To not feed DC the Father Christmas lie

[PeterRabitting]

Not looking for the MN angry responses of "let children be children for gods sake" etc etc but interested in hearing the intellectual views of any parents who've handled "Father Christmas" differently from the 'norm'. The reason is, I have a friend who has raised all her DC telling them there is no such thing as Santa from the outset. It has intrigued me a bit, as a mum of a baby. On the one hand part of me thinks that it's terribly sad and my friend's DC are missing out on the magic etc. But in the other hand her reasons do make some sense to me. She and her DH are atheists and so she argues that in the same way she tells her kids the science of life (eg she doesn't tell them there is such a thing as heaven) why would she fool them into thinking Father Christmas is real. She talks to her DC about FC as a belief / story that some people believe, in the same way that some people believe in different religions etc. She leaves it open for her DC to believe if they choose to, so she doesn't say it's "nonsense" but she just says some people believe it. She said her DC are critical thinkers and would question things like the scientific possibility of flying round the earth etc etc anyway.

She also says that her way encourages gratitude, mindfulness and an appreciation of the value of money because her DC know that their gifts come from mummy and daddy through love and hard work and do not magically appear / are not made by elves. My friend says that she installs a sense of magic into her DC through all the lovely family things they do and spending time together.

I'm uncertain but it intrigued me as I too am an atheist and if I'm not trying to persuade my child that heaven exists then why would I persuade them that Santa does? On the other hand... "let children be children"!

Does anyone on here "do Father Christmas" differently / not feed their DC this story?

@Slightlybrwnbanana

I thought Santa was what atheists did at Christmas, otherwise why are you celebrating at all?

Bright, sparkly things and home, family and warmth and light in the middle of Winter.

I’ve never said Santa is real, or unreal. We dont make a big deal of it. My kid is 6 and knows it’s a story, and Is happy to sometimes believe and sometimes not. We do the traditions but it’s only a small part of Xmas isn’t it?

I can’t imagine why people pretend it’s magical to believe in Santa. Isn’t it more magical to just believe in the power or stories, myths, legends etc? Kids know about fictions.

Same goes for the tooth fairy. She knows there’s no tooth fairy, and she also loves the tradition

My mum told me from an early age (must've been about 3 or 4) that there was no such thing as FC. I had zero magic in my childhood because of that, as she also put the kibosh on the tooth fairy/Easter bunny etc. I had a high level of cynicism which is not a nice trait in a child. Also impacted on Xmas for my dad, who I spent most Christmases with anyway, and I pretended to believe in FC for his sake.

Don't do it! Why the fuck would you do it?!?! Just let kids have a bit of enjoyment in life before the shit reality of existence kicks in...

Stompy I like your risk assessment of father Christmas 🤶 😂😂🎅🎄🎄🌲🌲🎁🎁🎉🦌⛄☃️

Also for those worrying about school - in the last school I taught in, every year there were young children who were open about the fact that they didn't believe in Christmas/Santa because it wasn't part of their culture or religion. 'My mum said Santa is a story for Christians' and the like.

The children who did believe seemed to cope with this without too much trouble!

I can't respond to your actual question OP as I am strongly in favour of the FC thing. What I would say is, little kids have no concept of money / cost. So whether the parents 'earned' the gift or FC rocked up with it for 'free', it's lost on them.

That said, my parents always impressed upon us how hard the elves need to work all year to make these gifts, and to ensure there's enough to go around for all children. Therefore you must never ever be greedy, and always be very good and grateful - or no presents at all. Lands the same message that I think your friends are going for without revealing all.

To each their own but the anticipation and excitement of my childhood Christmases are still some of the most magical memories of my life so far, and I can't imagine not doing the same with my own DC.

My parent had to tell me he didn't exist as I got really upset one year that whilst granny and grandad bought me presents, mam and dad didn't, so therefore I'd concluded they didn'love me!
I then promptly went into school and told everyone the next say. I think I was 7 🙈

Christmas does not make sense child greedy or not.

The 364 other days of teaching do that.

I have one extremely grateful child who never asks for anything and one who demands a lot. Both raised the same.

This is ironically what kind of what super Christians do, because the ‘magic of Santa’ takes away from the ‘magic of Jesus’.

In early America, Christmas was just not widely celebrated. Puritan influence was definitely a factor in that!

I'm a cynical, analytical, scientific atheist.

As such I think it more important than anything else that my future children engage in joyful, whimsical, emotional belief. I'm not going to raise them in a religion, so a harmless and wildly fun social convention of Mr magic present man fits the bill perfectly.

Understanding and experiencing faith and belief will go a long way towards making them decent, compassionate human beings, in my scientific opinion

Indeed, having direct experience of belief will surely be an invaluable form of learning that you can't fake? I couldn't enter a scientific experiment tomorrow to believe in God or Allah or Buddhism. I could follow the practices, but not the feelings.

Plus, you know, I love it. Still do.

