I never believed because my family doesn’t celebrate Xmas, but I did believe in the tooth fairy and when I found out about that I don’t remember being upset. I know there are some people who claim being lied to about these things sucks but I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s like lying about something real.
“Traumatized” might be too strong here, but my wife is still pretty mad about the whole thing. That’s why we’re not doing Santa with our own kids.
I’ve noticed about her family that they put a lot of stock in honesty. I mean, everyone does of course but for them it’s one of the values they put most in the foreground when discussing moral and personal issues. (For example, when her brother was doing drugs and stealing money in order to do so, her family’s complaint wasn’t “how could he steal from us?!” but rather “why would he lie to us?!” The obvious answer–that he lied in order not to be known to be a thief and addict–simply doesn’t seem to occur to these guys. Dishonesty is practically incomprehensible to them, at least in public speech.)
So anyway, the big Santa revelation came to her as a massive violation of trust. She had gone to a lot of effort to argue with her friends that Santa existed, and she was relying on her mom, whom she trusted completely, to back her up. And it turned out her mom had been lying. This seriously pissed her off–and yes, still makes her mad when she thinks of it, to this day.
It was painfully obvious that there was no tooth fairy, Santa Claus, etc. from the earliest I could remember. I was actually more confused by the actions of my parents, as in “how could they possibly expect anyone to believe this stuff?” Then I became very dismayed about the actions of my childhood friends, as in “how on earth can they believe this stuff?” I’ll never forget watching in horror in 2nd grade as two boys fought an amazingly bloody fight next to a bike rack - the cause of their fight? One boy insisted that there was no Santa Claus, and the other one was going to make him pay for his lack of faith. Since he won, I guess Might made Right, and Santa really did exist.
Later on, I became somewhat upset that there wasn’t a Santa Claus, in that the concept seemed so nice, I really wished that there was one, but knew there wasn’t. Perhaps I need to make a Muldur-esque poster with an outline of Santa in front of a full moon, with the subtext “I Want to Believe!”
There is no Tooth Fairy.
There is no Easter Bunny.
There is no Santa Claus.
There is no God.
Based on the evidence for each, yep, I’d say those are pretty much the same.
I don’t know what’s so compelling about the Santa myth in the first place, the whole “he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake” thing is just creepy as all hell. And it’s obviously intended as a convenient passive-agressive way to threaten your kids into good behavior. Far as I’m concerned, if you want to threaten your kids with withholding presents you should take responsibility for it yourself, not blame it on Santa.
I say it’s just a fun traditional thing to do and it allows them to feel involved in the holidays (because otherwise christmas would just feel overly religious and intrusive without the non-religious aspect of Santa coming to visit). But because of Santa, even those who aren’t Christian or Jewish can partake/feel involved in the Holiday spirit as it were.
Plus, it is one of those things where it’s a coming of age process, having the child think about it and logically coming to the conclusion that there is no Santa isn’t always a bad thing.
It’s no more difficult a question of childhood trauma than “Should I let my child play sports? They may learn about cooperation and teamwork, or they may get beaned in the head on the first pitch and loathe the sport and suffer a concussion or worse.”
It’s one of those things you just have to make a value judgment on, pros and cons on how you see it and how much you’re worried about the “risk” of a child realizing that the Santa thing is a lie.
I always considered Santa a mythological figure, and not just a “lie” though, so that made it easier for me- it didn’t become “oh noes! My parents were lying to me!” but rather a moment of “Oh, I’ve just realized what’s going on…” and basically then getting to the next phase of the culture- which is being on the other side, and basically now that I knew, I had the responsibility of perpetuating the myth for younger generations. It’s like advancing up in the ranks- I was “big enough” to now understand that there is no Santa, but with that knowledge comes the responsibility of not spoiling it for younger ones.
Also, if they have younger siblings (as I did) it makes it easier and fun then to get to be a part of the action- getting to Play Santa, and trying to keep the myth alive for the younger one. I kept my sister going until about age 10 or 11 with it and it was quite fun and not traumatic.
And now that we have a lil’ baby cousin, she is looking fowards to spreading the Santa myth to the little one. It’s a cycle of shared cultural experiences!
I figured it out on my own (take one 100% critical and careful look at a globe and it’s obvious) at age 6-wasn’t upset, because even then, having debunked his existence, I still saw the whole point behind it. When my sister got old enough to get the concept, I played along as any good older brother should.
My nephew wasn’t so lucky-he believed until he was 12, at which point my sister broke down and told him-and yes he was very upset. My niece, also now 12, still believes-and in her case she thinks Santa gave her the puppy (last X-Mas) she adores, so the denouement might be even messier there. My nephew may be even smarter than I, in a book sense, but never put two and two together like I did (hmm an interesting psychological study could be done on which types of kids keep believing and which don’t).
I’d be okay with letting the myth play out, but only until age 8-9 or so (as in, I think my sister missed the boat by several years on this one).
You’d think he’d have more constructive things to do with his time / for heavens’ sake.
Thank you Jay Leonhart and Maureen McGovern. 
That’s pretty much how I see it. It was a coming of age for your daughter. She was part of the kid world, and that was fun, and then she was part of the adult world, and that was fun too.
My worry about Santa was actually a selfish logistical concern. I was afraid Santa was gonna stop bringing me loot. 
Which of course didn’t happen until my sister was much older, but still. Now, I don’t really care much if I get presents at all.
