Despite what Mangetout may claim, 
this atheist doesn’t have a problem having his kid believe in Santa Claus. It’s a harmless little gam; why spoil the fun?
(Now, believing in God would be an entirely different thing, since God is not a “harmless little game” – at least Santa doesn’t tell kids to condemn/hate/kill folks because of their beliefs or sexual orientation or what-have-you…)
You realise, of course that I said the position was usually held by atheists, not that atheists usually hold the position, which would be a different claim altogether.
I’ve never seen it played out to that extreme; certainly I’ve seen parents anxious not to have their children’s illusions shattered on Christmas Eve by some Warrior For The Truth, but it seems to me that this is more about being sensitive than it is about the issue of truth - in the same way as a parent might protect their child from callous (albeit totally realistic) detailed descriptions of the decomposition of animal corpses immediately following the burial of a beloved family pet.
I told my kids there is/was a Santa.
At 4, one child was happy about it. At five, she had questions like why and how. At six, she noticed some inconsistancies like the same ribbon used in packages from parents and Santa, lots of Santa’s around town, she heard some rumors about Santa from others, and noted that Dad couldn’t keep straight about which packages were from Santa and which were from Dad. At seven she knows he’s not real, but plays along and seems to enjoy the idea.
The other child seems to be moving along the same path but about a year behind.
This does not seem to have eroded her faith in us as parents or have caused her any harm. I have told her on many different occasions that she can always come to me with problems or questions, and that I would always try to answer her or help her with responses that were in her best interest (etc.). She has never asked me outright about Santa, but told me her thoughts. I believe she didn’t ask directly because she didn’t want a direct answer.
I think that smaller children are unable to discern between 'real 'and ‘not real’ as evidenced by, for example, the very ‘real’ life lived by Sweetie, the stuffed, blue dog who lives in my house and any other example such as imaginary friends, and boogie men, etc. Sweetie needed her paw held while she received stitches a while back, and ‘eats’ play food, etc. I would not have discouraged the feeding or comfort of Sweetie because she was not ‘real’.
I’m not entirely sure a younger child can understand then, when told that Santa is either ‘real’ or ‘not real’. If a child cannot discern, then I see no harm. I think it would be harmful to insist Santa is ‘real’ after the child can tell that he is not.
Also, I’ve never noticed any SA meetings for traumatized adults.
I’d be interested to know if parents who consider Santa to be a big lie would consider it wise to tell their children “that’s not Mickey Mouse, that’s just some guy in a suit” as they enter the gates at a Disney theme park.
Along the same lines, IMO there is a significant distinction between being truthful with your kids, and feeling you have some obligation for immediate and complete disclosure on all matters.
I like the whole fantasy thing…emphasis on “fantasy.” When a kid reaches a certain age, they become more “grown up” and are let in on the secret. Such is not the case with religion. The myth is perpetuated until as adults, they cannot tell the difference between fact and fantasy, i.e., evolution, resurrection, etc.
It’s a right to passage. I remember when my little sister was the last in the family to believe in Santa Claus and we went to great lengths to make sure she could enjoy the fantasy for as long as possible. We went to bed early so she thought we still believed, and then got up and did the Christmas Eve preparations, taking turns to listen for her in case she got up for some reason.
I believe that is the crux of the matter; it is (at least as far as I have observed) all about timing - nobody wants their child’s Christmas experience to be marred by disappointment, so they attempt to insulate the kids from any suggestion that might shatter their illusion; maybe they would be OK with the idea of their slightly older children being told the cold, hard truth of it all at some point after Christmas has passed, but that doesn’t generally happen because the issue disappears by itself.
The unusal aspect of the whole Santa issue is that the only time that the question is really topical is when it is also highly emotive.
Darn straight. Especially since we’ve already, long ago, discussed the difference between cartoons, which are drawings, and shows that are actors pretending to be the people in the show, and shows that are films of things that have actually happened.