I've not RTFT so apologies if this has been done already :-)

We don't do FC. We celebrate Saint Nicolas on the 5th/6th Dec, and Christmas Eve is part of the Christmas festival celebrations. My DH is from a European country that celebrates Saint Nicolas and Christmas Eve is as important, if not more so, than Christmas Day itself. We also celebrate Christmas Day for me & my family.

We also celebrate Yule/Winter Solstice just to add to the confusion!

@OhToBeASeahorse

Equating FC and religion is too stupid for words.

Some parents seem to treat it as more sacred than religion though. It's okay to for a child to say they don't believe in God, but if they say the same about Father Christmas (not even saying it's not real, just that they don't personally believe) then the pitchforks come out!

I'm also raising a family of critical thinkers, but we do father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. This may seem contradictory, but it is still teaching they important life lessons. When they are small these characters bring them so much joy and excitement; as they grow older they learn that the characters aren't real, but we all have it within us to bring that much joy to others. And more importantly, we can do it freely and anonymously, without expectation of reciprocation or reward. Critical thinking is really important, but so too is knowing that you can make magic. :-)

Always told mine that it’s so fun to pretend that Santa is real that most people do so. And lots of little kids think he is real and don’t realise we’re all just using our imaginations and pretending, which is fine.
We engage in “Christmas magic” like visiting Santa, and stockings, like we engage with reading them stories - no need to go “this isn’t real by the way!”

I remember being pretty small and thinking adults were dim witted for trying to convince me that Santa was literally real, but that realisation never stopped me from enjoying Christmas spirit.

Completely agree!

My son is 2. He loves watching insects. I tell.him that they are looking for food. When they disappear down a crack or whatever I tell him they are going home.

I dont tell him that their brains are too small to understand the concept of home!

@whirlwindwallaby people are weird!

Some parents seem to treat it as more sacred than religion though. It's okay to for a child to say they don't believe in God, but if they say the same about Father Christmas (not even saying it's not real, just that they don't personally believe) then the pitchforks come out!

Yes, you get it every year on MN. Parents who don't tell their children a lie about a magic man delivering presents are all boring and joyless and have ruined their children's childhoods and made them cynical and annoyingly precocious. Even if they celebrate Christmas and give presents. It's bizarre how invested some people are in insisting that what their children are told is what every child should be. Even when it's untrue.

Honestly life is shite, let them have Santa ffs
I think we all need some magic this year more than ever

@Miriel

Also for those worrying about school - in the last school I taught in, every year there were young children who were open about the fact that they didn't believe in Christmas/Santa because it wasn't part of their culture or religion. 'My mum said Santa is a story for Christians' and the like.

The children who did believe seemed to cope with this without too much trouble!

This was exactly my experience with DS's classmates. No one seemed to find it a problem. DS was already entirely accustomed to children and their families believing in different gods or non/practising religions differently, so different beliefs about FC were apparently filed under the same heading, whatever you believed.

I like Father Christmas and we’ve always gone along with it here. My older one just eased himself out of gently between probably about 7 and 8, didn’t seem at all upset. My younger one is 7 and still believes in him and in the tooth fairy, but I think she’ll be ok too. I don’t remember being upset when I found out he wasn’t real, it just seemed to be a natural part of growing up.

We are atheists, but I like Christmas as a cultural thing and Father Christmas is a part of it. No problem with people who don’t want to go in for him though. And I tell my kids there is no naughty list, but they shouldn’t argue with other kids about it as other parents might believe in it.

We told our children that Father Christmas was a lovely story that some people believe in. They are now 45, 44 and 25 and have not been scarred for life. I don't think people were as hung up on 'the magic' when they were small though, especially the older two.

She said her DC are critical thinkers and would question things like the scientific possibility of flying round the earth etc etc anyway. *
*
cause no other kid has questioned tgat!

One of my DC is in yr 3 now and seems to be showing signs of still believing.

I find FC a handy tool to get them to write a list of things they want.

We don’t claim all presents are from FC, so they understand that most things are gifts from people that love them.

I remember being a teenager and leaving a carrot and whiskey out by the fireplace. Inspire of knowing full well it was my Dad that wrote back, my sister and I still enjoyed the panto of it!

@Miriel

Some parents seem to treat it as more sacred than religion though. It's okay to for a child to say they don't believe in God, but if they say the same about Father Christmas (not even saying it's not real, just that they don't personally believe) then the pitchforks come out!

Yes, you get it every year on MN. Parents who don't tell their children a lie about a magic man delivering presents are all boring and joyless and have ruined their children's childhoods and made them cynical and annoyingly precocious. Even if they celebrate Christmas and give presents. It's bizarre how invested some people are in insisting that what their children are told is what every child should be. Even when it's untrue.

And yes again to this. It's very clear that some parents have a deep need to believe in some very specific version of childhood via their own children, when in fact it's nothing at all to do with the children themselves.

Oh yeah, and that critical thinking thing is bonkers , my eldest is a very critical thinker which is exactly how he got to the point of questioning and working out it wasn’t real, it was an excellent exercise in challenging your own core beliefs ;)