs until all are ready, open stockings, eat breakfast, open gifts for remainder of day. Sunday, Christmas Eve, go to church, come home and eat, go back to church. Monday, Christmas Day, decorate and eat Jesus’s Birthday Cake (a tradition? I could do without) and generally relax and play all day. This was done to maximize the length of time between gift-opening day and travel day for my brother and his family. They intended to return home the day after Christmas. )
If I had kids, I would never tell them Santa is real.
I grew up religious with Santa. I found out he wasn’t real when I was seven. I actually thought it was kinda cool that he wasn’t real. I “got” it.
Still…I just can’t lie to kids. I rarely use ironic language with them, and am never sarcastic. If I use ironic humor, or make shit up, I only do it when they absolutely know I’m not serious.
But I don’t care what anyone else does. I ain’t the Santa police.
Think where you are posting (the heart of cynical-skepticland) and consider the sort of friends that people like we are would choose as friends.
I don’t know whether or not there is a growing trend to tell small kids Santa is fake. I have not seen it among my relatives and acquaintances.
Personally, I never “pushed” Santa with an insistence that he was real; he is sufficiently infused in the culture that the kids pick it up without help. However, I suspect that kids “discovering” that he is imaginary is an impoortant aspect of growing up. It seems to me that I saw something about that in one of Bruno Bettelheim’s works, but I may have confused him with a different author.
We did it with our kids. It was a lot of fun, they figured it out this year (they are seven and eight).
They really only “get it” for about four years or so - at one or two they really aren’t aware. At three and four and five its magical. At six their little minds start working - flying reindeer? All those toys? Why do I get less (or more) than my friends?
We thought it a great exercise in critical thinking and neither child was crushed - they were really excited that they figured it all out.
There was a religious war in my daughter’s first grade class - the believers (about half the first graders) on one side with the unbelievers on the other.
We do the Santa thing. It’s fun. It puts excitement and magic into the kids’ lives. Sure, they’ll figure out it’s a con, just like everybody else, and it will be good for them when they do. They’ll get over it, especially if they keep getting the presents. I don’t even think they’ll be all that disappointed by it.
Strangely, my 7 year old has already started saying she thinks Jesus is imaginary (I didn’t tell her that, I swear), but she still believes in Santa for now. I think it’s because Santa delivers something tangible every year. She’s pretty sharp, though and very critical in her thinking. I’ll be surprised if we can keep pulling the Santa wool over her eyes for more than one more Christmas.
I’ll teach my kids about Santa if only for the reason that when they figure out he isn’t real, they will most likely have developed the critical thinking skills to realize the same thing about any sort of mythological being or god. It’ll save me alot of time chasing away boogiemen, ghosts, or religious zealots.
I agree with what others have said about the critical thinking skills of kids who have figured it out.
I personally wouldn’t do ‘the santa thing’ if I had kids, but as it is I don’t plan to have any. I don’t really have a problem with others doing it with their kids - nor do I really think that if I did it would be my place to protest/put a stop to it.
I do have a problem with the occasional parent who seems hellbent on preserving their kid’s wide-eyed innocence in jam jar of formaldehyde. These are the parents who - when their kids does start to come out with ‘Hey, mum… how can reindeer fly? How can he fit all the presents in one sack? But we don’t have a chimney! How does he get all around the world in one night? How come I didn’t get the puppy I asked for when I was good all year?’ - respond with more and more cover-up glurge.
Come on, when your kid starts to develop a grasp of logic and of critical thinking - you should be rewarding him/her with the knowledge that they are right - not confusing and patronizing them with further nonsense. ‘No, no, no - all that sensible logical talk has no place in the mind of my child. Keep them stupid, keep them cute.’
Playing what is essentially a santa ‘game’ with young children is healthy, fun and human - not lying. When they get to the stage where their minds are clearly ready to accept the information and you keep blocking their mental path - that has more of a ‘lying’ feel.
In other words, let 'em grow up. Not force them, let them.
My BF said that when he found out there was no Santa, he assumed that meant there was no God. He has been an atheist ever since. I think this underlines the nature of the deception and the fact that it isn’t always harmless-- the realization can have a big effect on a kid’s psyche.
YET he still thinks it’s cool to tell your kid about Santa because it’s fun/funny, and it keeps the kid off your back. If your kid thinks some magical old man is in charge of gifts, who can watch him and tell if he’s bad or good, he’s more likely to be good. If he realizes it’s his parents who get the gifts, he’ll be more likely to demand gifts and nag. I wonder if this is accurate?
