To have wondered how to answer my Niece?!

[forwhatyouare]

She's 7.

We were talking about Christmas and one of the things I said was to remember her Mummy works hard to get her all these presents. She was quick to protect that Santa brought them. I said he does indeed, but Mummy pays for the elves to make the presents and then she pays for the delivery.

She said "Why does she do that? Can't she get them herself from town? And that way I can choose what wrapping paper I actually want? "

Kids, eh?!

SIL now a bit peeved that I've said Santa doesn't pay and give presents from magical kindness. Oops.

[Devillanelle]

Oh Jesus I was reading your conversation shouting shut uuuup in my head! Try posing it as a question, I asked my 8 year old nephew last week 'but doesn't your mum and did give santa the money' and he was like erm NO  clearly thinking wtf is this woman on so I was like yeah cool just got the wrong end of the stick 👍🏻 god this time of year is a minefield.

[Josiebloggs]

Then it is your responsibility to make sure your DS does not inform other children or else he will be mightly unpopular at nursery, school or clubs.
You were wrong but you refuse to see it, don't subject your poor child to a life of no play dates etc because he upsets every other child by telling them the tooth fairy and FC don't exist.

[sayhelloandwavegoodbye]

"And she should really know about the basics of sex at 8. Children much smaller do. "

Maybe she does, but again it's got proper fuck all to do with you.

[forwhatyouare]

Seriously how old are you? You sound 8 and jealous

I'm not jealous or upset about it... I think my belief in Santa came to a stop at a good time. At 8/9 or older I would expect my own child to have the brain power to wonder why some people got presents and other children (who in reality, have parents with no money or are on the poverty line), didn't get what they want

[HerRoyalNotness]

For your DS you just tell him Santa is a wonderful sTory and wouldn’t it be amazing if it was real. The story is wonderful and you don’t have to believe in Santa to get the point of it

[ChairmanMiaow123]

Well, forwhat - i bet you’re glad you hopped on the bus to the crazy-town that is AIBU, this evening?

Man alive, people - lighten up.

My son is 7 and i’d easily be able to get him back on board the ‘Fr Christmas-Bus’.

[SundayGirls]

YABU. It's dangerous territory, discussing Santa with other people's kids Parents etc tell their children all kinds of variations. For example I say that Santa brings them one present off their lists and some smaller things. I don't do the "I buy them and send them to the North Pole then Santa sends them back" stuff that I know other people do (it doesn't make logical sense to me let alone kids, and also do parents have to be credited for something that's meant to be magic/fantasy?! Just my opinion though. Going off-topic but still). I would be annoyed if my SIL suggested/insisted that's what happened, to my DCs.

[JoyfulMystery]

Honestly, OP, why were you lecturing a seven year old who’s not yours about filial gratitude in the first place?

[sayhelloandwavegoodbye]

"I think my belief in Santa came to a stop at a good time. At 8/9 or older I would expect my own child to have the brain power to wonder why some people got presents and other children (who in reality, have parents with no money or are on the poverty line), didn't get what they want"

But it has nothing to with YOU at 8 or 9. Nothing to do with you NOW. Simply nothing to do with you at all.

Nobody cares about your experience or your opinion when it comes to parenting their own children.

Your inability to see this is self-absorbed in the extreme.

May I break it down for you, OP?

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.

[AnoukSpirit]

Wait, you were told that Santa was basically just Royal Mail's Christmas Day delivery subcontractor?!

I have never heard anybody who was told that. Amazon with elves.

How do naughty and nice lists fit in with that?

[Returnofthesmileybar]

Ok I don't think you should have said anything either and I'd be annoyed if I was sil you, that said some of the replies here are a bit ott

I am always shocked though on mn when I read that kids over 7/8 don't believe/shouldn't believe, that only on mn do kids over 7/8 believe (as a pp poster said) but genuinely here in Ireland I think the vast majority of kids believe till 9-11, the odd one before that but mostly 10 on average, and at 7 people would consider it very young to not believe

[forwhatyouare]

Hain I've been on a thread recently about how people 'do' presents from Santa and this seems a very common thing

[BruegelTheElder]

I honestly thought it was the done thing to tell children Santa delivers but mummy and daddy pay?

