On Santa and imagination.
Dec. 28th, 2007 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
People do keep saying that Santa is good for imagination. I don't quite understand this.
I see the nieces and their friends making up stories every day. This is wonderful. They come up with the most amazing things, ideas I would never have thought of, ever. Some of their ideas I can see came from bits and pieces of their own lives or stories they've been told, some I can see if I squint, and some they seem to make up wholecloth. Even if they're just pretending the most simple things, like being the mom and dad, or going to work, they add their own bits that are clearly all them.
I don't see children doing this with Santa, nor do I see kids expected to do this with Santa. I see one basic story told to kids, the same for everybody, and not much variation.
When my nieces pretend, they know they're pretending. They know they aren't really eating people, that they aren't really superheroes, that they aren't really authorized to give me a time-out. And when I play with them, I'm pretending too. I don't tell them to believe me if I say this thing or another, and if they misunderstand me and *do* believe something intended to be pretend, I tell them the truth.
I don't see this with Santa. We pretended Santa this year, but so many people take it as a given that children must believe in Santa. I see people online going through absurd measures to "preserve the innocence" of children seven, eight, nine years of age. It seems scary to them that their child might actually know the truth. (This is another issue altogether than the normal level of Santa myth, of course.)
I don't know about Evangeline, but Angelique believes the most interesting things sometimes! She believes, for example, that we have to be eaten to be born! She constantly surprises me with comments out of nowhere - "Penguins are a type of fish, right?" or "I-e-s makes ice cream!" - and then she looks to me for an answer, and an explanation. She wants help putting the world together so it makes sense. And even when she's wrong, she's right in a way. I can see basic reasoning. "Penguins live in the water, so they must be fish" and "Babies come from tummies. Food goes in tummies when we eat, so babies are eaten to go in tummies" and "I hear i-c-e often before somebody gets ice cream, so i-c-e (mixed up the way she remembered it) means ice cream".
If she were to believe in Santa, it wouldn't be quite so fantastic. It wouldn't be something developed out of her own sense of reason, her own experiences, her own thoughts. It would be something imposed from the outside, and enforced with relentless media messages and maybe family messages as well - snow on the doorstep, bites out of cookies, bells rung in the middle of the night. (Sooner or later, this starts to get creepy. A story is a story, but the line has to be drawn somewhere, right?)
I can say "Santa Culture in our country has gotten out of hand" without saying "I don't like pretending", and that is what I intend to say.
I see the nieces and their friends making up stories every day. This is wonderful. They come up with the most amazing things, ideas I would never have thought of, ever. Some of their ideas I can see came from bits and pieces of their own lives or stories they've been told, some I can see if I squint, and some they seem to make up wholecloth. Even if they're just pretending the most simple things, like being the mom and dad, or going to work, they add their own bits that are clearly all them.
I don't see children doing this with Santa, nor do I see kids expected to do this with Santa. I see one basic story told to kids, the same for everybody, and not much variation.
When my nieces pretend, they know they're pretending. They know they aren't really eating people, that they aren't really superheroes, that they aren't really authorized to give me a time-out. And when I play with them, I'm pretending too. I don't tell them to believe me if I say this thing or another, and if they misunderstand me and *do* believe something intended to be pretend, I tell them the truth.
I don't see this with Santa. We pretended Santa this year, but so many people take it as a given that children must believe in Santa. I see people online going through absurd measures to "preserve the innocence" of children seven, eight, nine years of age. It seems scary to them that their child might actually know the truth. (This is another issue altogether than the normal level of Santa myth, of course.)
I don't know about Evangeline, but Angelique believes the most interesting things sometimes! She believes, for example, that we have to be eaten to be born! She constantly surprises me with comments out of nowhere - "Penguins are a type of fish, right?" or "I-e-s makes ice cream!" - and then she looks to me for an answer, and an explanation. She wants help putting the world together so it makes sense. And even when she's wrong, she's right in a way. I can see basic reasoning. "Penguins live in the water, so they must be fish" and "Babies come from tummies. Food goes in tummies when we eat, so babies are eaten to go in tummies" and "I hear i-c-e often before somebody gets ice cream, so i-c-e (mixed up the way she remembered it) means ice cream".
If she were to believe in Santa, it wouldn't be quite so fantastic. It wouldn't be something developed out of her own sense of reason, her own experiences, her own thoughts. It would be something imposed from the outside, and enforced with relentless media messages and maybe family messages as well - snow on the doorstep, bites out of cookies, bells rung in the middle of the night. (Sooner or later, this starts to get creepy. A story is a story, but the line has to be drawn somewhere, right?)
I can say "Santa Culture in our country has gotten out of hand" without saying "I don't like pretending", and that is what I intend to say.
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-29 08:05 am (UTC)The latest one from my Mum is that because her Singaporean muslim friend celebrates Christmas, only people in extremist countries don't(along with the not-quite-said, very pointed 'so YOU should too'}.
*sigh*
no subject
Date: 2007-12-29 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-29 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-29 08:05 am (UTC)The latest one from my Mum is that because her Singaporean muslim friend celebrates Christmas, only people in extremist countries don't(along with the not-quite-said, very pointed 'so YOU should too'}.
*sigh*
no subject
Date: 2007-12-29 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-29 10:12 am (UTC)