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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Help! DD aged 8 is asking about father christmas

70 replies

Canthaveitall · 11/10/2013 20:14

I am on here for traffic.

DD aged 8 has just landed the 'is father christmas real' question on me. A boy at school told her he is not. She is sobbing and has asked me for a straight answer. Just putting DS to bed - what do I say? The truth or some twist to make the magic last. Feel very she no longer believes. Yes I know that's a bit silly.

OP posts:

StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes · 11/10/2013 21:40

Whatever approach you use can you try to turn it into a game afterwards so there isn't a before/after belief thing but it's all good. yes this, we still play along with it and Ds's are 17 and 20. I still read the night before xmas on xmas eve, they still take stockings to bed and I still tell them 'father christmas' won't come if they have a messy room

Balloonist · 11/10/2013 21:41

Oh yes and I never asked my parents whether or not he was real and was upset when I heard that my sister had asked. I refused to talk about it at all at home.

moldingsunbeams · 11/10/2013 21:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

morethanpotatoprints · 11/10/2013 21:58

I think its very individual thing. My dd asked last year, I bluffed and she is talking about a letter to Father Christmas now. She is 9 and I think its lovely during primary school. Certainly wouldn't carry it on till secondary age though.
Let them have the majic for as long as they can, is my opinion.

Original poster

Canthaveitall · 11/10/2013 22:35

Update: After finding her googling ' is santa real?' I talked about the story of St Nicholas. I talked about how we keep the story alive but no he's not real as after all how would he get such a large bottom down our chimney. She found that very which took the edge off. I said she now has a special job to keep the magic alive for other children and let her stay up with me for a bit. She seemed OK about it but we shall see. I don't want her to tell other children but that's how she found out and I had to make the decision that was right for her. I tried the 'what do you think? ' and 'well you have believed and always got presents' but she kept asking and saying she wanted to know. I give it 12 hours before her brother is told

OP posts:

Original poster

Canthaveitall · 11/10/2013 22:53

That's lovely clr2014. I have actually shed a tear . I read this after the chat with DD. I think I will write her a copy later for her to read. She is very persistent and wanted to know if there was an actual person so I feel happy I have answered that. The letter explains to me why I have carried this debacle on if nothing else !

OP posts:

Justforlaughs · 11/10/2013 23:03

I told my own DCs as soon as they asked me outright. I don't think any of them were traumatised by the experience. however, I do believe that it not a good idea to deliberately lie to your DCs when they ask for a straight answer - even more so now there is the internet to expose your fabrications!

whatsonyourplate · 11/10/2013 23:15

I feel for my dd she is at such an in between age. She is 9 and I've just bought her a 'growing up facts of life book', but she still got a visit from the tooth fairy the other night, and told me a few days ago she knew Santa was real cos he was far more generous than me and dh! I so don't want to burst that bubble.

Spelt · 11/10/2013 23:34

I think people are sanctimonious about not lying to their kids when their own parents have kept these myths going for too long, in the face of direct questioning. That uneasy feeling of knowing that your parents are lying to you is horrible.

stargirl1701 · 11/10/2013 23:45

Tell her that her Dad is Father Christmas. It is true.

Gruntfuttock · 11/10/2013 23:55

You are right to have been honest with her. I'm 59 but can still remember the humiliation of discovering the truth in primary school and asking my mother about it. I was especially put out because my mother had always made a big thing about telling the truth and so I stupidly assumed that she told me the truth in turn.

campion · 12/10/2013 01:22

My brother told me when I was 8 then warned me not to let on to DPs or he'd thump me

I told them I didn't think Santa was real the following year.My Mum's immediate reaction was 'DB told you, didn't he?'. Followed by bollocking of DB

Partridge · 12/10/2013 08:41

I really don't understand all the "trauma of parents lying" stuff. Surely I can't be the only person who just worked it out and then played along for 30 years. It really wasn't traumatic at all...

Sirzy · 12/10/2013 08:46

Partridge - same here.

dobedobedo · 12/10/2013 08:48

Oh god this thread is making me sob like an idiot. Bloody pregnancy hormones!
My 8 year old is close to figuring it out too. Will use some of this advice, thanks!