Look at the language you’re using here. If it’s pretend, there are no “illusions” to shatter. If there are illusions, it’s because the child has been led to believe that something is true that isn’t. In other words, lied to. And comparing presenting pretend as pretend to revealing something potentially upsetting and disgusting is…odd, if you want my opinion. It’s not the same thing at all. Hearing that Santa is a myth is only upsetting, only illusion-shattering, if the child has been lied to in the first place.
People don’t talk about “not playing Santa anymore.” They talk about “finding out about Santa.” You don’t have to “find out” something you already know is pretend. If it was all just “pretend” why would anyone bother asking a child psychologist when to “tell your kids Santa is a myth?”
Also, I disagree that small children don’t know the difference between their own fantasies and reality. I think they know quite well when they’re pretending, though they do pretend very intensely. What they don’t know is when grownups are pretending, when they don’t have some cue to tell them that. If kids have to “figure it out” then the pretend game is the adult’s game, not the kids. They don’t get to actually play until they figure it out. Because until then they’re not playing. The whole “magic” of it is for you, not for them.
Now, I’ve already said I don’t think this is a “big” lie, or something that will cause harm, but a lie it is. It’s your choice if you want to tell it, but to then say, “Well, it’s not a lie, it’s pretend” and then go on and talk about being anxious about the truth “shattering illusions” and kids “finding out” and evading direct questions about it, that makes it plain that the kids involved aren’t playing pretend at all.
I don’t believe the children involved are ‘playing’ pretend, at least not until after they come to the realisation (and usually if they have a younger sibling). I don’t think I have stated anywhere that I thought children who believed it were playing pretend, as that would be self-contradictory.
Illusion also doesn’t have to mean ‘lie’ (‘lie’ is such a charged word, I find) - is a magician lying when he entertains people? Is it somehow wrong that he doesn’t immediately explain how the tricks were really done? I don’t think so - it’s just harmless entertainment and the parent who sits alongside telling the child that this trick was done with mirrors, that one with wires and the doves were up his sleeve seems to me nothing more than a killjoy - I can’t see any noble purpose being served by it, indeed it seems a little egotistical.
I also don’t think it is necessarily the case that children are led to believe it - they absorb it from their peers - the whole thing has inertia of its own - I think it would be quite true to say that I haven’t woven any elaborate tales or deliberately told my children very much about Santa at all and I think this may be true of the majority of parents (at least locally).
Is there anyone out there who feels particularly wronged by their parents for having not been told the facts straight away? Are there any that were told earlier than they feel was right?
Argh! Although all the answers are really interesting and I thank you all for answering it, my first intend was not to lauch a Great Debate, but really to have factual answers from scientific data following psychological evalutation of children. Ho, well… Good bye General Question…
As for the debate, I am curious about the link between Santa/Myths/Cartoons/etc. and religion. I’ve never seen Santa as a competitor for God. I don’t think chilkdren with religious education put it on the same level. For a believer God would be everything, in everyday of his life, and Santa just a one day Superman.
For a child, is Santa above God? Is Mickey Mouse above God? Michael Jackson? Wow! That’s a question
My opinion is that there is a world for everybody, believers, non-believers, and hatred and fundamentalism should not be the result of any thought. I respect people who have their children believe in Santa, although mine won’t. 'just have some unanswered scientific questions 
And also about my shocking revelation to the class the inexistance of Santa : we’re talking about a 5 -6 years old innocent little guy first, and it was 30-something years ago, when all those modern cosy [although noble] conversations about protecting other’s beliefs in the classroom were not really hip. O tempora, O mores.
I felt betrayed not about Santa as much as the Easter bunny. I was told it was not real by a classmate in second grade and confronted my mother instead of telling me the truth, she acted as if I were being bad for even asking her and threatened my easter basket. Mind you I did not confront her in front of anyone else, especially my little brother. I felt betrayed because not only did she lie, she acted like I was wrong for asking her about it. I won’t tell my daughter that these kind of things are real.
