So you've lied to your kid, for "the magic of Christmas" or whatever, and convinced him that Santa is a real person coming to his house on Wednesday night to deliver his presents. That's your choice and I understand why you made it. However, I didn't lie to mine and she doesn't believe in Santa Claus. She knows Santa is not coming and that your son is mistaken.
If our children have a conversation about Santa Claus, that is their business and none of ours. My daughter has every right to tell your son about her beliefs, just as your son has every right to tell her about his. Just as I have told my daughter to respect other people's beliefs, it is now your turn to tell your son the same thing. Telling him instead that he can't play with her any more and treating me like I have ruined Christmas for your family forever makes you look like ginormous intolerant assholes.
And ponder this: no matter what you say or how badly you behave, my kid is going to win this one. Maybe not this year, but she will win eventually. (And mine will grow up knowing that I never, never lied to her.)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
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36 comments:
Way to go Abgry Professor!
I have way to many things I want to teach my children, that I do believe are true, to wast time trying to convince them of things that I know are false.
My parents neve told me the Santa Caluse myth, I don't understand people who do.
I read a blog the other day where a mom pronounced that children who don't believe in Santa aren't welcome in her house until April.
Nice.
And she was so *proud* of it.
My husband said, "It's not just the lie about Santa." it's the one about why there are multiple Santas, and the one about who ate the cookies. And the one about who brought those gifts and how he knew what you wanted and why he *didn't* bring that pony, and...and...and...
I just can't do it. And people say "well, your kid hasn't got any magic in his life." to which I reply: are you kidding? My kid knows the difference between a pretty story and reality, thankyouverymuch.
He's got plenty of magic. He just *knows* that it's magic.
Brava to you.
Normally I've agreed with a good number of your posts, but in this case it's you who looks like the ignorant asshole.
If your hypothetical situation really happened, you did ruin Christmas for some child. Way to go.
I wasn't going to do the Santa Claus thing with our kids. Darn grandparents! Anyway, mine are getting to the point that they're starting to ask very good questions, so I think it won't be long before they realize Santa's not real. I hope it takes longer for fairies, though. We have a lot more fun with them than Santa anyway.
Amen, sister. Now, the Great Pumpkin on the other hand...
Have a warm, safe, and happy holiday, AP. My best to AB and AK.
Excellent.
I so wish you would print this on a letter and mail it to them instead of preaching to the converted. Not to pick on you specifically—this whole world has too much preaching to the converted going on.
What's the worst that can possibly happen if you mail the letter? They tell you "and now our kid really REALLY super-double-dog ain't gonna ever play with your again"?
You had me until your final paragraph. Throwing that jab in at the end just made you seem vindictive and petulant.
My parents "LIED" to me about Santa Claus, but I don't feel the need to begrudge them for it.
It could be worse, they could've forced me into religion.
You are awesome. I wish more parents had the common decency to be honest with their kids. The "magic" of the holidays is in time spent with family, not shopping and fictional characters.
I don't plan to teach my children about Santa Claus. And if someone chooses not to let their children associate with yours because your family has different traditions (be they holiday, religious, social, or whatever), then they're short-sighted and bigoted.
At the same time, I think you're a little harsh. My parents grew up teaching me about Santa, and I gracefully transitioned from believing to not believing. Never once did I consider that they had lied to me. It's just a tradition. Just a story.
It's the Christmas season. Be tolerant and forgiving of your neighbors' faults. ;)
Cheezwhiz: isn't this how all kids eventually figure it out? Older brothers and best friends tell them?
I neither agree nor disagree with the whole Santa thing.
But this lady needs to get a grip and realise her little baby is going to grow up at some point.
I loved Santa as a kid- at some point I stopped believing (my neighbor told me, actually), but its not like that year Christmas was less great than every other year. I never thought of it as a lie at all, though, just as a nice thing you do for each other. Actually, my whole family now buys presents to each other and says they're from "Santa" for fun.
Really its kind of sad for them- right now as an adult that obviously doesn't believe in Santa, Christmas is STILL fun. Its fun to buy presents for people, its fun to get to see people I never get to see, and make fudge with my Mom, and hang out with my family, and have a pretty tree and the whole deal. This whole "ruining Christmas" thing people worry about seems a little over the top. If those parents think that not believing in Santa will completely "ruin" it, then I'm glad I get to go to my Christmas and not theirs!
