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Santa Claus |
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WHY DO WE LIE TO OUR CHILDREN ABOUT SANTA? 01/12/2006 With yet another Christmas season behind us, it seems like a less controversial time for me to raise a legitimate question about the great guy with the white beard. No, I don’t mean James Randi, I’m talking about Santa Clause. Specifically, why do we insist upon lying to our children about this wacky, mythical character? What’s with that anyway? And more to the point, is it possible that there is actually some harm done? Luckily, my children are to an age where the question is purely academic. But I have a hypothesis (I’m never short on those :-), based upon my own childhood experience with Santa Claus. By way of background, I’ll never forget the truly traumatic experience of being told by my parents that Santa was not real. I think I was fairly old (shouldn’t surprise those of you who know me), perhaps in first grade (and I’m sticking to that story). It was a wonderful, snowy Michigan night in December, and Dad had agreed to go try to start the mouse-ridden old snowmobile for an evening of fun. That was good news. The bad news was that mom had asked me to stay behind for a few minutes. Hmmmm. It felt like I had lost a good friend. Truly I had not questioned the reality of Santa. My sister had even caught a glimpse of him once by accident, or so she believed (and maintains to this day she genuinely believed she had seen him). But alas, it wasn’t so. Now perhaps a good psychiatrist could trace my later life fascination with weird beliefs to this very event, but to me was not something that triggered any notable reaction or anger, just sadness. And of course I had largely forgotten about my sadness once dad successfully started that old Ski-Do. His arm may never have been the same after pulling that old rope, but it sure helped me recover from the trauma. So back to my hypothesis. I genuinely believe that had my parents continued to deceive me about Santa, I would have believed he existed for some time further. How long? That depends. What if they were willing to continue to lie about it if directly asked questions? What if my peers’ parents had not told their children the truth? What if, in fact, all of my friends believed Santa was real? Further still, what if we were living in a somewhat rural area in the 1960’s, and TV and other outside resources were limited? Or better yet, what if my parents actually BELIEVED in Santa themselves? Truly it is my hypothesis that I could have been led to believe in Santa for a MUCH longer period of time. Taken to an extreme, can’t you conceive of a case in which someone could believe in Santa Claus for his entire life? It’s a stretch, but you see the point. I can show you FAR stranger beliefs in adults. Let’s face it. When our parents tell us something at an early age, or lead us to believe something intentionally, it is gospel! Why on earth would our parents, whom we know love us dearly and provide for us in every way, want to LIE to us? It makes no sense. But in fact, that’s exactly what we do. So in talking with my kids the other night about their own experience, I began by taking the high road. Being the curious and enlightened dad that I was when they were little, I actually had conscious reservations about lying to the kids about Santa. I started explaining how I had never really told them there was one, and had always said simply that I really enjoyed “thinking that there was a guy named Santa.” Have you ever had that experience where the moment something comes out of your mouth you suddenly can see the lunacy of your argument? Here I was taking the high ground, that I had only PASSIVELY deceived them through my actions and implied comments. Being the great dad that I was, I hadn’t ACTIVELY deceived them like the bad parents. They laughed, but truly the absurdity struck me. Why do we lie to our kids about this? I posed the question to their much more normal (than I) mother, who said, “Christmas is about kids. It’s okay to make it fun for them.” And after all, isn’t she right? What is more fun than seeing the children’s faces all aglow, watching their giddy excitement, and building anticipation toward this mystical and magical evening. Unfortunately, it’s that “mystical and magical” point that caught my attention. Could it be that deceiving our children into belief in something as fundamentally untrue as Santa, is actually an early teaching of mysticism and magic? Will they be disappointed later when the behavior-watching gods don’t deliver the goods? Better yet, would it really be any less fun for the kids if we said that mom and dad were going to lay out a bunch of presents after they went to sleep? I’m sure the anticipation and seasonal joy could still be just as intense (if that’s the goal). Honestly, my wife and I both agreed that it was probably for OUR OWN enjoyment that we chose to launch the little ruse on our kids. But in truth, we both said that if we had it to do again, looking our children in the eye, lying to them, and telling them magical, unreal stories are absolutely true, is not a loving act that we would repeat. Have we scarred them for life? Probably not. After all, just look at me! I only believed in UFO’s and other mystical and wacky notions for the first few decades of my life! |
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