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AIBU?

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Original poster

To not punish my daughter for answering honestly/telling the truth (Father Christmas related)

439 replies

iProcrastinate · 14/11/2016 08:05

To cut a long story short! My DD(7.5) hasn't believed in Father Christmas for a couple of years, we never made a big deal about this and I just let her make her own mind up. We still do a Santa letter, and leave out a mince pie with the stocking, that's tradition; and you'll struggle to find a kid who loves Christmas as much as she does! I won't bore you with why we don't make a big deal over it!

DD is under strict instructions NOT to go around telling other children that he isn't real. I don't think that she would, But she has also been taught that to lie is wrong......

So DD and her class have recently moved into Yr3 at school, so they share a play ground with the older kids. DD and a friend of hers were asked, by an older child, do they think Father Christmas is real. DD answered no. That night I got a furious message from the mother of the friend, saying that DD could have 'ruined their Christmases', but fortunately she has managed to 'repair the damage', and could I reprimand DD. I apologised but said that I would speak to her about this but not punish her. She answered honestly.

AIBU not to punish her? At what age do kids start questioning the Father Christmas thing? Surely it must be a hot topic of conversation at this age? DD can't be the only 7yr old out there who doesn't believe.

OP posts:
nooka · 20/11/2016 19:19

My children never believed in Santa and have always received presents which they know are from their family (and by the age of 7 were giving presents in return). Should they have let their non belief slip out and as a result a classmate told them they wouldn't get presents because they didn't believe they wouldn't have gone home in tears. Why would anyone imagine that scenario?

Children who know Santa isn't real, and know where presents come from also know that belief is not required for presents. This sort of threat only works on children who are in two minds, for my children it would have just seemed like a strange and ill informed thing to say. Worse case scenario is a bit of escalation, with non believing children providing believing children all the reasons as to why Santa is impossible. More likely to end up in the believing child getting upset really.

paxillin · 20/11/2016 19:41

I just completely fail to see how it is my responsibility to keep other families' Santa fabrication alive until their kids hit puberty. Worse still, some posters suggest it is the non-believing children's responsibility.

These are KS2 kids, they learn about evolution, electricity and the solar system at school. That's wonder enough without a man and his flying reindeer.

gillybeanz · 20/11/2016 19:42

Bertrand

On the contrary, mine were quite gullible and believed until age 9 - 1o respectively. I had to tell dd as I didn't want her to be bullied for still believing when some of her age didn't.
I certainly wouldn't have encouraged her to then go and tell those who still believed. That was up to their parents, not an outsider.
Out of them all dd was the one who actually was upset for a while. She soon got over it though, her brothers worked it out for themselves.
They are 25, 22, and 12 and managed to come out of it unscared. Grin
My children never bullied anyone they told the truth why would FC bring you presents if you don't believe, what a stupid suggestion.
I think the person telling others there's no such thing are the bullies tbh, because it was usually backed up by name calling, ribbing, and taunting.

HeCantBeSerious · 20/11/2016 20:07

My children never bullied anyone they told the truth why would FC bring you presents if you don't believe, what a stupid suggestion.

The truth?!

If she's the 12 year old you've no idea whether she's scathed or not. Wonder if there's a correlation between extended belief (forced or otherwise) and believing twats like Farage as an adult.

HeCantBeSerious · 20/11/2016 20:09

Children don't actually have to believe in FC to get presents. In fact, I'd argue that they generally don't give a shit who it came from, just that they have it.

gillybeanz · 21/11/2016 10:03

HeCan't

What do you mean, extended belief.
Children are pretty good at working it out for themselves, you don't usually have to tell them.
Of course somebody would know if a 12 year old was bothered about it, what a dumb thing to say.

BertrandRussell · 21/11/2016 10:07

Extended belief is belief that parents need to use extreme measures to preserve. Like enabling their kids to send other kids home crying about it.

Belief in Father Christmas is something that just naturally goes. As I said - because they work it out, because another child tells them or because a parent slips up.

chilipepper20 · 21/11/2016 10:53

This thread is amazing. I had no idea Santa causes so much grief. Seems to do more harm than good. Christmas is brilliant, the first snow, the smell of the spices and the twinkling lights are all brilliant.

Santa is dead. He can't cause grief. It's the lying and expecting the whole country to play along, and then blaming little kids for exposing the lie.

There is plenty of "magic" there for those who wish to participate: lights, feasts, presents, singing, charity... those are all real.

ghostspirit · 21/11/2016 11:03

I agree chilli I told my kids father Xmas is fake. From a young age they laugh at me. 6 year old Dd can say he's fake 1 min and the next min he's real. Oh well. They know I buy their presents I want to see their happy faces knowing that I bought them not someone who does not excist.

What people do with their own children is up to them but I agree with what chilli said.

HeCantBeSerious · 21/11/2016 13:25

Of course somebody would know if a 12 year old was bothered about it, what a dumb thing to say.

Really? I found out aged 6 (after my mother made an epic fuck up). The next couple of xmases were pretty traumatic as I had to keep up the pretence for a younger sibling and cousins.

Then I forgot about it until I had DD. (DH and I opted to go away for Xmas with friends rather than do the family thing for many many years.) And suddenly the pressure to "do santa" was ridiculous from pretty much everyone we knew, and even random strangers. DD was not many weeks old the first year, so we didnt do Santa. We both felt very strongly that we wouldn't be doing it for the next, or any year unless she (and later they) showed any interest. This year will be DD's 9th Xmas and DS' 7th and neither have ever shown any interest in him delivering their presents. We've opted for this rather than telling them he's make believe as it leaves the option for them to believe. Neither has been at all interested in it as anything other than a story.

Point is, I didn't realise until I was 31 how I felt about it all. Perhaps your daughter will remember what you told her to tell others if she ever has children and find it so stomach-churningly awful that she opts not to do it either. Wink

ClassmateHB · 22/11/2016 08:14

I was that parent this morning.

Ds2 aged 8 has learnt the tooth fairy isn't real. Trying to get him not to blub at the school was a nightmare.

I apologised to another parent, who said "DS came home saying your DS said father Christmas isn't real as well"

Now he's never said this to me. Theyve both always known I buy the presents (single parent) but they get delivered - but tbh with DS1 aged 10 and now DS2 I'm trying to get them the truth...... So seems he's pretending at home but knows he's not real and is telling everyone in year four in school!

Not much I can really do, other than remind him that others still believe and to be careful. I did tell him off this morning as he was rude 'tooth fairy is for five year olds its babyish" but I won't apologise for him telling the truth?

allowlsthinkalot · 22/11/2016 14:27

Mondegreens, you're attributing some pretty nasty motives to children who are just stating a fact.

Also, you are only thinking about children who have at some point believed. My four year old isn't great at keeping secrets. So if she happened to say "it's a man dressed up" at Santa's Grotto, that would be her innocence and not any kind of malicious intent. Same as when she says, "we bought you a surprise Daddy, it's a book" or "I'm not telling you about your surprise cake, Mummy."

Her brother and sister grasped that it might spoil people's fun to keep saying Santa isn't real. She doesn't have that maturity yet.

And I'm not going to change my approach to my children just so that other people's children continue to believe a lie!

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