I’m guessing Der Trihs was the kid in your elementary school who told all the other kids that there was no Santa.
What about the Easter Bunny?
I think, in some ways we talk about helicoptor parents, people being too eager to over protect their kids – yet in the same breath, we’re now saying that somehow, “lying” about Santa will be too severe for them to cope with? I don’t think so.
Kids are tougher than we think they are.
(Besides, didn’t the NY Supreme Court rule that Santa DID exist?)
Now, you have to draw the line somewhere. 
I don’t support lying to children.
Heh, you an Der actually agree on something then, Curtis 
Quoted for truth.
I have a very warm and fuzzy memory of being told by my mother that, if my sister and I each hung a sock on our bedpost on St. Patrick’s Day, we might catch a leprechaun. This tale was told to us on a St. Patrick’s Day when Father Gallagher, recently returned from a trip to the old country, was having dinner with us. Lo, and behold! The next morning, my sister and I each found a real Irish penny in our socks! The leprechaun made bail!
So I decided to revisit this charming memory with my son. I would pass the Irish penny along to him. So far, so good, the first time. But next St. Paddy’s Day, he remembered, and expected more! The year he expected the leprechaun to bring him a specific Yu-Gi-Oh card he wanted was when I knew things had gotten out of hand. :smack:
Shortly afterward, my son learned the truth about Santa, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the leprechaun. But he still puts out cookies and milk for “Santa” (saying with a wink-wink, as he heads for bed, “I sure hope ‘Santa’ enjoys the cookies.”) He still expects a visit from the “Easter Bunny.” And I slip a little bit of the green (a dollar bill) into the sock he hangs on the bedpost on St. Patrick’s Day.
You Better not shout’
you better not cry
You better not pout I am telling you why
'Santa Claus is dead
Old Smothers Brothers song . that gives you just the right touch.
I actually laughed out loud.
I can’t imagine a childhood without the likes of Saint Nicholas or the knowledge that every drawing on the refrigerator is a work of art.
I was brought up in a kind of weird manner. Our “church” was ambiguous, non-denominational, and decidedly not classifiable as far as churches go.
As kids we were brought up to “not believe” in Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and so forth.
At some point, the discrepancy between us “not believing” in Christmas, and the gift reception of our friends, became greater than my parents could rationalize easily (given that Christmas was traditional in both of their homes).
Shortly afterward, we got presents towards the end of the year. No tree. This was the impetus for us leaving our church, coupled with my constant “how do we know that our religion is the right one” arguments from me.
I was never taught to believe in Santa Claus. We celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas, and there was never any doubt as to where the gifts came from. My mother used to read me stories at bedtime, and one of them was *The Night Before Christmas. *So I considered Santa to be just another fictional character that was fun to imagine. I mean, I was capable of enjoying Babar and Winnie the Pooh, without thinking they were real.
hes…not?! Noooooooooo!
I lie to my neighbour’s children every chance I get. Sometimes the little nippers even believe me. If you can’t mess with a young mind, what good are you?
How many of you “there’s nothing wrong with lying to your children” people get pissed when little Billy at school fills them in on the truth or better yet an adult tells them it’s a sham?
I wouldn’t care, and no one has said, there’s nothing wrong with lying to your children about anything. We’re saying there’s nothing wrong with perpetuating the Santa tradition.
All parents lie to their kids all the time, by the way. You have to. What else are you going to do, tell them that they can’t sing, that their drawing sucks, that the “lemonade” they made for you tastes like cat piss?
First off, the “lying to your children” theme is the sort of silliness I generally associate with fundies (of any stripe) whose entire world views are established as “my truth is the only truth”.
There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. I am not making a plea for Santa or even a god, just noting that there are many ways to perceivce the world that go beyond either absolute religious dogma or absolute materialism.
I would not have a problem with the know-it-all kid down the street asserting that there was no Santa because that kid would just be one of many cultural influences regarding Santa. I have a slight problem with people who make such a big production of “proving” Santa to their kids that they set their kids up to be traumatized at the final revelation, but my folks never did that and I did not do that. I followed my parents’ practice of simply mentioning Santa only in the context where he occurred without making a big deal about him. (We were more focused on the Nativity, anyway). As the kids grew older and began asking questions, I responded, as my parents had, “What do you think?” and just accepted their answer as it slowly moved from “he exists” to “he is make believe” (and back again :p). Santa seeps into kids’ consciousness through multiple sources and discovering that Santa was not going to plop down the chimney with presents is, indeed, one of the passages of life that kids generally enjoy encountering, demonstrating to themselves that they are growing up.
I would be upset if an adult made a point of declaring that Santa was not “real,” because it is not the place of some random adult to destroy my kids’ experience of figuring it out for themselves.
What? Why not “Look what a good job you did! Let’s put that on the refrigerator!” I mean, assuming that you think your kid trying to draw is a good thing, assuming he could be doing a good job of trying and progressing, you don’t have to lie to praise him, do you?
Children deserve their innocence, and it surely does not last long. No child has ever been permanently scarred by the revelation/discovery that Santa may not be flying through the sky in a sleigh pulled by reindeer.
AND
When you become a parent, with a 4 year old who fervently believes in Santa, you may yourself once again believe for a bit.
Being lied to = childhood innocence? …interesting
Yes. We try to insulate children from the harshness of life.
Santa Claus is more than a myth. It is a representation of the spirit of giving that is as alive today as it was when Saint Nicholas walked the earth. To this day, we still donate toys to the poor. It is one of life’s lessons that should not be over-analized beyond the joy it gives children.
One reason why I have no fondness for the whole idea of childhood innocence. I’d far prefer that they were born knowing at least basic facts about the world, so they wouldn’t be such easy victims. Innocence of the childhood variety is just a pretty word for ignorance.
I wouldn’t, because it’s quite possible that those basic facts will turn out to be wrong. It’s much better for them to be basically a blank slate, so that they can improve their knowledge as knowledge increases.
I’m also not exactly sure ignorance and innocence are the same thing. I think one is a consequence of the other. One can be innocent without being ignorant. Being ignorant of right and wrong does pretty much make you innocent, though.