I don’t know what you’re going on about - he didn’t say that kids were born knowing basic bacts. He said he wished they were, which seems like an explicit statement that they aren’t.
I’ve always hated that rational=bitter rhetoric in TV shows. You know, the characters who question or are skeptical are deep down assholes and isn’t it more fun to believe and have a world with wonderment? And doesn’t belief in science kind of mean we can’t have that magical world?
I remember one of the places I found this challenged was in a Richard Dawkins book where he points out that science doesn’t have to mean cold and sad and bitter. When you read about science and study, you realize how wonderful and varied and just plain bizarre the world is–I remember reading some really far out stuff in the Selfish Gene and wishing I knew more.
I’m also struck by that Simpsons episode with the angel where everyone acts like Lisa’s such a bitch for not wanting to believe. I don’t get why questioning and challenging=bad.
I’m not saying we have to go out and tell five year old Christian kids that Santa doesn’t exist, just that when you assume that non belief or skepticism makes someone a bitter Scrooge esque character, that’s just as wrong as assuming that believing=ignorance.
The problem with that would be that they’d be less adaptable to situations where the basic facts they were born knowing didn’t apply. Being in space might be very disorienting to someone who was born instinctively knowing about gravity, for example. I think adaptability is one of the great strengths of humans as a species. Being born ignorant might be a side effect of that adaptability.
I don’t think that rational = bitter; I think they are saying that certain, er, approaches to mythos and childhood suggest a certain bitterness. Some of my favorite peole are scientists and yet somehow they manage to occasionally engage in wonder and even imagination. Also compassion and so on, despite the absolute absence of rationality of such things.
The interesting thing that nobody notices is that telling kids about the various cultural myths of this type results 100% of the time in non-belief. It is in fact children who are not told about Santa who have a belief – they have the received wisdom of their parents. The kids whose parents played at Santa and so on figure out for themselves that it isn’t true and therefore know.
But I have no experience of the gullible children people are talking about in this thread. I wish it were as easy as give them presents = they do/believe/say whatever you want, but alas my own children are not going for that. I could only wish to have such agreeable children. Possibly this is because I lie to them all the time so they have no reason to think that they are likely to get Received Wisdom from me.
100%? Come now.
For what it’s worth, I can personally assert to the existence of one four-year-old whose belief in Santa has so far survived her parents’ support of that belief.
I’m quite surprised that there’s so many people here who don’t seem to have a problem with the whole Santa Claus thing. It’s one thing to teach your children beliefs that you may believe mistakenly, but at least believe honestly; it’s something else entirely to deliberately feed them a worldview that you know is wrong. Sure, no one is scarred–hell, I don’t even remember exactly how I found out Santa didn’t exist–but that doesn’t mean it isn’t undermining more important lessons that they should be learning.
You say it teaches them critical thinking with regard to belief? How the hell does it do that? A kid that age believes pretty much everything you tell them to believe and I think that’s a good thing because that’s when you instill important values in them. Instead, this sort of lesson teaches them that, the very people they’re supposed to trust to protect them, provide for them, and for guidance can’t be trusted. If they can’t trust you on something as simple as Santa Claus, how can you expect they’ll trust you on a value that you think is important for them to learn?
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t teach your children critical thinking, but seriously, isn’t there a better way than lying to them? I would want my children to question everything I teach them, because I think it’s an important part of education and growing up in general. And is a 4-year-old, in general, even able to do any sort of meaningful critical thinking? I want them to question what I’ve taught them because it is an important and responsible thing to do, not because they’re not sure whether or not I can be trusted. If your children don’t trust you, how do you handle situations where trust is of the utmost importance later in life like when doing the hard conversations about sex, drugs, and all that?
I think this sort of mentality carries over into a lot of other things, not just Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, but all sorts of things like “Where do babies come from?”, religious belief, political ideology, etc. So sure, Santa alone probably won’t do any real harm by itself, but it’s part of a larger pattern of establishing distrust.
And really, what benefit does it have for the children? Do they really need help to have a “magical” childhood? If you’re celebrating Christmas for religious reasons, why are you doing anything to obfuscate what should be an important celebration. And if you celebrate it secularly, why can’t you just give gifts to your children because you love them and not because of some magical guy who is bribing them to behave with a promise of toys?
Well, I was referring to the post:
Saying you don’t believe in Santa=cold and bitter? It just seems like a personal preference to me.