Nope. Nobody says that.

[LL83]

You've made a mistake. You said you will apologise I think that's a good idea.

If I was SIL I would be very upset, but as it wasn't deliberate I would move on. Would appreciate the acknowledgement you messed it up though.

[forwhatyouare]

SIL isn't actually pissy, she said to me "You silly bitch :O" and then moved on

[Rebecca36]

It strikes me that parents seem to like the idea of Father Christmas even more than children. It's parents who get annoyed when their kids are told the truth by someone at school, the children don't care. They still enjoy Christmas - or not - regardless of the myth.

Not a bad idea to play make believe as long as everyone knows it's make belief and not the real thing.

What I didn't like about the op's first post was her telling niece how hard mummy works to provide gifts. It seemed such a harsh truth to be telling a small child, taking a lot of the pleasure out of the giving.

However she's been back since saying she understands how she was wrong so - not a big deal in the scheme of things. We all make mistakes.

[AnoukSpirit]

It's not the 8 year olds lacking "brain power" for not having been exposed to all the things in the world that adults have - like poverty - although I can certainly think of someone in this scenario lacking in it. Unless a child of that age has had experience of poverty or had it explained to them, it doesn't matter how much brain power they have, they still won't have that perspective.

Specifically, for your smug little point, unless they've seen or been told it's not the case, they will understand Christmas Day in the way they've been taught - that all children receive gifts from Santa. Most children only see what happens in their own home on Christmas Day, so I'm not clear how you think they'd have witnessed that other children don't receive what they do despite the "existence" of Santa - in order to then question his existence.

I can see why your SIL is pissed off with you.

Maybe wind your neck in.

[iamthere123]

We had (still have!) stockings that we thought came from Santa but we always knew that the presents that were under the tree came from family and those had been paid for and deserved a thank you - either as a phone call, in person or a little card.

[ReadMyLipss]

Why do you think that it's YOUR narrative that she needs to believe and not one that her parents want to decide on???

You've planted the seeds of doubt in her mind and as a grown adult who isn't one of her parents I think it's really out of order.

[GreenMeerkat]

Nope. Nobody says that

Well actually @BruegelTheElder I do, and so do a lot of other people. OP should not have assumed this without asking SIL, but you are doing the same by assuming what 'everybody/nobody' says.

[Allthewaves]

We had to go down the route of parents sending money to santa very early as the nursery and school did appeals for children who don't get Christmas presents. Then we had loads of questions as to why didn't these children get presents? We're they bad? Does Santa not care?

[GreenMeerkat]

Why are people being so horrible to OP?

Saying she sounds messed up and deranged. WTF?! Unnecessary!

She came into AIBU, asked a question, was told she was BU (which I agree, she was), admitted she was BU, but us not had to defend herself from personal insults?

MN just gets better and better 

[rainingcatsanddog]

My kids have seen charity advertisements on TV during kids/family programming. They haven't experienced poverty but the ads clearly identify problems like lack of water, malnutrition etc. My child isn't as smart as most MN kids but realised about aged 6 that if Santa were real then children in developing countries would get loads while he'd get one or two gifts.
If the child isn't exposed to TV adverts then it's pretty shocking that they haven't heard of food banks or seen homeless people sleeping outdoors by age 8.

[Happyandshiney]

Rule 1. Never discuss the big man with other people’s children!

^^ This. Georgie is absolutely right.

You also don’t discuss sex, religion, puberty, money or family secrets.

My kids knew about Santa and the tooth fairy at 5yo, they knew about how babies were made at 4. I still don’t think it’s your place to decide a child is too old to believe.

Whenever my D.C. were told the answer to one of the “big questions” we always impressed upon them that it “wasn’t their story to tell”.

If my kids can understand at 5 yo that these things are for parents to decide I’m fairly astonished that you thought it was your place to speak to your niece about Santa.

Badly done OP.

[OlennasWimple]

I've never ever heard of the set up where Santa makes the presents but parents pay

Is this a thing??

I've heard of stockings (all from Santa) then presents from friends and family, and I've heard of all presents under the tree being from Santa, but not the hybrid that the OP talked about