Lie to kids about Santa?
I have a 4-year-old who became very inquisitive about Santa this year. She started asking questions about how Santa can make it to all the houses, how he can eat all the cookies and milk left by all the families, etc. She still believes it, but she's starting to find some inconsistencies. 
In order to keep the Santa thing going, we had to come up with some pretty elaborate, uh, explanations in response to her questions. We felt kinda creepy with all the lies.
My wife said that she remembers when she heard there was no Santa Claus, and she was very mad at her parents for lying about it.
This applies also to the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Why do we do it? Why not just say that your gifts come from your family? Does it really make kids' lives more magical or something? And is it worth it when they find out the truth and are let down and maybe angry?
Don't get me wrong. I do it and will probably continue to do it. It just seems weird when you think about why we do it,
In order to keep the Santa thing going, we had to come up with some pretty elaborate, uh, explanations in response to her questions. We felt kinda creepy with all the lies.
My wife said that she remembers when she heard there was no Santa Claus, and she was very mad at her parents for lying about it.
This applies also to the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Why do we do it? Why not just say that your gifts come from your family? Does it really make kids' lives more magical or something? And is it worth it when they find out the truth and are let down and maybe angry?
Don't get me wrong. I do it and will probably continue to do it. It just seems weird when you think about why we do it,
Comments
Hope that it goes well regardless of your decision. Just don't let her get to be as cynical and hard-headed as all of us idiots are in this forum!
i've flat out said that there's no way i'm lying to my kids about any of those things. (santa etc.)
if nothing else, i want my kids to be able to trust that i'm telling them the truth. it's hard to tell kids not to lie when you lie to them, even for "good" reasons.
we'll tell them that santa is a fun story, make believe per se and that they can enjoy it and play along, and not ruin it for other kids. but there's no way i'm going to sit down and lie to my kids when i expect them to tell me the truth.
[edit] I think maybe, somehow, you have to let them think they deduced it, resolve it in their own heads, and that when they look back they see you laid out the clues for them. (Perhaps that means being obtuse.) Chalk it up as another reason the thought of parenthood terrifies me.
If I ever have kids, and they ask about Santa, I will flat out tell them that he is not real, is a fantasy character, and a lot of parents lie to their children and say he is real. And I think my kids will appreciate my honesty when they grow up, and they will in turn be better people.
And that doesn't mean that I'm a grinch or that I'm not a festive person. I just detest misinforming kids on the assumption that they are too stupid to handle the truth. They may not understand everything right away when you tell them how things are, but when they grow up, they will trust you more subconsciously. Like if my 3 yo. asks me where babies come from, I'll just explain the act of sex. It's society's fault if it doesn't find him blurting out penis and vagina references to be acceptable, as kids who have been bestowed with such knowledge are known to do. I'd rather tell my kids how things really are, so when they grow up they aren't like "My folks are full of shit." like I really feel subconsciously about my mother particularly.
And no, i haven't had any professional counceling, this is just something I've postulated for myself throughout the relatively short 21 years of my life.
I grew up in a house where every year "Santa" would visit. My parents led me to believe that Santa was real in every way except for flat-out telling me. They did the whole nine yards - eating the cookies and milk I left out, writing me notes, saying "hello" from the reindeer, even putting my dad's boots in the soot from the fireplace to make prints, and then walking the boots across the floor to the tree. If I became inquisitive as to how Santa did all of this, they would answer according to what all the stories say, or simply use the panacea reason - he's magic. I drank all of this in, and loved every bit of it!
Figuring out that there really was no Santa, at age 7 or so, I was not crushed. I did not (and do not) feel that my parents betrayed me, or that I had been lied to for all those years. That part of my childhood was one that I adored, and I wanted to keep it around for a little longer. Knowing that he was not real, I was not about to go demand why they "lied" to me. Instead, I kept up the act. My parents thought that I believed in Santa until I was 10 or 11.
I did a lot of thinking about this entire question of Santa this year (now that I'm 18 ). Looking back on it, I realized that my childhood had been made so much more exciting because they led me to believe in the jolly old elf. I even rather miss being able to truly believe in someone so magical. My parents weren't lying to me, instead they were strengthening and preserving my imagination, and I thank them deeply for that.
When I have kids, I will certainly tell them about Santa. Having had extroardinary childhood experiances myself, I would only want the same or better for my own children. If I can do anything to make their childhood more magical, then I will - even if it requires some creative truth-telling. Most likely they'll enjoy it and thank me later - I know that I thank my parents for this.
So, in conclusion (yikes, this was long!), tell your daughter what you feel is right, but know that perhaps she would look back quite fondly on childhood memories of waiting in anticipation for a magical elf on Christmas eve.
Santa Claus, et al can represent something of an analogous reality that's a bit better than the real thing, and in a half-assed way a maturity test for your children. Guys, when your 5-year old daughter asks "Dad where do babies come from?" are you going to tell her the truth---every gory detail? Of course not, few 5-year olds would truly comprehend the explanation.
Life gets much darker as you get older; spiffing up Christmas with a little "magic" isn't a bad thing.
reminds me of that United Way commercial with Matt Birk and the kid who asks where lightning comes from.
he starts going on about positive and negativly charged ions. the kid interrupts and asks "doesn't it come from the sky?"
you can give your kids honest, but simple answers, there's nothing wrong with that.
but to tell kids that lightning comes from Zeus, who's throwing thunderbolts down from the sky is crap.
