Neighbour told my DS that Father Christmas isn't real

[myneighboursarebellends]

My DS9 is in the same class in school as the DC next door, so me and the neighbour take turns to do the school run in the mornings. We have only lived next door to each other for just over a year and they have been ok aside from a run in over a fence, a tree, and their DC having a stint of being mean to mine in school 🥴 I have been so non-confrontational with all of this stuff because I have to live next door to them and don't want hostile relations with neighbours!

However, today's episode has really crossed a line for me and I need your help to understand if it is reasonable for me to be so fucked off (and to tell me what to do!)

DS has just said to me that on the way to school this morning, dad neighbour told him that Father Christmas isn't real. This is how he says the conversation went:
My DS: will you have elf on the shelf in your house?
Neighbour: no because elf on the shelf is fake. Just like Father Christmas, he doesn't exist.
My DS: yes he does!
Neighbour: no he doesn't. Christmas is about celebrating Jesus' birth, and Father Christmas is just made up.
My DS: well I don't believe in Jesus, so I think he is made up
Neighbour: what do you mean! Jesus created the earth, and all of us.
My DS: well I thought god was supposed to have created the earth

Ok, the whole god and Jesus part isn't so relevant, just relaying what DS said. But aside from telling him Father Christmas isn't real, elf on the shelf isn't real, and telling him he has to believe in Jesus, the man isn't even Catholic/Christian anyway. His wife is though (non practicing) and their family celebrate Christmas with presents and a tree and big fucking flashing Christmas lights on the outside of the house.

How DARE he tell someone else's child that Father Christmas doesn't exist! Who does that? I don't feel like I can let this go without saying something but I feel as if I need to balance my response being mindful that I have to continue to live next door to them! I don't really want to continue with the lift sharing but I am imagining the awkwardness of us bundling the DC into our own cars every morning whilst avoiding eye contact and then again at the other end!!

dont forget the octopus
Never.
Flail a tentacle or a cephalopod bites the sand! Other panto staples exist.

@PyongyangKipperbang

not why you are also so determined to impress upon me without ever having met my son that he secretly hates Christmas.

Feel free to quote where I said your son secretly hates Christmas. But your attitude to anyone who disagrees with you does rather back up..... Christmas in my household is alllll about me because I rather suspect that the only person who will remember this and give a toss, is you.

All I can say is best wishes for whatever is going on in your personal life that has compelled you to make such spiteful and nasty comments unnecessarily to a stranger online. Merry Christmas

OP, I'm so sorry your neighbour said that - he was out of line.

I think your son telling you about it is a sign that he's already stopped believing or is on the way to it - and I say this not to dismiss your legitimate annoyance with your NDN overstepping, but to note that with the Santa-myth, kids often start listening when they're ready to. I don't think this exchange has 'shattered' anything for your DS - even if it wasn't OK for your NDN to say those things.

A few suggestions:

• as I think a PP said, pretend you don't know exactly what was said and call over with a 'my kid is upset, do you've any idea what happened?' faux-ignorance thing and see what happens. It's dishonest but it will give you a good sense of where to go from here - it gives space for the guy to apologise rather than be on the defensive.
• count it as a first strike and keep an eye on how things go from now on (or maybe a second strike, considering previous conflicts) - three strikes and they're out.
• talk to him about it directly - I feel like this is probably the least productive option in practice, despite it being theoretically The Thing To Do.

:o

Cant beat a nice attempt at passive aggression! Seasons Greeting :)

OP it's clearly out of order that your neighbour would be such an arse. Sympathies with you, it's been hard enough this year without idiots pissing on your DS' chips. I hope you can tell him the your neighbour is the grinch

No idea what the critics upstream have been smoking.

Your neighbour sounds awful. I'd feel exactly the same as you. Regardless of your son's age, it wasn't his place to say that. But I don't think it's worth confronting, just 'mark his card'.

My ds is 10 and says he still believes. I think that may be because my dd questionned FCs existance when she was 8 and he was 5 and I said that I've never questionned it in case I didn't get any presents! I will break it to him before secondary school lol!

Perhaps you should tell your ds to feel sorry for your neighbour, who obviously doesn't believe because he was too naughty to be visited by FC...!!

telling him he has to believe in Jesus, the man isn't even Catholic/Christian anyway

Isn't a belief in Jesus the very thing that makes one a Christian?