HomicidalPsychoJungleCat · 12/10/2013 08:53

Our 8 year old found out the truth about the tooth fairly this year and promptly asked 'so does that mean F.C. Isn't real too. I asked her what she thought and she told me that as she'd got a video message from him last year and he had her picture and loads of information about her her MUST be real. I just told her, well if that's what you feel then just go with that. She seems happy with it. But I'm sure she's guessed. :o

Lilacroses · 12/10/2013 09:13

Same happened to me and my Dd. An older child told her rather maliciously at a similar age. Ugh it was horrible. Like you though once she asked me directly I couldn't lie. She sobbed and said "next thing you'll be telling me all the characters at Disneyland are dressed up people".......Ummmm!

nooka · 12/10/2013 09:18

I've neither experienced the whole Father Christmas shebang myself nor perpetuated it, but it seem surprising to me that by the age of eight most children haven't figured out that it is a bit of made up fun (at least I hope it's fun!).

It seems to me that whilst when I was growing up that Santa wasn't that big a deal, just visits and stories really, now there is a bit of an industry around making it much more 'real', which perhaps is why older children don't challenge the idea. Those of you with eight years olds, don't they ask all sorts of questions about the basic impossibility of the idea? I don't really get why you'd not tell the truth, or at least play with the ideas enough to let them know it's just a bit of fun.

I should add that my children were under strict instructions not to mess up anyone else's fun, despite my irritation with the assumptions by a huge number of people that we met when they were small who would go on and on about Santa bringing presents etc.

Jinsei · 12/10/2013 09:51

I think you know when the time is right to tell them. My dd started asking a couple of years ago and was happy to be fobbed off with the "what do you think?" type answers, so that's what I did. Last year it was different, and she clearly wanted the truth, so I told her.

I thought she would be disappointed, but actually, I think she just felt a kind of relief - she had just wanted to know either way, so she was glad that I'd been straight with her. We talked about how Christmas could still be a magical time, and about how she had to help keep the magic alive for others - and she did!

It sounds to me OP like your dd was ready to hear the truth, so I think you did the right thing in telling her. It's sad for us when they stop believing, but there comes a point when it's no longer in their interests to keep up the pretence. :(

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 12/10/2013 10:29

DD, then 7, took me aside and told me Santa wasn't real "but don't tell Mummy or she'll cry".

MrsDavidBowie · 12/10/2013 10:29

ds sussed it when he was 7.
I had to bribe him not to tell his big sister who was 9.

firesidechat · 12/10/2013 10:51

I think that I may be in the minority here, but we never "did" Father Christmas. We didn't say that he existed and we didn't specifically say that he didn't. However when asked by our children we did tell them the truth.

I don't think that they missed out and now that they are adults we have talked about it. They say that they did wonder if he was real for a few years, so they had a bit of the magic without us having to tell them one way or another.

It will be interesting to see what they do with their own children.

flaquark · 12/10/2013 10:56

We never had Father Christmas but were threatened upon pain of death not to tell anyone that he didnt exist. I imagine we will do the same with future DCs.

valiumredhead · 12/10/2013 19:07

FC it's a lovely story, nothing more. I don't understand all the angst surrounding keeping him alive

OP sounds like you did completely the right thing

moominleigh94 · 12/10/2013 19:32

I didn't figure it out until I was 11 kids at primary school told me from the age of 8, but I didn't even tell my parents about it - just decided that their parents felt sorry for them and bought them presents because Santa wouldn't if they didn't believe in him my sister's 12 and I think she knows, but none of us have told our parents - I'm 19, brother is 14 and sister is 12 -, we just keep it going even though we know what's what.

I think my mum's excited though - I think she thought her Santa days were over for five+ years now that my sister's past it, but next year she'll have a grandchild to get excited about Santa with

Let them carry on believing it for as long as they like. Two of my friends in secondary school were very sanctimonious about the fact that their parents had never lied to them - one because they were very very religious and didn't give many gifts at Christmas anyway, and the other because "I don't agree with lying to my daughter". They were both miserable as sin at Christmastime, whereas I'm still full of Christmas spirit each year (I was wearing a Christmas t-shirt the other day ) maybe hormones are giving me a little too much Christmas spirit this year?

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