To not want my future child lied to?

[cjferg]

Dh and I agree we won't be lying to our soon to be born child about anything. We both know how much it can fuck any relationships up and undermine trust.

Massive argument with MIL recently about santa. She thinks we are being ridiculous to not want to tell a pointless lie more often than not used to control children's behaviour. I think there is enough beauty and 'magic' in the world already without making shit up. I'd rather teach them about that.

Also our kid is going to get lied to enough by everyone/thing else in life so why would we want to add more?

And lying to avoid awkward questions is just a lazy cop out. In this day and age a kid is probably going to find out about sex and stuff like that pretty young anyway and I'd rather tell them myself if they asked than them find out some half baked version from wherever else.

I was going to ask you about your own experiences OP, but you have now posted about them. There is a middle ground which means you can tell your child about the important things you feel you weren't told when it is appropriate for them and in an age appropriate way. Just because you were rational as a child doesn't mean you shouldn't let your own kids enjoy believing in Santa. And he is based on a real person anyway.

What do you mean Santa isn't real? Have you never seen the factual documentary Miracle on 34th street?

HarveyKietelRabbit on the contrary I used to think it was fine to lie if it saved me from uncomfortable situations. Was who I was. Lied to everyone including myself. Then realised the harm I'd done, mainly to myself.

yorkshireyummymummy
ahaha what's baby sign language? Do you mean teaching babies to use sign language? Or learning what stuff your baby does means (in which case why would you need a class?)
As for being "normal" as you put it, I have never been and will never be.

Santa to sex in the same post! I used to be the perfect parent too. Kids fucked that up though.

Actually, I kinda wish we hadn't done santa now with hindsight.
I didn't think about it in any shape or form and just did it.

But basically birthdays are just as magical without any magical being. On a birthday we set up the front room with balloons and presents and the children find in exciting to come down. If we'd just done this with Christmas there wouldn't be the 'is he real' angst and the let down that he isn't.

And because truth was never a big part of my life I learned to really convincingly lie to myself and others and assumed it was fine. If I'd been truthfully told about sex, relationships, etc. I would not have had to spend the first years of my adulthood sorting out my fucked head, and the way the world is going we're going to have to be truthful about these things to younger and younger kids

It sounds like you had a lot more lying going on in your childhood that just the fact that Santa exists. I guess this has skewed your thinking, and I suppose I can understand that to a point. But telling a white lie to a child to bring magic into their lives is very different to lying about sex, relationships etc.

You will miss out on one of my all time favorite memories of DC’s coming down to the living room on Christmas morning and seeing their presents, saying ‘he’s been ‘. I’ll never forget the look on their faces.

OP human beings lie to each other all the fucking time. It’s the reason society as we know it knits together. We lie to protect feelings, we lie to make people happy, we lie to reduce disappointment, we lie to ring a little bit of magic into the world where there’s is none. Lying, and judging when it’s appropriate to lie, is actually a very important social skill that your DC will need to learn from an early age if they are to get along in social groups.

But you don’t need to be a dick about it; we do santa, and the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy. Because it’s fun, and DD1 adores the magic of it. She’s 4. She also knows exactly how babies are made and how they are born, she knows about consent and bodily autonomy, she knows about a variety of religions, she knows that people do bad things sometimes and we don’t always understand why, and she’s knows that when people die they don’t come back and we don’t see them again.

Letting your kids believe in santa doesnt mean you have to leave them ill prepared for life or vulnerable in some way, as you seem to be suggesting.

We also don’t use those things as behavioural ‘carrots’, no elf on the shelf etc.

I do lie to her though; she’s got a sports trial at the weekend but she has no idea that theres anything at stake, she just thinks it’s an extra session. This way, she’s not going to be crushed if she ‘fails’. Her teachers will lie to her about SATs, in our school they are presented as special tasks, and they don’t talk about testing and ability at all. Lies re important; the cold hard truth at all times makes life a bit less pleasant all round.

My mother categorically said that Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, elves, fairies, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, wishes, and anything else remotely fanciful was not true.

I remember once pointing at the moon and saying that I could see the man in the moon. She sighed and said it was just the shadows on the craters of the moon and there is no such thing.

I remember when I was small, a neighbour asked her to make a Santa outfit for her husband to dress up and to surprise my best friend, which she did - so it was ok to sprinkle the magic for other people's children, but not for me.