We managed to have ti both ways. We made all kinds of elaborate happenings to indicate that Santa had been to our house, but form pretty early on, our kid also understood that "Santa" was the spirit of generosity that had made us scrimp and save to give him the kind of Christmas he hoped for, even though we were just grad students in the early years of his childhood. Long after he knew Santa wasn't real, Santa continued to leave magical footprints from the fireplace to the tree, and to eat the cookies... and even though our sone is now a teen-ager, he knows Santa will still bring him something -- an extra special "Mom and Dad really had to do extra to get this for me" thing. I usually accept a pad textbook review in the fall just o pay for that 'extra' thing, and the kid knows it. But he likes that I don't try to take all the credit, and let credit go to an 'idea(l)' instead.
I, for one, didn't read it as petulant or overly snarky. If someone isn't letting her daughter play with their kid because of Santa, goodness, that would tick me off royally.
Kids figure it out eventually, so what's the problem with a kid learning it from another kid?
Perhaps the conversation to have about this is "what is real?" Santa may not be a physical person who hangs out in shopping malls, but perhaps a good look at "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" may be a good place to start a conversation with a child who is realizing (or being told) that Santa isn't "real."
Ending playdates seems just silly.
Hmmm. I don't ever actually remember "believing" in Santa. I remember not really giving the matter a lot of thought and then realizing that it was important to my parents that I pretend to believe. I remember not wanting to upset them by catching them in the lie.
I remember feeling guilty for lying, but also very grown up and "adult" when joining them in indoctrinating my younger brother. I remember being afraid that I would blow it and spoil the story for some younger kid.
I also remember some slight and greedy paranoia that if my parents did know that I knew that Santa wasn't real, I wouldn't get any presents.
All-in-all, not a great series of life lessons from the Santa story.
Obviously, Santa is a microcoms for life; within it a lesson is hiding. I don't think I ever believed in Santa. But the presents were real enough, and so the lesson is: as long as everyone rewards you for doing so, pretend their magic is real.
Or perhaps the real lesson is choosing to stop pretending in spite of any consequences, and one too few adults have learned.
I have a story about Santa, my mom and me when I was five years old. This happened in 1960. It was Christemas Eve and everything in the house was ready and the gifts were under the tree. I go off to bed and sleep thru the night and get up the morning.
I am the first to go out into the den and there are even more gifts under the tree. I look carefully at the tree and think about the extra gifts. Now I was a very smart (ass) 5 year old and I said to myself, Santa does not exist. There is no technology available that would allow these gifts to appear. Therefor my parents put the gifts under the tree.
Mom comes out and says, "Look what Santa brought you!" I explained to her my thought process and that she and dad supplied the gifts. Things went down hill very fast after that. My dear mom lost it with. I learned that the magic of Christmas is really for weak minded adults.
I would like to leave this story with a question. Why do we celebrate Christmas? My parents never did tell me. I learned much later what it was all about. What I learned as an adult is much better than all the clap trap I got growing up.
I remember being about oh, eight years old and cornering my father by asking him the Santa question. I felt bad for doing it because it felt like I was calling him a liar. I actually remember feeling anxious before asking the question. But my dad, all calm, just explained that there was no real 'man' who did all that stuff, though everybody did little things at Christmastime that we attribute to Santa (though in much more simplistic language... it ended with "we're all Santa"). That made me feel like we were all magical and that we could do all that good stuff that is associated with Christmas. Way to teach complex abstract thought dad ;)
Wait... what do you mean it's a lie??!!?!?!
I never taught the girl that there was a Santa, but this was the first instance where we, ahem, disagreed. I guess the influence of Grandma and preschool was too much. I was a party to this conversation, when she was 5:
Friend - There really is no Santa Claus. It's really your parents sneaking around doing stuff. It's the same with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
The Girl (to me) - Is that true?
Me - Yes.
The Girl (to me, a few hours later) - I know that what Friend said is true, but it's more fun to believe in Santa, so I'm going to keep on believing.
So I'm in a position of having to respect *her* beliefs. I could put my foot down, my perogative as a parent, or I could play along, which is, in fact, more fun. This has prompted many discussions of the difference between knowledge and belief, however, and since I am a firm believer in philosophy, it suits our family.
Please don't be upset if my child converts yours to Santa or Tooth Fairy belief.
With Bear and Shark, we went in to the history of St. Nicholas, and various Christmas traditions around the world, and how Santa is really the spirit of generosity, etc...I don't necessarily see anything wrong with letting kids have a bit of magic in their lives -- whether it's Santa, or the Easter Bunny, or the Great Pumpkin.
