I was nine when I figured out that there is no Santa Clause. I played hooky early in December and went into my mother’s closet where I found all the future Christmas presents sitting unwrapped in shopping bags. Yeah, I was a little slow.
I was angry to think that I’d been lied to for 9 years, that it was considered OK to lie to children, that lying to children is part of our culture. I also decided that there was no God at that time. Later I decided to believe in God because my parents became very religious.
Yeah, but hurting them because it makes YOU feel good to watch them ignorantly attacking their presents with glee? How about giving them a more honest kind of happiness, that doesn’t come around to bite the in the ass a few years on?
I continued to give my son gifts after he no longer believed in Santa Claus. He didn’t regret having believed, and either did I. It’s a fun form of entertainment. He’s not distrustful, damaged, scarred or pissed off at me. He loved the fact that he had a few short years of belief in Santa. I don’t know a single person that is permanently (or even short-term…beyond the initial day or two after finding out the truth) damaged from the Santa Claus ruse. Do you?
I strongly agree with those who say not to keep up the illusion too long or too vehemently, long past the time your children have begun questioning it. If all taken in good fun, and presented as “This is something we have to keep up for a few more years, because Santa Claus is family members giving joy to others, and we want to give [younger sibling] as much joy as was given to you,” then okay. But making a pretense that Santa Claus is 100% factually real to the point where you threaten that your children won’t have gifts if they don’t actively profess a belief in Santa Claus (one of my uncles–oy) is just harmful.
Basically, what you’re doing if you keep up the Santa Claus thing for too long is teaching your kids that everything someone tells them isn’t necessarily true. Granted, this is a valuable lesson for them to learn, but in that context? Maybe not. Because I had lots of not-too-much-younger cousins, my parents kept on insisting that Santa Claus was 100% true, going to great lengths to preserve this belief, long after I’d begun to question. So of course I did the whole critical thinking thing: “What about kids in Jewish/Muslim/atheist homes? Is that fair? Physically speaking, how does one guy get around to every Christian household in the world in one night? What about the houses-with-chimneys vs. houses-with-no-chimneys condundrum? How does Santa know when we spend Christmas with Grandma? I mean, the guy may be a mythical figure, but he isn’t psychic.” I was a child with a very black-and-white worldview–something is either true or it is not–and it was extremely difficult for me to reconcile the things I knew about the world with the things my parents were unceasingly insisting were completely and totally true.
So by all means, go for it. But maybe present it as more of a fairy story than as strictly factual, because there’s less riding on it–most kids in the schoolyard aren’t going to burst into tears if you inform them that Cinderella isn’t real. Don’t actively try to deceive your children once they’ve begun doubting. There’s plenty of time once they’re older to discover that the world is full of people telling them things that just aren’t true. Uri Geller, anyone?
No more than any rolepaying game. Or playing Candyland, for that matter. Or even “Let’s pretend.” Is that lying to your kids? Santa and the Easter Bunny are just an elaborate game of pretending, which is something normal kids love to do.
We talked about Santa and the Easter Bunny with our daughter. She loved it (loved the legend that she wanted to report the girl down the street to Santa for saying he wasn’t real).
When she was six, we figured it would be her last year, and were delighted that she still believed. It was “Santa this” and “Santa that” the entire season. Then, on Christmas Eve, as I was tucking her into bed, she looked at me and, in a worried tone, asked, “Is it all right to pretend to believe in Santa?”
I told her it was, and turned out the light. It was one of the sweetest moments of being a parent and, the important thing was that it showed she had an imagination.
Parents who call it lying are just justifying their own lack of imagination. It’s sad, really. They’re the type of anal retentive people who can’t enjoy a movie if it takes the slightest liberties on the facts, or a book if there’s a typo or two.
I suppose if you thought your kid was going to be that sort of unimaginative drone, then it would be better not to tell the story (after all, we wouldn’t want them listening to stories), but I had higher hopes for my daughter.
