Well, the Santa drama has already started

[conuly]

I've said this before, and I'll surely say it again: if your love for lying to your kids about Santa keeps you from having compassion and empathy for people who were actually hurt when they found out the truth then you seriously need to reconsider your priorities.

If you are unable to consider any other form of childrearing without talking about how "sad" it is that some kids are not being told that Santa really literally exists then you are not being very kind and you seriously need to reconsider your priorities. You also lack imagination - which honestly is a bit troubling given that people who promote this version of Santa at all costs always try to claim that it's the only way to promote imagination.

And, finally, if you think that there's one approach to doing a literal Santa which will guarantee that your child is not one of the unlucky ones who is extremely upset when they find out the truth... well, you might be right, but I wouldn't bet money on it. Sure, there's a lot of really toxic ways to do Santa, but that doesn't mean that doing it in a non-toxic way will assure a happy child for life, much less that you've got the secret method. I think you're just fooling yourself because you want to keep lying to your kids.

I don't get it. Obviously the fun part is playing pretend, that's why adults go to these lengths with their kids - so why not let the kids do the fun part? The pretend part? Why lie to them rather than being honest from the get-go so they can actually play pretend?

On an unrelated note, I just googled it and reindeer mostly eat hay and moss, which is about what you'd expect, and apparently sometimes bird eggs, which I didn't expect. Carrots weren't on the list. They're not physically capable of eating carrots and also carrots don't grow where reindeer live.

Comments

[smokingboot]

It's a story. I question anyone who cannot teach their children the difference between a story and a lie given time enough.

When they begin to suspect, bring them in with the 'we each become Santa' theme, the whole idea of a shared story, magic down through the year. Try to keep it soft, but accept we will never get it right for all families and all children. In our house, there were Santa presents and family presents, and the santa presents were never as excellent as the family presents. Also, I spent lots of Christmas times in Spain,where there was no Santa, only the three kings, and they were just as fabulous.

There comes a time when even a child can see a guy in a suit is just that. But til then, tracking Santa with NORAD is still a very cute thing to do.

The dream fades, something else takes its place.

[conuly]

No. It's a story if and only if everybody knows it's just a story.

If you ever tell your children it's literally true and expect them to believe it then it's a lie. If there's a point where they have to "suspect" because you didn't tell them the truth then it's just a lie.

Or you can skip all that and tell them the truth from the beginning, in which case it's a story and a fun pretend game that the kids can play too and not just the grown-ups.

[smokingboot]

If everyone has to know it's a story in order to make it a story, then all stories are lies because you can never be sure that everyone knows the fact/truth behind it. There are just no guarantees. This is something no-one can police.

[conuly]

We have clues that we use to indicate to people that we're telling stories. When telling stories to children we even will say explicitly things like "Wow, that's silly!" or "Dragons sure are scary! Good thing they're not real!" so as to make sure they're clued in.

Plus, if you're telling somebody a story and they somehow miss the clues and believe it's real, we don't ban other people from informing them that it's a story instead of the truth. We don't say "Oh, gosh, that horrible kid in her class let her know that Cinderella isn't true!"

[smokingboot]

Do we? I am not sure we do. I know my parents never did. But in any case, people can't stop other people saying stuff they don't like. We can't stop parents telling their children about Santa Claus, and we can't stop children's friends from telling them it's not true. I've known people whose parents told them it was all nonsense from the start, and some were grateful, but just as many were wistful, and wished they'd had those years of believing, some felt enraged at not being allowed to be part of it all, some felt isolated because Santa wasn't part of their childhood, others felt enraged at their parents 'lying' to them. Impossible to be sure of getting this right, all options can lead to unhappiness. All people can ever try to do is read their kids, and work out what they are going to do accordingly. And expect to get it wrong, because everyone gets it at least partially wrong.

[conuly]

Do we? I am not sure we do. I know my parents never did.

Your parents didn't tell stories that started with words like "A long, long time ago in a land far, far away" or "Once upon a time..."?

[smokingboot]

They did now and then - if they were reading a story that had those words at the beginning - but by no means as a rule, not least because many of their stories were not read but told, parts of folklore. My father would tell me stories of the terrifying each-uisge with no hint of fairy tale. He just told a good tale to the best of his ability; I don't think it ever occurred to him to do otherwise.

'Once upon a time' and 'A long long time ago in a land far far away' are traditions rather than disclaimers. It does not follow that they place the story outside reality, and even if they did, no guarantee that the child would comprehend this. Learning the difference between a story told to entertain/teach us and a lie created to deceive us is part of growing up.