to tell my son the truth?

[MuddlePuddle86]

Evening ladies,
Here is my predicament. I know most of you go ott about christmas, however, as born again Christians my dh and I don't want to tell our son about father Christmas, a) because it's lying and b) because we think Christmas is an important celebration in itself.
My mother, also a born again Christian, has said that it isn't fair and I should lead my son down the father Christmas path.
We obviously exchange gifts, but we also sacrifice something to the relevant place (eg a console to the childrens' wing of the hospital etc) and we sacrifice something of use to us that we could do without and someone else can benefit from. My son is only 8 months old but I am seriously considering home schooling, so it's not as if he can "ruin" it for the other children...but I don't feel comfortable with lying about something that is so important to us (this is in no way criticising those of you that do).

I imagine the real fear is that your children will grow older and question the religion you have brought them into.

I may well get flamed, but I have to say that a childhood without magic/fairies/make believe is a very sad childhood to me. I feel sorry for your son.

This has probably been said, but I'm a highly amused by you saying that you want to tell your son the truth but then explain you're going to present Christianity as fact.

Sorry, for someone of a different faith (who is very open to the idea that my faith is no closer to the truth than any other) this is absolutely hysterical!!!

hi muddlepuddle

i've seen a couple of threads in a similar vein to this over the years on mumsnet
haven't seen a poster take quite the battering you've been given on the subject though, although i think the consensus was the same on all of them.... most people think FC is a great thing

I am not Christian, so am coming at it from a different angle to you, but I also don't like lying to the children.
I don't kn9ow why really, it just feels wrong.

Whilst ds1 (5.5) knows about Father Christmas I have never told him that FC brings his presents or that he'll come to the house.
He has sseen him on DVD;s and talks about sending him a letter and whether he will bring him presents too

I haven't told him otherwise, but if he asks me I will tell him the truth.
I can't really see the point in going on with some elaborate hoax only for them to be upset when they find out the truth a few years later.
Christmas is a fabulous time of year, and enjoyable even without the presence of an imaginary fat guy copming down your chimney!

"you stupid earth mother hippy"

I stopped reading this thread at that point Muddlepuddle, for someone who professes to be a born again christian that is a pretty unchristian to throw insults at other people...even if you feel justified. Is that not

You have posted in AIBU, you will get opinions you don't agree with, what did you expect?

Personally I think that if you don't want your ds to believe in FC that's fine and up to you, but to be considering not reading him fiction other than the bible is just awful, he will have no persepctive on life except being a christian.

You may home school him, but what about when he has to relate with other children/adults with different beliefs, cultures etc? He is going to find it very difficult to fit in/make sense of other people.

I make you hot, don't I? HOTTER THAN THE SUN

Oops, too many typos there.

Thinking about it, Scorpette, regarding magic, if Jesus had been female and performed all those miracles, chances are he'd probably have been burned as a witch.

So, the story of a real-life man who was generous and loving to children - St Nicholas AKA Santa - is a lie and you don't want to tell your son that lovely, heart-warming TRUE story, but you do want to tell him that things like miracles, angels, heaven, hell and God all exist, despite there being not one jot of evidence for them and it going against all logical and rational thought and proof? Yeah, that's the right way to look at things And what a charming way to bring up a broad-minded child who can think for himself, fits in with his peers and respect the views of others!

You do realise that just because someone tells you something is true doesn't make it true? And that just because a book (the Bible) says things it doesn't make it true either? I mean, I enjoyed the Lord of The Rings trilogy but I don't actually think Sauron is watching me, you know! Perhaps if you've never grown out of believing whatever you're told it's actually best not to tell your son about Santa after all, in case he takes after you...

PS Please explain how God ISN'T an invisible man who lives in the sky?

thisisyesterday - I have never yet met a person in RL who has ever been even vaguely upset when they found out the truth about FC. I think most children realise gradually and are not upset. I remember finding out gradually and by then having a much younger sister and being desperate to keepthe "magic" of it alive for her sake - so def not upset there and conmplete understadning of why my parents allowed FC to be part of our Christmas.

I do wonder if, in the cases where the odd persn has been upset as "being lied too" have more reasons for that upset - that there are other factors in their childhood leading to that upset YSWIM. It is ony via Mn that I have ever heard of anyone being upset after finding out about FC.

Scorpette, you put across what i wanted to say but struggled to, bravo.

Why are you on aibu then?Children will already believe once they hear about fc.He will be on telly,in shops,radio.unless you stay in the house 24/7 there's no escaping him.If your gunna tell him,do it straight away before he gets the chance to believe.

"The difference being...Jesus did exist..."