[quote myneighboursarebellends]@PyongyangKipperbang would you tell someone else's child that FC isn't real? [/quote]
I am not Pyongyang but I wouldn't volunteer the information, however if they asked me I would tell them the truth.

1forAll74 Fri 27-Nov-20 01:41:04
I wouldn't confront the neighbour over this, it's done now, and not such a big issue. The elf stuff is beyond me too.

Me too, I only discovered it on Mumsnet! I just don't 'get' it. However I doubt any children believe a real elf moves around the place anyway - it's quite a scary thought actually.

I can remember my dad bringing my pillow case and stocking into my bedroom late at night, trying not to wake me when I wasn't asleep. :-).
It was a bit of fun but other parts of life have been far more fun and interesting than the Santa myth.

Of course a nine year old can still believe in Santa. Just tell him that if his friends don't believe then they won't be getting presents. They were out of order to tell him!

Your neighbour is an utter joyless fucker.

Absolutely not his place to have said anything to your child about FC. It's a bit of magic and only for the parents to decide how to manage the transition from believing to not.

As for telling kids the "truth"?

This in an age where adults quite happily swallow all sorts of fantasy bullshit peddled on social media?? .

As always on such threads, a lot of competitive joylessness.

As for the nonsense about ‘lying’ to your children, I for one have always been grateful that my parents ‘lied’ to us - it made Christmas that much more magical for those few short years.

FWIW a dd at coming up to 9 told me in very matter of fact tones that she knew Father Christmas was me and daddy, so I might as well admit it.
So I did.
Years later, when she was in her early 20s, she told me she’d been dying for me to deny it, so she could go on believing a little longer.

Hi Op I totally agree your next door neighbour totally overstepped the mark telling your son father Christmas is not real.

I had a very shit childhood growing up in children's homes in midlands.

Thankfully when I was adopted when I was 10, my childhood improved a lot thankfully,

My mother and father even though they were church going Christians also told me and kept up the magic and wonder of Christmas.

Why do the Grinch posters think it is ok, or a terrible lie to keep the pretense of the magic an wonder of Christmas time,??

When in the western world we live in a society that actively encourages/pressures Children to grow up far too quickly in toxic ways, such as pop music videos like almost soft porn videos and clothing items that are sexulised slogans written on them, school pencil cases with playboy slogan etc, and American style Beauty Parades of small girls judging them on the beauty.!!!

All The Posters who make out that its such a terrible lie to to keep up father Christmas is still alive etc.

Everybody is obviously entitled to their belief systems.

Thanks All the GrinchGrinch(Arrogant) posters for wanting to spoil Christmas time people like myselfs who had such Already shitty childhoods like mine by wanting to grow up even faster by deny the opportunity of magic of Christmas time like that.

You are all miserable sad Gits,
Get a life.😴😬.

I am still struggling to come to terms with my shitty side of my childhood and definately need to have therapy of some kind for this.

I defiantly do not need Therapy for believing in father Christmas and the magic of giving out and receiving christmas,!

I am eternally grateful for my mother and father who adopted me telling me about father Christmas.

I really like the idea of giving presents for children who are experiencing Crap childhoods

Thank you Op you sound lovely,
Merry Christmas to you and your family.xxx

Hi Op

Be Proud that you have brought up a Ballsey Clever boy,son.(I am sure you are of course...

I am saying this as someone even, though I was brought up with christian church values and still believe in spiritual perspectives,but on a more alternative Aspects of this,such as paganism which particular Christian festivals whic have orginated from such as harvest festivalet and easter time such as easter eggs etc.

I am also of the belief that we thankfully in the west belief everybody is entitled to believe in whatever faiths or have a non faith belief system as Aithest like yourself, without fear of persecution. .

L.o.l if someone wanted to believer in stars wars Jedi or Aliens then so be it, aslong as anybody's faith systems does not cause harm to anybody in any way like Cults do..

I think were your next door neighbour was wrong was imposing his belief system on to your child like that with no regard on the possibility of causing distress/confusion on your child son if he still believes in father christmas !

What a entitled Arrogant Prick he was..

Please Op from now on, please do not carry on this arrangement of taking it in turns with your next door neighbour,etc

An All you Grinch Posters out there who think it is keep up the Pretense about father Christmas to small children is a a form of Deceit a lie...

Do you know what I think is a far far worse lie and is a real deceitful lie, is a child emotional/physical and childhood sexual abuse !!!😬

What do you think All You Grinch Scrooge Posters out there about that???