My mom and the other adults threatened punishment for any evidence of disbelief and knowing my mom, she would follow through. I did not like participating in the conspiracy after I figured it out and hated my mother for trying to make me lie and say Santa was real. I was punished for failure to fully participate, missing out on goodies that were reserved for those who would say they believed (regardless of whether they really did believe) and will not tolerate such nastiness directed at getting my daughter to behave a certain way. I don’t want to teach my daughter that she must compromise honesty, integrity, or suspend her own good judgment to get rewards however well that reflects the grown up world.
What a nasty piece of work! It reminds me of the kids turning their parents in in 1984. I don’t see that as the least bit charming. Reporting someone causing harm, I want to encourage, but reporting someone for not complying in belief really quite a different thing entirely and quite sickening.
The big distinction with that, though, is saying “Let’s pretend” let’s the child know outright that it is just pretend.
I loved playing “pretend” as a kid, and when my son is old enough, I can’t wait to play “pretend” with him as well. I’m completely for “playing” Santa and all that, and never wanted to exclude the cookies, stockings, gifts, etc. from my home; I just wanted to make it an elaborate game of pretend that the child is in on as opposed to leaving him out of the main part of the loop.
Still trying to understand, and open to understanding it…going back to “listening” now.
I was raised Jewish so EB and SC were not a part of my tradition. I am hard wired as a skeptic and a critical thinker so I never believed in the TF and it never occurred to me that she was anything other than my Mom. At the time, I thought that the kids who believed in any of that stuff were jack asses.
The lyrics of Santa Claus is Coming to Town always did and still do creep me the fuck out.
He knows when you are sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
Just to be clear on this: you consider honesty to be an “idiotic principle?” I can understand not believing that’s it’s important in this case, but “idiotic?”
Well, I didn’t mean “you” as in YOU specifically. I should clarify that I have nothing against playing “Santa games” with your kid, laying out the stockings, singing Santa songs and having fun as long as they know it’s just a game. The way I see it, if you act as if he is absolutly real, make them write letters to him and think up clever answers to his questions when he starts to doubt then you are not doing it for them anymore. If I believed in Santa I would not be hurt when I found out but any wonder that I felt would kind of fall apart (It’s a bit hard to get excited remembering presents magically appearing after you KNOW it was just your dad) and I would think it’s a pointless tradition. Kind of like I do now.
What’s with all these people who think the anti-Santa side are a bunch of joyless nutsos? If I had kids I’d celebrate Christmas with them all the same, I just wouldn’t go out of my way to make them believe in a fake person. It’s not like I’d say “No presents, no tree, no carols! You will DO your crossword puzzles, and you will ENJOY them!”
We did the whole nine yards. Not only did we visit Santa, write letters, and put cookies and milk out for him, but both my son and I were raised to believe Santa brought the whole tree and gifts on Christmas eve. We were totally amazed every Christmas morning. And when we finally figured out there wasn’t really a Santa, we were totally cool with it. I didn’t feel betrayed at all. I felt like I was let in on a “grown up” secret. My brother and I continued the charade for our little sister and loved every second of it.
If folks don’t think it’s a good idea, that’s their business. However, I don’t know any well-adjusted, healthy people who feel betrayed or lied to. Not one. In fact, even the whack jobs i’m acquainted with had no problem with the Christmas / Santa thing. It’s such an obvious “Duh!” moment when you finally find out. All your suspicions come together and you cross over to “the other side.” Pretty painless.
It’s a shame that this kid chose to bully in that way, but a lot of us were excrutiatingly shy and sensitive as children. Kids, especially at that age are cruel.
It sounds as if it was the mocking and bullying that was the part that created such trauma rather than what the bully used (santa) as ammunition with which to attack you.
Kids of that type rarely need to have another kid’s parents “give him” ammunition. You have kids, so I don’t need to tell you this, but a bully will find something. If it weren’t santa, it would have been something else equally as hurtful and traumatic. Particularly for those children such as yourself, who are hyper-sensitive.
I was very shy, and easily hurt, but my sister took it to the ultra extreme. That child would cry at a cross look from a teacher. Maybe try to break this down and look at the source of your pain rather than what it was the bully used as the impetus for his torture?