Me, I’d rather not bullshit my kids. After all, Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim kids live without some mythological dude giving them presents on 12/25. It’s not essential to lie to your kids in order to have a nice holiday. Not sure how we’re going to resolve this issue…
Oh just be done with it. Take them down to the hospital and show them the morgue. Have them visit the drunk tank. They can’t be kids, dangit! They need to understand reality every day of their lives!
Sigh. All this effort to protect every child from every trauma just leaves them unable to cope when life, as it will, inevitably deals them a horrid blow.
You know my biggest disappointment? Finding out the lovely ‘red velvet chamber’ that some doctor told me babies lived in in mommy’s tummy was actually yucky old blood. And I’m still alive to tell the tale.
Wellbut… There’s a difference between refusing to coddle a kid on the one hand, and on the other hand, actively participating in that which causes their distress.
At issue for my wife and some others isn’t the principle “I should protect my kid from every bit of distress” but rather, “I should not cause my child distress without a good reason.”
Some people on this thread have offered what they take to be good reasons, others have denied that the experience causes distress.
I don’t believe I’ve ever told my kids that Santa or the Tooth Fairy exist, but I play along with it - including the amazingly appearing gifts and helping them set out cookies and cocoa (even though I don’t drink cocoa). I’m not going to lie to them, but I’m also not going to harsh their mellow just to make them mature faster. Santa is fun, and it gives the older a way to feel he’s pulling a fast one on the younger.
They already know that God isn’t real (I’ve told them to ignore their grandparents imaginary friends “Jesus” and “God”). Needless to say,
We decided not to perpetuate the myth - that we would play along a little with stockings, etc., but at the same time explain it’s just a fun story like frosty the snowman, or dora, etc.
Because I knew it would probably come up at preschool, I explained to my 3 year old that a lot of people like believing in him, just like how she has fun believing in her pretend puppy friend. And that if friends at preschool were talking about Santa, she could probably find something to say too. To which she replied “when I saw Santa at the mall, he gave me a candy cane!”, and I said that would be great to say to her friends.
Well, she comes home from preschool the very next day, and I can only surmise that the topic of Santa did indeed come up. Her very first words to me were: “Mommy, I have decided to believe in Santa, so if you and Daddy could tell him to bring me presents too this year that would be the super coolest thing in the whole wide world!”
Sometimes I think she is smarter than hubby and I put together.
I would like to seriously dispute the premise of this thread.
Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy—they are real. I know, because when I was a kid, I got the goodies in my stocking, and the hidden candy eggs, and the money under my pillow.
What I became aware of when I got older was, not that Santa Claus wasn’t real, but that Santa Claus was really Dad and Mom. Santa Claus didn’t stop existing. I just had a better understanding of who Santa Claus really was. Santa Claus was someone who loved me enough that he not only wanted to give me presents and goodies, he wanted to make it happen in a fun and exciting and magical way. And that, I insist, is the absolute truth.
When you announce on Christmas Eve that “I hear sleigh bells,you’d better go to bed” .the look on their face is matched only by the thump of their feet on the stairs as they frantically try to get into bed.
I honour my parent’s efforts to make Thudlow Boink’s excellently expressed point, and hope my children will honour my efforts.
Children deserve and need a little magic in their lives.
Well, I like to say that we never told either of our kids that Santa was real. They figured that out for themselves
Seriously, though. When flodjunior started getting to the age when everyone was telling him about Santa Claus, we decided the best thing to do was to follow his lead. He wanted Santa to be real, so we indulged that. We never went to elaborate lengths with soot on the floor and all that, but his stocking got filled after he went to bed, and he figured that had to be Santa.
The Christmas he was six we could see he was figuring it all out, but we didn’t say anything. He had a new baby brother that year and we figured he needed to hold onto Santa just one more year. The next year, he said to me, flat out: “I know you’re the one who fills my stocking.” I admitted it. No trauma, and the very next day he told his baby brother that Santa would fill his stocking!
So the older has become “Santa Enforcer” for the younger, telling him stories and encouraging him to believe, and it’s a job he takes very seriously. Now our younger son is seven, and last Christmas I started to see a little doubt in his eyes, and I figure that may have been our last “Santa Christmas”. But Santa’s done his job.
Terry Pratchett did a great job explaining what’s up with Santa in Hogfather. Death’s very un-human take on why humans need to believe in things that aren’t there, and how Santa-as-Hogfather is part of learning this, is one of the best bits of writing in the whole Discworld series in my opinion.
I wasn’t upset at all then I realized these were fake. Santa Clause went first (in 1st grade) followed by the Easter Bunny, then Tooth Fairy, and finally God in 5th grade.