To say that parents perpetuating the Santa myth to their young children is lying is true; it’s in the same category as saying “Fine,” after bad day when a cashier at the grocery store asks how you are. I’m truly perplexed at some of the anecdotes of people extrapolating finding out that Santa isn’t real to some sort of massive trust-shattering event that should cause them to doubt everything their parents say from then on. That strikes me as just a little melodramatic. It takes all kinds to make a world, to be sure, but this is a reaction that I just can’t get my head around.
So for those whose parents valued trust and honesty so much that keeping the myth alive was just too ethically repugnant, if you were to say as a kid “Nobody likes me. I’m never going to make any friends,” would your parents say, “Well, I can see why. You’re a food shorter than most kids your age and you’re cross-eyed. Get used to disappointment!”?
I just don’t see a big problem with it.
My oldest daughter (now 22) probably decided/discovered when she was about eight that Santa wasn’t real. She didn’t seem traumatized. My middle daughter (now 18) approached me when she was about nine and asked if Santa was real. I asked her what she thought. She made a deliberate choice to continue believing for a couple more years. My youngest daughter (she’ll be 10 the end of this month) has never ‘liked’ Santa. I wasn’t surprised when, as a baby, she cried when I tried to have her picture taken with Santa at the mall; a lot of babies do that. But as she got older, she was actually distressed at the idea of Santa coming to our house. She did not want him there! “You and Dad can get my Christmas presents! I don’t want Santa in my house!” I used to “send him emails” every year to tell him not to bother coming to our house, we had it covered without his help! One year, my husband had a particularly awesome boss who actually “sent an email back” as Santa!
Yesterday, though, she said to me “Mom, I know Santa is just a mythical figure. . .”
No trauma there. She was happy to figure it out.
FWIW, I never told her outright that Santa was real, but other people acted like he was, and she believed it. I just told her that we don’t have to believe in him if we don’t want to, but she shouldn’t spoil anyone else’s fun because a lot of kids like him. I also made it clear that I would never let him come to our house, and if he came after I sent him an email telling him not to, that would be trespassing, and I could call the police and have him arrested! 
I very much enjoyed believing in santa as a child. My parents went to lengths to keep this up, including a letter from santa one year explaining how he couldn’t get the exact item I wanted but hoped I was happy with what he did give.
It was a fun mystery, but finding out was not fun as I found out (age 10 I believe) later than some of my friends. had I found out first, it would’ve been fine.
In a way…
For me, it was just another piece in the puzzle.
I was the youngest kid but one on my road, and the older kids were incredibly mean. I learned early on never to trust anything that any kid ever said to me, because more than likely they were lying just to have a chance to make fun of me later on. So I became highly withdrawn, defensive, and distrustful.
When I found out about Santa, I just made a mental note, “adults, too” b/c if my parents would lie to me as well, then who wouldn’t? At that age, I didn’t make any distinction between different types of untruths, and as I became more aware of the profoundly dysfunctional relationship my parents had, that feeling was reinforced.
So on the one hand, in certain circumstances, it can indeed contribute to negative consequences. On the other, I was pretty much bound to end up that way anyhow, so I can’t say it actually made any real difference in the big scheme of things.
Never spoil good fun with something as mundane and trivial as the truth. My children apparently believe in everything which involves presents, from Santa Claus to the tooth-fairy. My youngest daughter also believe her teacher lives in the Kings Castle in Copenhagen because his name is Christian.
Around here by age 9 or so (5th or 6th grade anyway) kids are drawing names and making presents for each other “from the saint” at school so while you could probably get around this by working very hard, it seems unlikely. But even absent that, I think if a 9 or 10 year old still really believes (as opposed to “plays along for the fun/for the presents/what have you”) I think it’s time for the parents to get a little sloppier about keeping up the story. I mean, it is important that kids come to it in their own way, but if they are not coming to it then you might need to give them a few hints.
Does Santa exist? You mean that fat old guy who is into elves?
From Justin Trudeau’s eulogyof his father, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau:
If that isn’t proof that Santa exists, I don’t know what is.
I disliked having been misled about Santa Claus.
When Santa or the Easter Bunny or God are referenced, I know who they are in 1/4 second, because it’s been so deeply and frequently taught when I was so little. By 1/2 a second I have remembered that they turned out to be lies. These are examples of one kind of a more general category of things I learned one way when I wasn’t developed enough to think critically about them, and relearned other ways later. Another kind of thing in this general category includes various unfortunate stereotypes about all sorts of demographic groups (including gender, race, age, religion, and others).
The reason these things bother me is that they ALWAYS come up, even if only momentarily. I can’t EVER get away from their influences. The more obvious influences I can reason away, but I suspect that the less obvious influences provide a mechanism for the unconscious biases that researchers say do all kinds of harm in our society, even among the enlightened and well-intentioned.
This isn’t traumatic, but bad things that aren’t traumatic are still candidates for avoidance. It’s hard enough to do right by some decisions when one does have accurate impressions and notions. Intentionally inserting inaccurate ones into children feels bad to me. Our evolution has (with mostly good cause) made children spectacularly gullible when it comes to their family and other close elders. They therefore can be entertainingly enthusiastic about some of the myths, but “cute” doesn’t imply “good”.
At least, this is my feeling about it.
If you’re going to tell your kids Satan exists, there’s no reason why you can’t just rearrange the letters.
Based on this thread, I made this quickly before lunch.