I’m not understanding this at all. After a while, ALL kids no matter what they’re told are going to know Santa’s not real. Maybe around seven or eight, perhaps a little older for some, but it’s not like the kids whose parents didn’t tell them about Santa are still believing at age forty.
Besides, why would the kids who weren’t told about Santa believe? I didn’t celebrate Christmas because my family isn’t Christian and I grew up just thinking of Santa like I would Mickey Mouse or Charlotte the Spider. And I doubt the Jewish kids are the ones who mostly believe in Santa…
Heh, you don’t get it - as a cold, rational, and bitter atheist, I like the idea of children believing in Santa on faith, and then learning not to believe in him, because it is a societally-supported demonstration that just becuse your trusted parents tell you something does not mean it is true. There’s a reason theists get so pissy when you compare God to Santa - it’s because there are parallels, sufficiently many that it makes the theist uncomfortable to be reminded that yeah, some of the stuff everyone’s told you is true just ain’t. So, in my opinion, childhood belief in Santa actually helps the evil atheist cabal.
And as for the ‘magical childhood’ business, there’s a middle ground between the two perspectives presented in the Miracle on 43rd Street - there’s “believe it”, “reject it”, and additionally there’s “screw around with it”. It’s a game of “let’s pretend”, and you can have fun with it long after nobody actually believes in it.
That is exactly why I advocate treating Santa as a make believe character. That and the fact that if parents want their children to be honest, they need to set a good example.
By playing make believe, children get to experience the magic without compromising anyone’s honesty.
It’s fun.
I agree with this actually. I’m not lying to children here, i’m allowing them to learn how to BECOME good atheists/agnostics/whatever else. Because if a child is simply raised believing there is no God from day one, then he’s just another fanatic. I don’t want a kid to "know the right answers’ but i would rather they start out with a belief system and learn how to evolve and move ON past that belief system.
It’s basically transcending the old stage and entering a new one. If they come to me and can defend why they feel there is no Santa, and they explicitly believe such- I am not going to lie to them any more, but would rather then go the Agnostic route and ask them how they feel knowing that- and if they stick with what they believe, then I’ll will encourage them and be proud of them for cultivating a belief, examining said belief, and then being able to move past it. That’s a very big step for a kid, and I’d let them know that’s a pretty cool thing they just did.
Of course if they come to me and say “Billy says there’s no Santa, what’s the truth?” I’m gonna go the “what do you think?” route, because someone else shouldn’t be able to force my kid to change his view points just because of his words. If my kid genuinely feels there’s no Santa, and doesn’t want to believe any more, then he doesn’t have to until an older age.
It’s just a life stage, and a measurement of rationality. If you treat it like a lie, then they’re going to view it as being lied to- but if you show praise and congratulate them on growing older and wiser, then it’s less traumatic. It’s also something I don’t really expect from a 4-5 year old, but more of a kid a few years older.
It’s a good way to check their critical thinking skills, and to do in in a less obvious or threatening manner. Santa is a “puzzle” basically for the child to solve when they are ready. If you treat it as a game, and present it in a less threatening manner- you can ease them into the transition much better than just saying 'Santa is a lie, you’re too old for that now, grow up"- which is def. not a cool thing to do. It’s much more fun to be told “Good job, son/daughter! Now, do you want to help me next year with the Santa Presents? You can help me with your baby sister/brother, and see how long we can keep HIM going- or do you think he’ll beat you, huh? !” 
New responsibilities, new ideas, and new stations in life basically are discovered for the kid.
At least that’s how it was for me when I “found out”, and it’s what I got to do with my sister, and hopefully it’s I’m gonna try to go about it w/ my kids.
Seriously. The transition between the concrete “Santa brought you this” and the abstract “now that you’re older, you need to understand that Santa is really an archetype of the spirit of giving, and that we’re all Santa in a way” is time-honored, culturally instructive, and just plain fun for children. What child ever ended up in therapy because his parents misrepresented the true nature of Santa Claus? “Doctor, I swear I thought that they were telling me that a fat man literally climbed down my chimney with presents! When I found out they were introducing me to an anthropomorphized allegory illustrating the better part of human nature, I was crushed!”
Oh, undermining my left butt cheek. I am myself astonished at how many people on this board apparently have children who believe everything they say. I cannot even convince my youngest child that he should wear a jacket when it is cold for heaven’s sake, let alone convince him that a white horse walks along the roof of an evening. Possibly I am the only person in the immediate vicinity who has children who prefer to find out for themselves as opposed to taking my word as some kind of sacred revelation. But I doubt it.