However, I was very careful to caution the Bear NOT to spoil it for other kids, because we respect other families' traditions. I didn't characterize it as other parents LYING to their kids -- just that they had a different way of expressing it.
I think you might be a wee bit harsh here, but I also understand that someone punishing your child -- lashing out and making AK feel bad -- would bring out the Momma Bear.
I don't know...I mean I still believe in Santa Claus.
But when MM asked if he exists this year, I said, "Well, what do you think?" and he said, "I think it's you and Daddy."
So we talked about it.
And I told him that I would really appreciate it if he didn't tell his friends, because some of them really, really, really could stand to keep some magic in their lives, so could he be really grown-up and help me and Daddy play Santa?
So far, he's kept the secret.
If knowing the truth about Santa "ruins Christmas," might there not be a problem with priorities? Like...family? Charity? Oh my goodness we're finally coming out on the right side of the solstice, please let it be spring soon?
One of the things that bothers me about Santa is that when parents can't afford presents or very many or the right kind a kid could come away thinking they weren't good enough. Honestly the entire thing as it stands now seems pretty skewed and unhealthy to me.
My mother told us legends and stories and I have told my children these stories and they brought Santa home from school but he's part of the fabric of myth and not something I tried to create as a real person for them.
Christmas was and is magical to us and no harm has been done. Better, I think, to believe in generousity of spirit than to fixate on material gifts.
My people sure do get touchy about it though. Must be more going on than meets the eye.
1. I would have deleted any anonymous comment that called me a ginormous ass. You have much more restraint that I.
2. I remember when I was 7 years old telling the Eck kids how babies were made. They thought it was gross. ("My mother would never do anything like that. My father would, but my mother would NEVER!") They went home and told their mother what I'd told them. She told them I was telling them lies. Eventually they found out I wasn't. At least I HOPE they did.
3. I heard a homeless (challenged) person yesterday sitting on a milk crate downtown calling out to people, "Merry Gofuckyourselves! Merry Gofuckyourselves!" (I think I love him.) Maybe you should take a page from his book when next you see the offending parent.
I'm another who was with you until the last line. There's a difference between lying and letting kids live in a world of make-believe where there's something hopeful and magical to look forward to. That being said, if a non-believing kid told my kids the truth (if I had kids, that is), I'd understand and I wouldn't judge the parents or keep the kids from playing together.
I will be honest and say that I had a special circumstance as a kid -- Santa went to my church. He was a nice old man who was fat with a real beard (white) and long hair (also white). As a profession, he'd been a toymaker. Everyone knew him as Santa. His license plate said Santa ... he always wore red. Sometimes his wife would do the daycare for church events and her way of getting us to behave was to remind us who her husband was. Should the sweet old Catholic lady have "lied" to little kids? You can argue that she shouldn't have, but in my mind, it was pure genius. If she got 10 kids to calm down and share their toys for a night, more power to her. Should her sweet old Catholic husband have "lied" to kids by letting us all believe he was the real Santa Claus? Maybe not. But it sure felt magical to be a kid who knew him.
When my parents tried to tell me the truth, I said, "So, Santa sits behind us in church every week, but he's pretend. But I can't see Jesus and he's real? That's stupid." They couldn't really argue with my logic.
I tell my kids about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, and we'll go through the ritual of leaving the cookies out. However, I am totally ok with people telling their kids there isn't a Santa. Whatever Christmas traditions a family wants to keep is their business. Also, if your daughter expressing her opinion honestly is all it takes to ruin those people's Christmas,then they didn't have much of one to begin with.
@anon, you're an idiot
@Ozmo. May sound harsh but a big fat guy in a red suit fitting down the chimney is a fucking lie, get over it.
If we told the kid that Santa didn't exist, but some other fantasy figure did, I suspect tolerance to her belief would be good. The trouble is the absence of a great big omnipotent being is a tough sell in this case or religion. And, this is unequivocally about religion and faith. We all try to teach our kids about acceptance but how many know what it means?
The big hangup about the Santa thing is one the parents have. The kids spit their beliefs back and forth a few volleys and then go running out of the room yelling "POTTY." It's not a hangup of theirs, it's their parents.
By the way, our kid hasn't stopped playing - she had a magical xmas.
I guess growing up bi-cultural I never "believed that Santa existed" the way other kids seem to have. Santa was around in culture here in America, and the gift-giver had a different name and different story at home, and I read stories about St. Nicholas and coal and shoes and Italian traditions that were different and... There was no trauma regarding existence, and I didn't feel that St. Nicholas was a lie, or Santa was a lie, or that Italian old lady was a lie. Of course, in my family our stuffed animals still talk to each other though we're all adults, so maybe we have a different threshold for lie vs. fun make-believe.