While I admire the noble conviction of never lying to your children, I wish those folks all the best of luck with that. Big Factual Stuff, I’m with you. But, some “lies” as you call them are necessary simply because a 3 year old is not going to grasp every single concept in this world. For instance, the death of a family member or pet, or where his/her security blanket has disappeared to. Those are the only kind of “lies” I remember from my early childhood and honestly I can’t say I’m even the slightest bit bitter about it.
The Santa fantasy was ruined for me by my own older sister. She burst that bubble, and I never once confronted my parents with any sort of ACCUSATION that they had been duping me. No, that momentary bitterness was all directed at the sister for spoiling it.
Hey, cultures vary, and I’m not saying your child HAS to believe in Santa. Aforementioned sister is raising her children not to believe in him, actually, because she is now Muslim. But I just wouldnt ever consider Santa a BIG LIE. And I would never be afraid my children would hate me and not trust me EVER AGAIN TO INFINITY because I perpetuated that particular fantasy for 6 or 7 years. The fun they had may just outweigh the disappointment. They’ll get over it.
Of course, once they find out Santa doesn’t exist, they have to start writing Thank You letters…
Point: having a fantasy is one thing, pretending it is real is quite another.
I figured out that Santa wasn’t real around age 5 or 6. It’s hard to remember that long ago. What I do remember clearly, however, is that it was my first bitter taste of the general untrustworthiness of adults, something that stuck in my mind.
Whether that was a good thing or not is a debatable point.
It nevertheless took me far longer to get over believing in God, which is a far deadlier and more pernicious fantasy than Santa, though it is also one that has a hardly less flimsy basis as fact. It is simply far more widely and aggressively believed. Perhaps using my brain to think away Santa’s existence was a good preparation for (many years later) thinking through and out of that much more frightening fantasy.
The kid may not know how the magician does his tricks, but he generally knows that they are tricks. I mean, both Uri Geller and James Randi can bend spoons, but I’m fairly sure that the members of this board consider them just a bit different in their approaches.
With young children, I believe that this simply isn’t the case; older children perhaps, but to most kids under five, it’s magic and I think they enjoy it all the more.
I don’t recall my world crashing down when I found out Santa wasn’t real, not that my parents encouraged our beliefs in that direction. It made me happier to get presents from the dogs.
How often does a child’s belief in Santa get used as discipline or a way of controlling and policing behavior, as in “be good or you’ll get coal for Christmas”? Is this where it turns from something innocent into something to be manipulated?
Any such attempt can easily backfire - very few parents would have the determination to go through with a threat based on the ‘naughty list’ and if they crumbled, the child could gain the impression that he/she mustn’t have been all that naughty after all and that the parents were just making a fuss over something that wasn’t really a misdemeanour when they told him/her off
Kids can and will use their own imaginations to come up with all kinds of stuff without an adult’s help. They won’t miss out on anything by not believing in Santa any more than they’ll miss out by not believing in Cofhuy, the Himilayan Yubnub (a fun-loving pixie that visits children right before school starts… and a character I just now made up). At the very least knowing the truth is benign and won’t hurt.
There are indeed several elaborate tricks to get them to believe. In this country at least you can write to Santa and the post office and TV commercials give you a real address (North Pole, postal code H0H 0H0). There are actually people employed or at the very least volunteering to sort and probably shred the thousands of letters that come in. I’ve seen at least once a real scientist on Discovery.CA (Science show that kids sometimes watch) giving a straight-faced lecture on how Santa is real complete with BS proofs (I’ll bet the guy felt like showering after that little interview), and just about every news channel (about the most “trust-worthy” outside source a kid knows about) will run a short story on the local airport tracking Santa’s sleigh on radar - sometimes even showing phoney radar images. Then there’s all the commercials and advertising; probably millions spent on maintaining the myth, even if it is just that. Santa would be a lot less popular if it weren’t for us adults. It ain’t the kids keeping him alive - they’ve got their own imaginary friends.
The “fun and magic” of this particular myth does seem to come down to being for the adults - the kids already have theirs. Go along with it if you wish; I guess it does no real harm… I just don’t see any point in doing so; it’s not like kids need our help in the fantasy department.