What's the point of Santa Claus?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Are we talking some major issue where he was constantly confusing fantasy and reality or a situation where he’s just a five year old kid who says he wants to be a wizard like Harry Potter?

I mean, sure, if we’re playing with hypothetical I’m sure we could make up a scenario where it’d be a Real Big Problem. I don’t think it would really relate directly to Santa Claus though.

Edit: To directly reference the OP, I always had one or two cool presents be from us non-mythical folks but, really, I’m more worried about having a fun and loving Christmas morning than making sure I get credit for having been on Amazon.

42

Yeah, but at least partially they are taught to differentiate them, right? By the parents themselves. Precisely the fact that when parents choose to make a couple of exceptions for Santa and so forth, that makes the belief endure beyond that age is evidence that understanding that difference is learned behaviour.

So why the exception?

43

Taking it back to its original roots, the point of Saint Nicholas, ho* Hagios Nikolaos, is that he’s the patron saint of children, coopers, sailors, fishermen, merchants, broadcasters, the falsely accused, repentant thieves, pharmacists, archers, and pawnbrokers. Note the first on the list: Children. And there you go.

*Greek definite article: the origin of “ho ho ho”?

44

Whether it’s a major issue or not it’s not part of the question. The question was how would you react in that hypothetical situation. you replied that you would allow the kid to keep on believing in wizards, and then asked why wouldn’t you. To which I replied that maybe you wouldn’t if you thought that teaching him to tell apart reality and fantasy was important for his development.

In none of the cases we would be aware of the long term effects of our choice, just like in real life.

45

The situation wouldn’t exist in a vacuum though. I mean, if it were my child I’d have enough context to decide if it was a problem or not. My initial answer in fact had the caveat that it would be context dependent (how strongly he’s pursuing this line of work).

46

Kids usually aren’t in the habit of being so forward with their parents. But that shouldn’t give parents’ license to jerk their kids around when it comes to belief. That more kids don’t get angry at their parents says something, I think. It says that parents have an inordinate amount of power over their kids’ emotions.

I grew up in a household where I would have caught hell if I had said “Santa Claus and God are both delusions to make us feel good.” So of course I wouldn’t have said this out loud, even if I had been able to articulate this opinion. But you better believe if someone had planted the thought in my head at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to shake it.

Seems like conscientious parents of faith wouldn’t dare take such a risk.

47

I would have said it says that the practice, with a few unfortunate exceptions like **Shagnasty’s **(I’m so sorry, Shag’, that was just a mean way to handle it on her part), is largely harmless and does not appear to reduce religious faith over the child’s lifetime, so it’s not something we really need worry about so much.

48

When my older kid was 11 or 12, he told me he wasn’t sure he believed in God. I told him that I’ve had periods in my life where I was agnostic and periods were I was straight up atheist but my own experiences in my lifetime brought me to where I was today. He was always welcome to talk to me about it and I wouldn’t hold it against him because whatever his beliefs were I probably shared them at some point but ultimately he’d be making his own choices and not to be surprised if they move one way or the other as he gains more experience in the world.

Again, it didn’t have anything to do with Santa though.

49

Sure you could, but, what I don’t get, is what sort of context would make you decide that not teaching something new to the kid (i. e. some things are fictional) is a good idea.

Forget harry Potter, say that he or she expresses the belief that the Moon is bigger than the Sun, or that cars move because there’s invisible horses pulling them. Wouldn’t you try to explain to them the wonders of your basic astronomy, or the astonishment that is the combustion engine? Even if you don’t see any big problem with the kids believing otherwise, imparting knowledge is part of your job description.

50

Probably. That said, the wonders of astronomy and stuff exploding inside an engine are more entertaining to a five year old than the wonders of Black Friday shopping vs. Santa Claus.

Obviously the answer here is to go for the most awesome explanation :stuck_out_tongue:

51

Heh. When my boy was around 6 or 7, he asked why squirrels have bushy tails. I told him I wasn’t certain, but I thought it was because healthy squirrels with lots of food have bushier tails, so the girl squirrels would pick them to be the daddies, so their babies would probably be well fed, too. Over time, squirrels with bushy tails would start to outnumber scraggly tails.

(Not sure if that’s the real “reason” or not, but it was an attempt to start a very early understanding of evolution - that some traits attract mates, and become more frequent in the population.)