And maybe you don't want to be like that with your kids, and that's fine. I agree with the guy who said people are just ****ed up by major things, genetics or abuse or whatever, not by some minor detail. I think that's mostly the case too. And if you want to tell your kids there's a Santa I'm not saying you're a bad parent. I don't even have kids, I really have no place to speak. But what I am saying is that I want my kids to trust and respect me, and I want them to have an image of me as a straight up, rational and honest guy. When they grow up. On a conscious as well as subconscious level.
because most (adult) people can't bare very much of reality. i've hurt far more people telling truth than by lying.
i'm not very good in recognizing the questions where the honest answer is NOT requested - so i have problems socializing with female people in general. to avoid the risk .. just lie. no one gets pissed off you lieing about (nearly anything) compared to how pissed many people get when they get a honest answer to a questing that was not supposed to get a honest answer.
Originally posted by ipodandimac
here's another take on all this. one of my friends compared santa to god. when youre a kid, you accept that there is a santa and that he can do all these things, then you find out he isnt real. after that, you believe in god, who you never see or anything but you accept as being real. i'm not making any religious statements or anything, i'm just starting discussions...
That doesn't really apply to atheists/agnostics/etc.
Instead of thinking about yourself, and some false sense of self importance you may have, a false sense, moreover, that you feel will be helped by not LYING to your kids, you may do well by realising the joy and lifelong merriment the kids will have remembering the magic of the world they once inhabited. Another feeling added to the registry of our emotions. I am very happy that I was made to believe in our local Santa.
Even worse are those self serving egomaniacs that cannot give a present without the recipient knowing who it came from. What bunch of rednecks are you? What, selling off the fender of your Camarro to get that little box of Play Doh pained you that much? You wanna guilt your kid right out of any enjoyment he could possible know in his little life? Again: this is not about you, for once.
All this said: I can just bet you'd tell your kids God exists.
Originally posted by BuonRotto
by the time I was about 5, I told my mom that I understood the difference between Santa and God this way: Santa is imaginary, God is invisible.
Good old doublethink
Obviously if your kid asked you "is Santa real", it would be morally wrong to say yes, but until that time all it's doing is enhancing the magic of Christmas. Lying about the important things in life (eg sex) is a terrible, terrible thing to do. But Santa is about fun.
Personally, I wouldn't make up explanations. Just say "it's magic", and that way there won't be anything to feel uncomfortable about for you now or for your child later.
Barto
Originally posted by der Kopf
The question is another sign that we/you have the tendency to rationalize to the T every relationship you could possibly find yourself caught in.
Instead of thinking about yourself, and some false sense of self importance you may have, a false sense, moreover, that you feel will be helped by not LYING to your kids, you may do well by realising the joy and lifelong merriment the kids will have remembering the magic of the world they once inhabited. Another feeling added to the registry of our emotions. I am very happy that I was made to believe in our local Santa.
Even worse are those self serving egomaniacs that cannot give a present without the recipient knowing who it came from. What bunch of rednecks are you? What, selling off the fender of your Camarro to get that little box of Play Doh pained you that much? You wanna guilt your kid right out of any enjoyment he could possible know in his little life? Again: this is not about you, for once.
All this said: I can just bet you'd tell your kids God exists.
Wow Kopf, did the rain get to you or is it the time of the year, as for many, somewhat depressing for you?
It all depends on the way you tell these stories. I for one have noticed in reading back all those typical fairytales with my nearly 4yearold daughter, that most of these stories are pretty terrifying. Check out some of the Grimm fairytales and you'll find that these stories are often quite "moral" and basically convey the message;"hey kid, you 'd better behave or else...!).
6 December for instance is the day that Saint Nicolas comes by here with presents for the good children and spanking for the noughty ones. Saint Nicolas is always accompanied by his "black peters" who carry bags, in which the bad children are allegedly carried away... Quite imrpessive huh?
Of course, I don't want to deprive my daughter from the magic that surrounds these tales, but I try to explain her that they are just tales, and believe me, she has been enjoying the past few weeks a lot !
So basically yeah, I lie sometimes,
Anyone who doesn't ?
Originally posted by Dylsexic Manupilator
Wow Kopf, did the rain get to you or is it the time of the year, as for many, somewhat depressing for you?
No, no. Just an early morning post. I should probably put a personal moratorium on posting here, from the time I get up till the time I drained my cup of coffee.
Even still. I do get kind of annoyed at the question. I don't consider it lying at all, and I do believe that it's a good story, a socially enacted piece of theatre if you will, to entertain your kids with. It's not just you who may be fooling the littl'uns. It's everyone around you. And all of you make the kids believe, and then, when they're old enough, and they've reached and passed the age at which they will enjoy the magic the most, you can tell them. And then you can add: that'll teach you to believe an entire society, you little bastard. Next time you hear Bush call for the slaughter of 10.000 Iraqis, and for hatred towards 60 million French, and you see O'Reilly pick it up and decorate it, and you see it permeate your living space, you hear your bowling buddies sling it in each other's dumb faces, then remember Santa, young man, and realise Santa was just another little white lie we all, the Adults of this world, decided we'd fool you with.
See: I'm still only halfway through my first cup of coffee.
Am I passing a strange vibe? My stance is this: think about the eternal damnation that may be bestowed upon yourself by (what you call) lying to your kids, and compare it to the joy you may give a litt'un by adding this kind of magic to his or her amazing world.