I continually feed my children a worldview I think is wrong, and so does everybody else. I have told them about everything from social justice to table manners, none of which have any objective truth but which exist by virtue of social agreement-- which itself of course only marginally exists. There are no imortant values to impart in an objective sense, there is only participating in the society in which you find yourself (which participation for many children includes a guy in red on the rooftop). Protecting children, providing for them and guiding them does not in any way imply telling them the objective truth 100% of the time, and people who tell the truth 100% of the time are not raising children who will get on well in a world where about a 20% truth telling factor is already pretty high.
I trusted my parents despite the Santa thing and despite their penchant for fantasy; my children trust me despite the Santa, Saint Nicholas, fairies and elves and dragons thing. By the way, what is so hard about conversations about sex and drugs and politics and and all that you bring up? I had a lot of conversations with my parents about them and they were not particularly harrowing conversations. So I am not sure what you are talking about there.
Certainly you are right, nobody needs to have fun and in this day and time in the west nobody needs to participate in the many and varied festivals whose purpose is to encourange a feeling of belonging, that much is true. All people need to do is breathe, eat, drink, defecate, and then ultimately stop doing those things after which they have to rot, either slowly embalmed in a casket or quickly after having been burnt to ashes. However, in between doing those things one does like to stay busy.
“If I had a child I’d name him Pizza Pussy Santa, because everyone likes at least one of those things.” -Dave Attell
My parents lied to me constantly and a lot of the lies traumatized me. And you know what? The Santa lie never bothered me.
Kids can and do discern motivations for lying. I am also surprised to hear about people being traumatized by it. They lied about Santa because they wanted you to have the magic of the season. They lied about other things because they were hurtful, or scared, or angry. Totally different IMO.
That is exactly what I said to my 8 year old last night. He’d been quite excited after finding a web site where he could send Santa an email and get a response, and then out of the blue as we were driving home he asked whether Santa was real (it seems some of the other kids say not), so I just asked him what he thought… he’s mulling it over. I think he likes the idea of there being a Santa but isn’t really convinced it’s true.
And then I commented that it was nearly sundown and that we’d really better get home before the vampires came out.
“Dad!!!”, he objected indignantly, “Vampires aren’t real!”
“What?”, I replied, feigning surprise, “They’re every bit as real as the Easter Bunny”.
I’m a bad person… I know…
My neighbour’s kids set out a rabbit trap. When they weren’t looking, I placed a robin’s nest in it, and placed a chicken egg in the nest. When the kids returned, I told them the easter bunny hopped by and laid the egg. They didn’t know whether or not to believe me, but they treated the egg like a little baby.
A couple of hours later, their dad called and asked if he could have some more eggs for dinner.
Aw. Awesome story. Especially the image of the kids treating the little egg like a baby.
Since we now seem to be posting specific “I lied to my kid and I’m not sorry about it” stories, I’ll add one:
When my oldest daughter was little (probably four), I had made her some microwave popcorn, and she announced to me that she was going to “plant the popcorn seeds” in the bottom of the bag (the unpopped kernels, of course). Being the Mom, I said “OK, sweetie; stay in the front yard where Momma can see you!”
A couple of days later, when she was at Pre-K, my almost-adult nephew, who was living with us at the time, said to me “Hey, you wanna mess with the kid?” and I did, and here’s what we did:
Clipped a few small branches off a nearby tree; popped more corn. Hot-glued a few popped kernels to branches, stuck them in the ground where she had “planted” (and diligently ‘watered’) her “popcorn trees”.
When she came home from Pre-K, I said to her “Sweetheart, you didn’t water your popcorn trees yesterday; maybe you’d better go do that”.
The excitement and joy when she came running in the door to tell me her “popcorn trees are growing!” was priceless! :D:p
I don’t think she was traumatized. She tells the story herself pretty frequently.
Kids’ minds are so incredibly flexible, it’s fun to play with them! 
It used to be…
“Daddy, why do some of your movies have no color?”
“Well, honey, the world didn’t have any color until 1964, when the Beatles arrived in America. That’s why all the ‘old stuff’ is in black and white.”
“Wow.”
Nowadays it’s more like
“Daddy, why does X?”
“Well, because of bullshit explanation”
“Mommy! Daddy’s lying to me again!”
“John, stop it. Sophie, don’t listen to your father.”
Ahhh, good times. 