So you admit that it was deliberate “tormenting,” and that you don’t regret it to this day. If you don’t regret something, that means you don’t think it is wrong. And your logic is “because they still got something I didn’t, it’s okay.”
That logic would mean that it’s okay for poorer people to harass you and your family. You have more money than them. It means a homeless person can do whatever they want, since at least all those other people have a home. A criminal that steals from a big company has done nothing wrong, since the company still has a lot more money.
None of this seems to fit what you’ve said before as your current beliefs. Heck, you’re cop, so I assume you’d stop any criminal stuff, rather than say it’s okay.
So it seems to me that you just feel the need to defend your child self. But it’s perfectly fine to admit “You know, I was a little shit as a kid. I’m glad I’ve grown up and learned to care about other people.” In fact, that’s what I assumed your point was until you clarified.
I mean, I did a lot of things I regret as a kid. I was a little shit towards my sister. The way I treated girls as I got a bit older was, in hindsight, quite creepy. And, yeah, I could feel the need to defend it as “nothing more than what kids do.” But, as an adult, I do realize those actions were wrong.
I can be proud of something devious I did while also realizing 100% that it was wrong.
I find it hilarious that our religious relatives had no problem telling their kids when they’re older that Santa Clause isn’t real, and then can’t understand why their kids stopped being religious when they got older.
“Yeah, we were lying when we told you about that invisible guy watching everything you do, but the other invisible guy watching everything you do, he’s totally real!”
I wrote a long Facebook post about this one last year. You can’t lie to kids about Santa and then be surprised when they don’t accept the truth of God. It’s crying wolf.
The Santa myth is basically ‘My First Religion!’ for kids. Easy to understand, not too complicated, very simple actions/consequences - ie - ‘Be good - get presents’. Plus early introduction to prayers (writing letters to Santa, asking for stuff). The scary thing is the ‘Watching over you all the time’ - hey, but that’s the basis of much of Christianity.
Then a little hand-waving from parents about inconsistencies such as: ‘How come the kid from the rich family down the road gets better presents than me from Santa?’ and ‘How come the school bully - who we all KNOW has been bad - still gets presents?’.
Great, so I got to find out that neither Santa nor Batman are real in the same thread. So much for my possibly being taken off of suicide watch tomorrow.
Please. If anything in inoculates them early from a ‘if you’re good a fairy sees it and you get presents, if you’re bad a fairy sees it and you get punished’.
My mind boggles the standard Christmas stuff is actually supported by the Christian faithful. That fat man is a Rolly-Polly insult to their entire belief structure.
It sure seems like it. I always wonder why it’s so important that they perpetuate the Santa myth. And why be so defensive about your choice to perpetuate it? I’ve had people get angry with me for not participating in this cultural phenomenon. I really don’t understand why people get so invested in the whole thing.
I’m not religious, I would be angry at the teacher who did this to a first grade class.
We celebrate Christmas and Chanukah in our house. No religious overtones on Xmas side, just the season of giving and family. I enjoy the lights and the tree. My wife or children these days, read a simple prayer as they light the candles. We enjoy it and the kids enjoyed the Santa myth. I’m also happy enough with all the old pagan rituals that Christmas absorbed.
For me it would have zero to do with you participating or not participating in the charade but you deciding what’s best for my child? That is a disrespectful top me and my children and I wouldn’t have it.
We’d have been rolling on the ground if you (or anyone else) did something like that in front of me.
I agree that is the point. The thread has devolved into a “Santa good/Santa bad” discussion but the real problem is a teacher saying to a bunch of first graders, “What your parents are telling you is wrong.” Santa is not a subject in school so the teacher should just let it alone and get back to math and social studies.
I wasn’t really using “you” as in YOU. I was referring back to the teacher and quite a few people in this thread defending those teachers actions.
Is Santa (as gets celebrated today) a myth, of course. But as a parent, I get to choose when to tell my kids that it is so (assuming I celebrate Christmas)
the parental
From my perspective, the teacher is disrespecting the parents decisions and should be reprimanded for that.
Folks who are mad about parents who tell their kids Santa is real: have you ever heard how some rightwing Christians talk about reading Harry Potter, and how it endangers children by luring them with the fantasy of magic, and blah blah blah?
You know how irritating that is? How you might think, “Dude, it’s harmless pretend and doesn’t hurt anyone, shut up with your weird moralizing about it”?