Nothing really “wrong” with that, except that it makes you your own worst enemy. We can never really get over it (if a boss calls me into his office, I’m so sensitive that I’m SURE I’m about to be chewed out, only to find out it’s something totally work related like him/her just needing information on some project or another), but we can lessen its effects by looking to the source of our discomfort (oftentimes bullies) and reducing their power over us.
Not sure if that helps with the santa issues, but I’m hoping it will give you a bit of peace on that long ago nasty encounter on the playground (Little jerk, GRRRRRrrrrrRRR I hate people like that, you know? He’s probably a big old beer gutted moron whose only bright spot in life was his brief football “career” in high school).
IMHO, yours was a bit of a unique situation. You felt betrayed and lied to because the bully’s actions were so barsh and the situation with how he mocked and humiliated you were so traumatic. (and I don’t blame you there! It sounds awful). Particularly since you are obviously such a caring parent. If kids are well taken care of and can trust their parents in all ways, (their care, a loving kiss when they get a boo boo, that they’re always there when the child needs them) honest, the basis for immense trust is there.
I hope we’ve been able to get you little more comfortable with it. But more than likely, like most of us, she’ll just gradually outgrow it and it’ll be a small blip on her childhood radar, likely far outweighed by the memories of magic that came before the “big reveal”.
I don’t know if they do this in the lower 48, but every year on Christmas eve, one or more radio stations do “Special Report” on a UFO heading out of North Pole. It puts a smile on my face every time, though, by the time I moved up here I was long past believing. But my own children (now 26 and about to me a mom herself for the first time, and son 14) loved it!
I also remember catching a hint from another mom back when my son was little and losing his baby teeth. I took one of my daughter’s barbie dolls, dipped its feet in glitter, and made little bitty footprints up to the pillow where I’d put the “tooth fairy” money.
He was already old enough to semi-doubt the existance of these mythical creatures, but the half wonder, half cynical look was too cool. He remembers that, but like a lot of us, doesn’t really remember finding out “for sure”. It just sort of happened.
One good thing, you’ve got a lot of months not to have to worry about it (santa).
Not to mention some other way to get them to go to bed besides “well, Santa can’t come if the kids are still awake”!
But to answer your comment. Family traditions. Maybe one of the reasons the “loss” of santa wasn’t such a huge or traumatic loss to me and others who’ve expressed that, is that we had a huge number of other things that went on around the holidays.
For my nutty family there was, every year, the mystery of the one-legged turkey. Drawing names, singing around the piano…so much more.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I find the whole Santa thing patronising. The only reason it works is because the child is too young to know any better. “Superiority” is too strong a word but I have always felt there was a feeling of amusement among the adults at the child’s “innocence” or whatever, like watching a puppy chase its tail. “Aww, how cute, little Timmy really believes there’s a Santa.” There’s no malice in it of course, and as Kalhoun said it doesn’t harm the child, but there is something else about it that makes me uncomfortable. Like books of cute toddler quotes and Bill Cosby stringing kids along on Kids Say the Darndest things. Like the looks people got on their faces when the 8-year-old me told them I wanted to be an architect. I hated that with a burning passion as a kid and I still dislike it now.
People told me lots of crap as a kid. The old guy below our apartment told me he had a dog (he didn’t). Whenever I asked for it he told me it had gone on a business trip. My kindergarten teacher told me she could turn into a bird and fly to the police station if we were bad. (She also told me my dad had gone to Australia because he didn’t love me anymore. I told her she had eyes on her butt. She was not amused.) My parents told me there was a rabbit in the moon. The old lady across the street told me animals could talk if I listened hard enough. I came to Australia when I was 4 1/2 and here they told me about Santa, Jesus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. We wrote letters to them. We sang songs about them. We did worksheets on them. Everyone else at school believed in them. An older girl told me there was a wolf who wanted to eat me. Every time I went to her house he “called” me and I would have to talk to him. I called bullshit on every one of those stories except the wolf, because I didn’t think I would be lied to by another kid. Even so I found him to be more of a nuisance than a menace and swore to tell him off good if he ever came to eat me for wasting so much of my time. None of this made my life magical. I don’t see the point of inflicting it on my kids.