He kept walking, slowly, head down, shoulders up. I could tell that answer didn’t satisfy him one bit. So, mostly joking, I said, “Or some people think God was making all the animals and thought, ‘What would happen if I gave this one here a gigantic poofy tail?’ and that was the beginning of squirrels.”

Shoulders went down, head came up, step quickened and he grinned. “Yeah, I like that one.”

So, for some reason, the kid needed to hear that day that squirrels have bushy tails because God made them that way. Same kid who’s agnostic now, nearly 21. He understands, and accepts evolution now, and isn’t much interested in “God did it,” explanations.

Parenting is not a one day process. You don’t have to teach them everything today. They’ll get to it when they’re ready for it, if you just follow their lead and stay in tune with their needs.

52

I was an avid fantasy lover and reader as a child, and so was (still is) my mom. But my parents never lied to me about the nature of the world - though some things they raised me to believe in as truth, such as Christianity and biblical literalism, I began to figure out were not objectively so, around age 12 and up as I read more and more. And I deeply appreciate that. I’ve never understood the lengths to which some American parents take the Santa myth. Raising children is, to me, about creating independent adults capable of the critical thinking which will enable them to make wise decisions, and those skills begin to develop early and can easily be stunted.

I don’t see anything harmful with being playful with the cultural trope of Santa to some degree, but if I have my own kids I won’t be lying to them about that, or anything else.

53

Have you ever met anyone whose critical thinking or ability to tell reality from fantasy or whatever else was stunted because they believed in Santa when they were five?

54

When I was young my mom said we’ve got X amount of dollars to spend on presents. Pick as many as you like as long as it’s not more expensive. I always enjoyed it immensely.

55

I remember as a 2nd grader we were all told to write letters to Santa and tell him what we wanted for Christmas. The school told us that it was going to be published in some local paper and to tell our parents to look out for it on a particular date.

You know what I wrote in my letter? A scathing rebuking of the notion that Santa actually existed. I wrote confidently and proudly that Santa did not exist, that it was our parents who drank the milk, ate the cookies, and left the presents under the tree.

It got published, and I awaited eagerly for my parents to read it, thinking they’d be oh so proud of me for figuring it out.

As you can imagine, they were not pleased, especially my father, who made a point of making me feel as bad as possible and sending me to my room for the rest of the night. I remember the next day, my whole family called me “the boy who doesn’t believe in Santa,” and said that people who don’t believe in Santa don’t get any presents.

My father read me many letters from the other kids asking Santa for various things, and how nice it was and why couldn’t I have written something like that?

Eventually I apologized and told them I was sorry. I don’t think I ever relented and said that I did believe in Santa, but the jig was up and I was hurt and so were they.

So yeah, I’m not going to carry on the Santa myth with my future children. It was one of the single most uncomfortable memories I still have, and I have very very few memories from 2nd grade and before.

56

May I suggest something? Your painful memories are not due to the Santa myth–they’re due to a moment of very bad parenting by your father.
You’re obviously not going to make the same mistake and humiliate your children the way your father did to you—so if you want to let your kids enjoy Santa like everybody else, there’s no reason for them to feel any trauma.

57

Oh I’ll let them enjoy it, sure. But I’m not going to go out of my way making evidence for them and misleading them. I’ll just keep my mouth shut and encourage them to be critical, skeptical thinkers. They can come to whatever conclusions they want!

58

If I had kids, this would be (I hope) the way I would go.

And what happened to you truly sucked.

59

But is it really for the kids? Little kids enjoy first and foremost the toys, and accept that there are plenty of things around them that are hard to grasp. Believing in Santa to them is like believing in the President: just another power figure they don’t know personally.

I think that it’s mostly about the parents wanting to see something they consider “cute” than about the kids themselves.

60

Eh, like I said before, I enjoyed it. I can’t speak for any other kid but I had fun with it both before and after knowing the truth.

Some of the objections frankly strike me as pretty silly. I can see not doing it because you just “don’t want to mislead the kids” or whatever. I think concerns that the children’s faith in authority will be forever shattered or they’ll be unable to tell reality from fantasy or they’re going to forsake their religion are pretty ridiculously overblown. It’s a big world so I’m sure someone somewhere out there found out about Santa and never trusted anyone again but it’s not a risk I’d consider credible.

I think most kids who believe in Santa think they know him more “personally” than the president. Most kids don’t write letters to the president or visit him at the shopping mall. Even if you know “mall Santa” ain’t really Santa I think there’s more familiarity there.