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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think parents who do this are hypocrites

431 replies

Cazzovuoi · 10/10/2021 16:08

I'm so sad for all the kids who will miss the magic of Santa because parents don't want to lie to their kids.

It's a bizarre concept to me that you think letting your kids believe in a wonderful magical, mythical person is lying yet, if you are religious, you actively teach them to believe in a malevolent, omnipotent, all powerful, cruel being so controlling that he takes attendance on Sunday.

At least Santa was a real person.

OP posts:
birdglasspen · 10/10/2021 17:09

I’m sad that I can’t do what I want with my kids for Christmas without answering all their questions when strangers ask what have you asked Santa for? Nothing! He’s 3 and sorry but he doesn’t get to ask Santa for anything! I didn’t believe in Santa growing up and Xmas was still magical!!! You do what you want and I’ll do what i want with my kids and put up with all the ridiculous questions and fake ness of Santa. I don’t believe in god FYI. I feel ridiculous lying about Santa so I won’t. Hate to tell you this but kids just want presents I doubt they care if a big hairy man delivers them or not.....

CuteGirlsWatchMeEatEther · 10/10/2021 17:10

Are you talking about children who still get presents and have Christmas or are you talking about families that don’t celebrate Christmas at all like Jehovah’s Witnesses?

GreyhoundG1rl · 10/10/2021 17:11

@birdglasspen

I’m sad that I can’t do what I want with my kids for Christmas without answering all their questions when strangers ask what have you asked Santa for? Nothing! He’s 3 and sorry but he doesn’t get to ask Santa for anything! I didn’t believe in Santa growing up and Xmas was still magical!!! You do what you want and I’ll do what i want with my kids and put up with all the ridiculous questions and fake ness of Santa. I don’t believe in god FYI. I feel ridiculous lying about Santa so I won’t. Hate to tell you this but kids just want presents I doubt they care if a big hairy man delivers them or not.....
Ridiculous. You can indeed "do what you want" but bemoaning the fact that others upset the applecart by not doing similar is a bit stupid.
Anonymouseposter · 10/10/2021 17:12

Most religious parents do not encourage their children to believe in "an omnipotent, cruel being who requires attendance on Sundays". That's a silly over-simplification.
Regarding Father Christmas, I don't think going along with the story and having fun is lying to children any more than watching films and reading stories.
It would be taking it too far to insist it to be true when they begin to ask.

JasonMomoasgirlfriend · 10/10/2021 17:13

@birdglasspen

I’m sad that I can’t do what I want with my kids for Christmas without answering all their questions when strangers ask what have you asked Santa for? Nothing! He’s 3 and sorry but he doesn’t get to ask Santa for anything! I didn’t believe in Santa growing up and Xmas was still magical!!! You do what you want and I’ll do what i want with my kids and put up with all the ridiculous questions and fake ness of Santa. I don’t believe in god FYI. I feel ridiculous lying about Santa so I won’t. Hate to tell you this but kids just want presents I doubt they care if a big hairy man delivers them or not.....
I don't understand what you mean
Eleganz · 10/10/2021 17:13

Happy were the Christmas days of yore when we gathered around the fire to hear father's stories of jolly old st nic punching heretics. Such as shame parents aren't telling those tales anymore. Grin

People can do what they want. I personally see it as a great lesson in critical thinking and questioning authority. Most kids figure it out despite everyone they look up to telling them that Santa is real. I just wish we kept encouraging that spirit as they grow older.

butterflyze · 10/10/2021 17:14

@EatYourVegetables

Do you feel sad for the kids who learn at the age of 10 or so that they’ve been lied to their entire lives?
No actually - in my experience, it makes them feel really grown up to be 'in' on such a special secret, and love carrying it on for the younger ones.
NeedAHoliday2021 · 10/10/2021 17:15

I find it bizarre that people see it as parents lying… it’s not like telling you your dad is a man who actually isn’t - clearly a lie to be annoyed about! Father Christmas is something everyone I know looks back on with fond memories of a magical Christmas, then dc find out the truth and feel love for the amazing parents who put in the time and energy to make it magical. Saying you don’t want to lie is just a way of justifying not bothering. I’ve it was so traumatic then why would generation after generation keep it going? We do it because our memories of magical Christmases are something we want for our dc.