It sounds as if you too, are one of those folks who is just more sensitive. You remind me a bit of my little sister (well, not so little, she’s about to turn 43 :)).
She also took any sort of teasing from anyone as having a smug or harmful intent. Parents, and probably even moreso, adults without children are not born with some failsafe perfect parent behaviour gene. So, if you find the older childless gentleman playing “hey my thumb is gone” with you, it doesn’t have to mean he feels any sort of “superiority” slight or otherwise, over the child. More likely it merely means it’s his best effort when dealing with a child.
Just as many kids ADORED their goofy uncle because of the goofy stories he told. Dog on a business trip? That’s pretty damned funny.
Lies. Tricking. Betrayal.
Those are awfully strong and untrue accusations to lob at one’s fellow parents out in the world. (not that you’ve done that, but the feeling has been pretty obvious among some of the dopers in this thread).
It seems, that among those of us for whom “finding out” was hardly a bump in the road, our parents made the whole santa thing a mild indulgence, rather than, as I said in my first post “a full-blown, 15 part mini-series”. I’d be interested to know from those who do feel a bitter betrayal how exactly their parents handled the santa situation?
Damn…sounds like a lot of rather nutso people there. And like the OP, it sounds as if you have a some bad memories regarding santa, so of COURSE you’re going to feel that way.
What most of us are trying to say here though is not “you don’t have a right to decide that” but you don’t have a right to label others as liars, betrayers and tricksters if we do indulge in a myth with our children.
Most folks (at least as evidenced by this thread, I went looking for cites, but in the short amount of time I had this morning, I only found other message boards with posts regarding the santa debate) did have an enjoyable childhood experience with santa.
It doesn’t leave a good taste in one’s mouth when some then turn around and accuse our parents (and those of us who are also parents) of being bad parents. And “I don’t want to lie to, trick and betray my child” translates as “that is what you did, and I am therefore a better parent”.
It is that, rather than trying to cling to the right to indulge in the santa myth that is getting some people in a rather angry mood in this thread. That of being accused of unsavory motives.
Well, I didn’t find it funny mostly because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. That’s like making fun of a retarded person. Who exactly are you entertaining there?
I mean… let me elaborate. When I said the Cosby Show, I had a specific example in mind that suddenly made it clear to me why I never liked the show before. Bill Cosby was interviewing this little kid, right, and he asked if he had any hobbies. While the kid was hemming and hawing Bill leaned over and audibly whispered “Ballet.” So what does the kid say? Ballet. And then he has to get up perform his “ballet” in front of everyone. I mean there is teasing a kid, and then there is setting them up.
Nope, no bad memories, just a lot of really boring ones. Of course, we were poor, so the best present I ever got from “Santa” was a bag of caramel popcorn. A pretty good tip-off as to his existence if you ask me. Just out of interest, where did you get that idea?
I didn’t say you were tricksters or betrayers. Liars, sure, but only because you were lying. Culturally acceptable lying, but still, lying. Not an accusation as much as a statement.
I don’t think you have unsavory motives. As I said, I think superiority is too strong a word, but there isn’t really a suitable one. It is pleasure from being bigger, stronger and smarter than them, and enough so that you can put them in a different world while you pull the strings behind the scenes. That the “magic” depends on keep them them ignorant. I find that dishonest.
I think “ignorant” is a rather loaded word. It smacks of trying to do intellectual harm, and no parent I’ve ever known has ever had that intent when they perpetuate the Santa Claus myth. We’re not talking about telling kids that the Earth is flat. It’s light-hearted play. The full intent is to bring whimsey and joy to the child; not to keep him or her “stupid.”
I was a child with a very black-and-white worldview–something is either true or it is not–and it was extremely difficult for me to reconcile the things I knew about the world with the things my parents were unceasingly insisting were completely and totally true.