Random last-year link on Santa...

[conuly]

Interesting post.

I'm only posting it to quote a specific comment:

I bet you don't believe in imaginary friends, either. Your world sounds so sterile and literal.

WTF is that supposed to mean? Of course he doesn't believe in imaginary friends! 'cuz they're imaginary. That's the meaning of the word!

What Anonymous means, of course, is "don't think they're appropriate", which is something else altogether. It's also a straw man - people don't lie to their kids about imaginary friends. People *do* lie to their kids about Santa. Children aren't expected to actually believe their imaginary friends are real. They *are* expected to believe that Santa is real. Whether or not you consider this a bad thing, the two things are not comprable.

Don't believe in imaginary friends. What a nonsensical set of words. It's like complimenting Shrubboy by calling him an incredible speaker. Not only are you wrong in the sense that you mean the word, but you're right in the literal etymology which nobody uses - he is quite honestly not credible. Whee, tangent!

Comments

[conuly]

Weirdly, even though I continue to believe that Santa-is-to-be-believed is inappropriate, I never thought it was traumatizing. Just... inappropriate.

I think it's the conspiracy aspect, actually. I don't mind telling children other outrageous lies, like "Your mother really, truly has an extra pair of eyes!" or "Aren't you scared of the invisible tickle-monster under your bed?" or, once, "HURRY! BEFORE THE GRASS EATS YOU!", but conspiring to lie, and to lie in a believable way other than one which clearly indicates that you're not being totally honest... that's something else.

Then there's my general annoyance with Christmas movies where the whole point is that the unfortunate person didn't believe in Santa. Hello? Santa? It's about believing in God. Or not, whatever, but I find it rather tasteless all the same. Irritates the crap out of me.

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

I hate Christmas movies like that as well -- partly for the same reason, but partly because of the other conversion narratives involved. They're also usually anti-intellectual/anti-adult/anti-childfree, and could even be construed as anti-autistic. (Or at least, against hypersensitive schedule-loving autistics.) It irritates me because the adult at the beginning of those movies is always similar to me in a lot of ways, and the entire premise is that what I am must be somehow broken. Grr.

As far as believing in things and conspiracies... My thought is that there are good kinds and bad kinds. The bad type is what you described -- things that scare the children into doing something, which I think is cruel. I don't see the "good" type as being drastically different from other "good" cases of the adults knowing something the kids don't, like what the kid will get for his/her birthday or a surprise vacation at a faraway theme park if the kid does well in school.

[conuly]

*grinned*

You didn't hear how I said it - other than the "eyes in back of head" one, it's one of those... joking things? Where you grin maniacally and jump drastically.

Especially the tickle-monster. I just wanted to play tickle-monster with Ana. Boy, did that work too well... now she keeps going "Monster? Where's the monster?" and wanting me to help her find it. Why, I *don't* know. I don't think she quite grasped the point of running away from the imaginary monster while screaming.

[conuly]

You know what it is? I don't *want* Ana to believe there's monsters, anymore than I want Meghan to believe grass can eat her (fun though it was to play that we had to stay on the path for fear of being eaten) or Deniz to believe that her mom has two sets of eyes.

So I go out of my way to make sure it's obvious I'm not telling the truth. If I thought they misunderstood, I'd explain. The other day, I found myself explaining to Ana that, no, she can't *really* knock me over, it's just pretend when she does. Which might've been a bit mean in and of itself, but she didn't seem to mind.

People do want their kids to believe in Santa, as near as I can tell. It's something completely different.