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

― Albert Einstein

Hypothetical children are easier, yes, i get that, but I feel like too many people lie to children so they can have an easy life

Can you give us some examples?

*Kids just want to be the same as everyone else.

But the worst thing for kids, at some point in their childhood, is to be ‘different’.*

This is hilarious, kids want to be the same as everyone else because they are taught that to be 'different' is a bad thing. It would be much better if everyone had the self confidence to be who they are and let others do the same.
Kids are mostly fine with who they are and have no confidence issues when they are small. It's when they get older and some of them learn that being fat/a nerd/black/insertanything is a bad thing and pick on others who are. Why should the 'different' person not just be encouraged that it's ok to be the way they are

The Santa "Lie" is a bit of magic for a few years.

It's not like your deceiving them for life or causing them harm. I've never admitted the real Santa to my kids, but of course they know the truth and play along with me - usually looking for fun and amusing ways to catch Santa out (teenagers!)

Frankly you sound far too serious......

*Kids just want to be the same as everyone else...

But the worst thing for kids, at some point in their childhood, is to be ‘different’.*

Children are all different. Those statements may be true for your kids, and/or yourself when you were a child, but it's an incredibly broad generalisation to suggest that they're true for everyone, including OP's future child. As individuals, children have varying opinions on whether they'd like to be 'the same as everyone else' or not. I certainly didn't.

I 100% agree with you.

You can still do Santa without them knowing it's real.

And sex education is best done by the parents.

I am shocked by the responses on this thread tbh

I always wonder what parents who cannot lie to their children do when their child goes through an imaginary friend phase. Do they just stomp all over it with their uncompromising truth?

I didn't grow up with Santa and didn't do it with my children. Christmas was always great and I've never had any of the issues people on this thread seem to think I should have had. Different families do things differently, so long as there is love it's all fine I think. Not sure why children would be negatively affected by not having Santa. Not having presents or not celebrating Christmas might mark you out as different from your peers but knowing that your presents come from your family or believing they come from Santa is just detail really.

I was really upset as a kid discovering Santa didn't exist as it meant I didn't feel I could ask for anything expensive. Following on from this I didn't want to have any thing to do with Santa for dc, DH pointed out I was just pushing my own issues onto DC. We have a Santa stocking and as the belief finishes he was right it has been magical, low key but magical.
It is only possible to be a perfect parent before you have dc.

Kids at some point just want to fit in.

Peers become more important that parents.

They ebb and flow. They hate you because you are you and they don’t want to be. 🤷🏻‍♀️ They work out who they are.

I don’t think it’s ‘hilarious’ I think it’s just what happens, especially as they reach adolescence. Must seem like a long way off.

Anyway, you obviously know more than I do as a mum of four young adults. I’d wish you luck, but you obviously don’t need it. 😂

budgiegirl
IDK to me there's a difference between a white lie (your violin sounds GREAT) and saying a dude literally comes into our house at night when nobody is around to leave presents, and then keep it up year after year.
Why can't I just tell the kids a nice story about it and say 'this is why we give each other gifts at christmas'

What @Cheby said.

I was brought up never to lie. I always wondered why I had no friends and kept getting sacked til I worked that one out!

But for every kid who just gets on with their life after finding out they were lied to by their parents about something pointless there will be another who subconsciously or not gets trust issues and is actually affected by it.

See, that's the bit I have a fundamental issue with. It's simply not true in relation to Father Christmas. The enormous majority of children will not develop trust issues or be affected by believing in Father Christmas for a time. I think that's you projecting previous experiences. Most children are a bit disappointed to discover he isn't real but quickly move on to a 'new' version of Christmas. And that's the extent of it. They're pleased they had the magic, not upset they were lied to.

@nibblertron
Of course I tell my kids about the bad stuff in the world, and the truth about pain and death. They know at least something about all the horrible, but real situations you've listed.

They should know that there is good and bad in life. And they know that people can't simply be categorised as 'good' or 'bad' because people are complex and we all have the capacity to lean one way or another at different times, and the important thing is to be responsible for your own behaviour. I want them to develop resilience, and they need realism for that. I don't think there's a magic age where any child should suddenly learn that life is never going to be perfect.

Every Disney movie has some tragedy or challenge against a bad guy that can be pretty damn scary. If Disney thinks my kids can handle it, who am I to argue