I have been through through Therapy as an child and as adult still struggling witg very shitty childhood in children homes so need more Therapy..

But you know what !!!,( I have never heard of Any children /adults being emotionally trautmaised for life, by being told about that father Christmas was a real thing briefly as a child...

An you definitely do not want to allow anymore opportunities for your next door neighbour to be a
Prick.. 😊. !

Also I wish your next door neighbour would stop imposing their belief system on to your child son like that !!!

As doing this your next door neighbour is potentially distressing/Confusing your child ,which is a Child emotional abuse.!!😬😬

Reading very much between the lines and based on nothing factual I would think that the neighbours do not like your family. I cannot think of any other reason why an adult man would say something like that to a kid other than it being a way of getting one up? So maybe the hostile relations you are trying to avoid are actually already there from them to you?
I have an almost 9 year old who 100% believes in Santa, I have an almost 12 year old who I had to break the news to during the year so he would not get teased. We don't make a big deal of Santa, no visits, no footprints etc so they just go on believing.

Blimey, so many people have focused on the age of a child who believes in Christmas and the fact that he would have been told by a classmate soon anyway - not the point! OP is pissed because her adult neighbour told her son something that she should have had the control to talk to him herself about when she or her DS saw fit/appropriate. Stop wailing on her for letting her son believe in sodding santa and give her some actual bloody advice on what to do it her neighbour.
OP, if it were me, I'd ask son how he feels about knowing santa isn't real and make sure he's alright (my parents put fake dog poo on presents, plastic biscuits out and fake flies on Christmas Dinner to make the first non-santa Christmas more fun lol). If he's distraught i would have a discreet word with the neighbour about it - its all out in the open now so there isn't much you can do. If your DS is alright and not that bothered, I'd leave it alone with the neighbour and quietly seethe next door (perhaps planning on how to explain the big bang theory to his kid ha!).

I don't think 9 is too old to believe in Santa!!
My parents sat me down and told me at 9 and I still remember it knocked me for six. Nobody else in my class knew at the time. (I'm 29 now and still remember how upset I was!).

Id just say Father Christmas must never have visited him as he wasn't a nice boy and say how silly he was. Then slash his tyres

There's a big difference between a 9 yr old gradually becoming aware, on their own, that a mythical man in a red suit is unlikely to be delivering presents to every single child in the world on Christmas eve, and a grown up bluntly saying it. Lots of people like to continue to "believe" because they enjoy the magic and fun and it's an arsehole thing to do to spoil it.

The confrontation was weird and nasty BUT at 9 I wouldn't be that bothered about them knowing that parents are santa

Well after sleeping on it I unfortunately haven't had an epiphany and still believe that my annoyance is justified! Also still think it's perfectly reasonable for a 9 year old to still believe in FC without experiencing long lasting trauma.

Usual preference would be to avoid confrontation at all costs but I can't because I'm embroiled in a lift share situation. Should have paid more attention to the countless lift sharing threads on here, it always ends in disaster. I don't want to do lift shares any more but I also don't want to end up taking the neighbours DCs every day either if I say I want to do the school run myself every day!

Oh and my niece (almost 11) still "believes". For me father christmas is a concept. That for one day people can put aside differences, give to others, come together as a family and celebrate. It doesn't need to be "real" or "accurate".

Absolutely normal for a 9 year old to still believe. My dc is 8 and none of his classmates even the really rough ones have stopped believing yet.

Your neighbours sound like joy sucking arseholes.

I'm shocked at the nasty comments directed at the OP. What sort of people answer the original post by picking on a 9 year old for trying to justify a belief in FC.
You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

My bil has a dsis with downs syndrome, she is an adult who firmly believes in FC.
For me her innocence makes Christmas so magical.

My DD is year 4 and still believes - she doesn’t have any siblings to tell her and clearly no arsehole neighbours. As for anyone else’s children I have no idea... how would I know what most 9 year olds believe ? So all those posters spouting that most 9 year olds know can jog on quite frankly - they know only their own child and social group. My DD hasn’t ever come home querying FC so I guess it’s not discussed too much at school. As for “ truth telling” - you don’t get to reveal significant facts to other people’s children. You don’t say god/ allah/Buddha is bull-shit, you don’t piss on the tooth fairy you just nod and smile and make some non committal comment. Telling some other kid that FC isn’t real is an act of spite and i can only assume your neighbour is a grumpy old man.