Spin-off thread: do you tell your children about Santa? - Page 2

[AngelBee]

To me...it is all a feeling that is celebrated. A belief in that feeling ....not necessarily the "person" themselves.

Santa/Easter Bunny : celebrates generousity; thinking of those in need; thinking of others

Tooth Fairy/Woman Goddess: vistits from them (teeth/start of menstration) celebrate growth and change.

I believe in letting children live in the magic of it all. And the lesson learned one day is that they can make life "magical" for others. They can be Santa and be generous to others. They can be the "Tooth Fairy" and celebrate growth in the people around them.

After all......I still believe in faries, lepercons (sp), mermaids, unicorns. Just because I haven't seen them, doesn't mean that they do not exist. I feel their magical presence in my heart!

[Potty Diva]

I believe in letting children live in the magic of it all. And the lesson learned one day is that they can make life "magical" for others. They can be Santa and be generous to others. They can be the "Tooth Fairy" and celebrate growth in the people around them.

So you lie to them about something/someone being real, although they are NOT real, in hopes it will foster generosity?

After all......I still believe in faries, lepercons (sp), mermaids, unicorns. Just because I haven't seen them, doesn't mean that they do not exist. I feel their magical presence in my heart!

I'm sorry you have been living in the dark ages during your adult life. The imaginary people you have listed above have indeed been proven to not exist. Just because you have some 'feeling' about something doesn't mean they exist. It just means you have a great imagination. Kudos to you for that.

[onlyzombiecat]

How can you prove the non-existence of anything?
I don't think it has really been proved that those things don't exist... just no evidence that they do.

[ShadowMom]

Originally Posted by onlyzombiecat

How can you prove the non-existence of anything?
I don't think it has really been proved that those things don't exist... just no evidence that they do.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there is no particular (rational) reason to believe any of those things exist.

[oldcrunchymom]

Well, actually zombiecat is right. You can't prove a negative. However, I'd have to question the rationality of anyone who "believed" in leprechauns and unicorns...

[philomom]

As someone who did have the huge Ahha! at the age of 8 and confronted her mom about lying, I have a lot to say on this.

I felt betrayed and hugely hurt. I felt like my childhood traditions were based on lies and cover-ups. My parents never gained back my respect after that moment. I also threatened to tell every child I knew and was punished severely for even thinking such a thing.

I later left my parent's church and dissolved my belief in a God.

My children are blissfully nothing. At holiday time we spent quiet, quality time together and laugh and shake our heads at those strange people running up their credit cards to perpetuate a lie to their offspring.

[bobica]

We do a bit of santa but on a very small scale. she can't escape it- we're surrounded by friends & family who are over-the-top when it comes to that kind of stuff. she's only 2 so we haven't had to do much talking about it, but when it was time for presents this past Christmas, one or two were from santa & the rest were from us, the dog, & her family members. it's not a free-for-all "i want" festival, kwim?

[snuggly mama]

Now that my kids are older, I'm really starting to think that perpetuating the Tooth Fairy, Santa, etc., creates more problems than it might solve. After revealing to ds that the tooth fairy is not, in fact, a real person, but that mom and dad play at it because losing a tooth is an important part of growing older, he was very upset. How could he not be? We've lied to him for the better part of his life, so it's understandable that he questions us now. Dh very much wants to continue along the "santa is real" line, but I've about had it. Kids expect bigger, more expensive gifts from Santa than parents can generally afford. Santa is also supposed to be all-knowing, and it can be a terrible disappointment when the gift your child REALLY wants fails to appear beneath the tree. The Santa story also gets increasingly complex as they get older, and starts to feel much more like lying and less like weaving an imaginative story. I really, really dread the whole unraveling of this lie, and would like to find a gentle, compassionate way to stop. I think dd (10) isn't a real believer anymore, but ds (8) is fairly adamant. Judging by his reaction to the death of the tooth fairy, I imagine that revealing the truth about Santa would devastate him. Is it better for him to find out from friends, figure it out himself (while we continue the lie), or to just be out with it? This morning when dh killed off the tooth fairy, he made it a clean break -- "Bud, the tooth fairy is not real". I cringed, but dh really thought it was important to clear it up once and for all. Would you handle Santa the same way? I'm also wondering if ds will be willing to keep up the magic of Christmas (the traditions, etc) if he feels that we've somehow betrayed him. I truly wish we had been honest from the beginning and let Santa be a lovely myth that reminds people to be kind to others.

[nonconformnmom]

As for other parents getting upset if my kids were to tell their kids that there really is no Santa, I agree with Kay. I don't think those parents would have any right to be upset. Or... er, I have JUST as much right to be upset if their kids told mine that there IS a Santa! It's the same thing. Kids need to see that other people have different beliefs than they do. The sooner they learn that lesson, the better off we'll all be.

For the sake of argument, what if some parents had taught their child that babies come from the cabbage patch? And I had taken care and conscious effort to make sure my children (at the appropriate age and stage of development) knew the truth (or at least as much as I was ready to tell them at that stage) about where babies come from? Those differences in comprehension would very likely arise between the children at some point (when no parents were around, of course). Would the parents of the child who believed children were born in a cabbage patch be justified to come to me and say, "We're very upset with you because your child told our dear little Debby that babies do not grow in the cabbage patch! And now she's asking us to tell her where babies come from!"