The "ruining Christmas" thing is silly, and our American discomfort with the reality of myth is also silly. Cultural stories have real meaning, though they are not factual, and it would be better for our world if everyone could let go of the need for factual truth associated with Santa, creationism, etc.
Hello,
I never expected to see the day when Angry Prof and Cranky Lit Prof disagreed on anything.
Angry Prof is 100% right. John Stuart Mill had it - as usual - right on the nose: let ideas fight it out. Truth tends to win.
Angry Prof's neighbor knows darned well how weak (her, not necessarily the) idea of Santa Claus is, when she demands that everyone else leave her child in ignorance.
Quite frankly, I'm shocked to see any professor opposed to the spread of truth.
Then again, maybe a peace offering is in order. How about a nice Chinese flag, complete with Mao caps and jackets for the neighbor's whole family?
Jeff Deutsch
you breeders are hilarious...
What all of you don't seem to get is that Santa is real. Santa is an idea and was a real person. The spirit of St. Nick is what you want your kids to believe in. As a new parent, I want my kids to grow up in a world where acts of kindness like getting gifts from an unknown stranger is the magic of the holidays. As kids get older they reolize that Santa isn't a real person, but an idea of random acts of kindnessand sticks with them and maybe they will be good people and give with out question like Santa does. Think about it. you give a gift to a toy drive and it is given to a homeless child and the card say from Santa on it, you just became Santa to that little boy or girl! He is a real person, it's all of the people who donate money, gifts, food, anything to put a smile on the faces of those who may not be so fortunate. You people that don't believe in Santa and force your lame opinions on the rest of us ARE jerks. Why can't you just leave this one be and go fight another cause. I do have one question, do you reward your kids after they "expose" this horrible lie to other kids? Do you give them a damm cookie? Way to go! Way to make our failing society even worse! What a bunch of jerks.
Let's say, for example, that you have planned a surprise party for your child. You have booked a magician a cowboy and a pony. Your husband is going to take your child for a special lunch, and when they get back - SURPRISE! But, the day before, you child's best friend tells your kid all about the surprise party.
1. Nothing has changed about the physical party. But the disappointment in the surprise being ruined takes a toll.
2. The friend is obviously just being truthful with your child. If you had not lied to them about the parties existence, then no disappointment would occur.
Sometimes a deception can bring greater joy to something. It would be a sad world if there was no deception (no hide-and-go-seek!) Think about "romance" - almost all of it is based on deception.
I think this experience contained within it the opportunity to teach about respecting other people's beliefs and you totally blew it.
Your child will encounter all sorts of people in life who tell "lies" to themselves about a lot of things - religious people, vegetarians, skin heads, atheists and therapists. If she runs around spreading her "truth" and trying to correct their world view, she'll be extremely unpopular, unhappy and unsuccessful. These parents obviously thought a belief in Santa was important for their child. Who are you to decide otherwise or to disrespect what they were trying to teach?
Learning to accept that other people sometimes have eroneous beliefs that don't need correction is part of life. You would do well to teach your daughter that sometimes it's OK for other people to be wrong.
Good morning,
Anonymous (12/30, 4:31pm) raised a very interesting point. Santa doesn't need to be a real person, but an idea. That means that pointing out that real people like parents are the ones who give gifts on Christmas does not necessarily diminish Santa one bit, because the idea of charity and goodwill is still there.
For example, St. Jude is considered by many to be the patron saint of lost causes. A real person could intervene to help someone in a desperate situation, such as paying the overdue rent so they don't get evicted. We all know that a real person did it, but it doesn't diminish St. Jude one bit in the eyes of those who believe.
Madscientist, you gave a very good point indeed and really made me think. I would draw the line between believing that Santa somehow goes around the globe dropping off presents (at mainly Christian childrens' homes, no less) and someone's not knowing that a surprise party is coming up.
Ivory, is it OK for people who are wrong to be wrong and teach their children things that are wrong, but not OK for those who are right to teach their children the right thing to do? Is it a worse society or a better one if we (generally) believe in questioning falsehoods and replacing them with truth?
Happy New Year!
Jeff Deutsch
I feel sorry for your kids, you snuff out the magic of childhood. I don't remember when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but I also don't remember any anger over any lie. I think you are just so "angry" and unhappy that you want your children to be the same. You call it being realistic, I call it bitter.
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