There is no proof. Thats what you believe, like I believe he didn't. Just like little children believe in FC. I feel sorry for your DS, will he be allowed to be a child at all in the middle of all this religion?

as a Christian we chose the line 'Father Christmas is not real it just a story ' to our 4 year old and now we are saying it too our two year old
DD1 has just started school so I should think we will have someone saying to us BUT my self and my husband do not want to lie to our children

Hulababy - When I told my DS that FC was not real he actually cried; because he couldn't believe that I had managed to buy two lots of presents for him every year while being a lone parent.

emmaruth - your choice and IMO a valid chose. However MO it is not a lie. It is a story. And as said before IMo it is important that your children are brought up to know that some people, esp children, do believe in FC and that they should respect that and not try t tell them it is not real - just like you;d deal with any other form of belief different to your own.

ShirleyKnot - ah, bless him. he sounds lovely. Tears of happiness and positive wonder at how much you'd done for him :)

shirley - you certainly do make me hot

but back to the point - so you'll read him stories from the bible about how nasty and unforgiving your 'god' is banishing people/sending the flood to kill everyone/asking people to sacrifice their children/reveling in dogs licking the blood of a dead person off the floor etc etc but you're not sure you'll read him Harry Potter. I think I know which would give him more morals

And your attitude on this thread with the name calling really shows that your definition of Christian is obviously different from mine.

Well, Juuule, if Mary really did have an Immaculate Conception, Jesus had to have been a female! Ignoring the ludicrous idea of the angel Gabriel sparking off life within her, as women have ZERO XY - male - material for a child to be created from, making a male child utterly, totally 100% impossible.

And yet THAT will be presented as the truth, I bet!

You know, I don't want to get into a debate about all of this, and to go into the depths of how "God isn't an invisible man in the sky" isn't something I can explain in text with a word limit. I merely wanted to hear the majority of thoughts, which I now have !

And I'm aware of cultural differences and beliefs, and I'm aware of how to respect them, but again thanks for your concern about how rounded I am as a person.

There's no need to pity my son, but thanks for your erm compassion. Nor do I need to be patronised or ridiculed, so I think I'm gonna sign off at this point! But thanks for all your unput and time, it's been much appreciated! Have a good evening ! :)

muddle this is something we're still trying to work out, DD is 3 1/2 so this is the first Christmas where it'll really be an issue. For our family, Christmas will be a celebration of Jesus birth and how much God loves us. One of the ways we'll celebrate is by giving and receiving presents. We won't do Santa or stockings, they'll know their presents are from friends and family.

I've been wondering how to navigate the FC thing, esp as DD has just started nursery so playing it down won't be as easy as it was last year. I've found it very helpful on here what people have said about explaining the story of St Nicholas to the children. I don't want DD causing trouble in the playground by telling other children FC doesn't exist, we're just going to make sure the focus in our family is on the celebration of Jesus and explain that other people celebrate Christmas in different ways.

Its very important to us that our DCs learn the Christian message about Christmas, and that the whole season isn't an exercise in greed and what they can get out of it. I think this year will be a learning curve for us of how to navigate it and how to make sure within our own house that the emphasis is where we'd like it.

You can't avoid the fact that strangers/neighbours etc will bend down and ask your DC what santa is bringing them for Christmas.

HTH. And enjoy the fact that you don't really need to worry about this for a couple of years yet!

I was brought up as a Christian, and still am. When I was a child we had stockings with small presents from 'Father Christmas', and then our main presents from our parents and family. It hasn't injured me, I didn't feel mum and dad were lying to me, and I still grew up knowing the real meaning of Christmas. We would have our stockings in the morning, then go to church and then have our main presents before lunch.

No problems. Christmas is about Jesus, but Father Christmas brings little gifts too (until we were about 5 at which point we knew it was mum and dad, but still we got stockings till we left home at 18, 19, 20 whatever!)

I really don't see why this had to be the bun fight it has become.

obviously OP seems to be deliberately antagonistic and there have been a couple of rather unnecessarily rude posts from those who are not christian.

Faith of all kinds is merely specualtive.

I see no reason Op should tell her son that there is a father christmas in the same way that i do not feel everyone else should tell our children there is a god/allah/whatever.

It really is rather ridiculous

may i suggest a name change too?

My brother has told his children about Saint Nicholas and every year they deliver locally (him and his DCs) gifts to people who need them in a similar spirit to St Nicholas and they have been doing this for years now. They leave them on their door step. They also send all their DCs to a lovely Christian school locally. But they did all know from a young age that Father Christmas wasn't real and were encouraged instead to celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus. It's a bit OTT for me but I do understand why he chose this approach. HTH?

Probably should have posted this in philosophy/ religion/ spirituality topic area

Why a name change? Is it really that bad?