NeedAHoliday2021 · 10/10/2021 17:16

@butterflyze yes 100% this. It’s a wonderful make believe game we play not an evil lie.

JudgeJ · 10/10/2021 17:16

@GreyhoundG1rl

Not sure what you mean? If Santa brings gifts to children based on how good or nice they are then the nicest children should get the best gifts? I've never known anyone tell their kids they'll get more or better gifts if they've been well behaved, tbh.
I suggest you look up schwarzer Peter who visits on St Nicholas night, the 'good' children get a red boot filled with sweets, the 'not good' children are left a bunch of birch twigs! Our children loved it and they weren't in the least traumatised by it.
Nayday · 10/10/2021 17:17

This bloody Christmas magic has a lot to answer for.

Growing up in the 80's there wasn't talk of magic, it was the getting the crappy plastic tree out, seeing the same ancient Christmas decs every year, getting presents and a selection box that was brilliant. Visitors. Parties. The sameness of it each year became a ritual, became the 'magic'. And everyone's was slightly different.

Now all this talk of 'Christmas magic' has a desperate, try hard aspect to it. Must 'make memories', people talk about their DC's last year of believing. And all of it seems more about the parents rather than the kids. I loved Christmas way beyond the age of believing - and Santa was only ever really a small part of any of it.

Personally I never lied to my kids about Santa, although I did dodge for a couple of years while they were young enough to go into school and blurt it out to their classmates. No magic was harmed, and Christmas continued. So no, I don feel sorry for kids that don't have a Santa to believe in. Confused. In fact I feel sorrier for kids who's parents are so desperately Doing All the Christmas Magic - that they suck the fun out of all of it!

LibrariesGiveUsPower45321 · 10/10/2021 17:18

YABU to say that God isn’t real when Santa was real given that Saint Nicholas was a Christian Saint who lived and died for the God you don’t believe in.

dongke · 10/10/2021 17:20

I find it bizarre that people see it as parents lying… it’s not like telling you your dad is a man who actually isn’t - clearly a lie to be annoyed about!

Yes that would defo cause me trauma not Santa & I'm apparently a snowflake as I'm a millennial 😆

JasonMomoasgirlfriend · 10/10/2021 17:21

I do think though that if we stopped focusing on Santa then that child's generation may grow up to be less "stuff" orientated. We grow up getting excited by gifts and buying sack fulls of presents when there really is no need.
My parents did spoil me and my brother with Santa presents and I really can't remember much about them at all.

TableFlowerss · 10/10/2021 17:21

@M4J4

Surely it’s more hypocritical be atheist and yet lie to kids about Santa for years and then one day tell them ‘oh, it was all a lie’, or wait for them to realise through friends etc?
No, because you’re doing it for their sake, to add that magic to Christmas.

As young kids are gullible they believe it. When they get to an age when they start critically thinking and realise the likelihood of one Santa, being able to get around the whole world in his sleigh, they realise that it’s of course rubbish. Christmas is often never the same again and not in a good way.

LibrariesGiveUsPower45321 · 10/10/2021 17:22

Also I feel far more sorry for those kids whose parents lie to them about Santa drawing out the lie with ever more elaborate hoaxes in the hope they will keep “the magic alive” - usually way beyond the age when kids should have figured it out for themselves.

From an objective point of view Christians are at least teaching their kids about something they actually believe in (God), not something they know to knot be true (guy flying through the sky on a sleigh).

dongke · 10/10/2021 17:22

Excuse me for being articulate.

😆

M4J4 · 10/10/2021 17:22

No actually - in my experience, it makes them feel really grown up to be 'in' on such a special secret, and love carrying it on for the younger ones.

So Santa isn’t real is a ‘special secret’? Confused

The lengths people go to to perpetuate these lies is insane.

HappyDays101010 · 10/10/2021 17:23

I feel sad for you that you don’t have the imagination to see that people can make things magical in all sorts of different ways.

My mum is like you and her disapproval of any deviation from her template for a happy Christmas means she now spends the season alone.

M4J4 · 10/10/2021 17:23

@LibrariesGiveUsPower45321

Also I feel far more sorry for those kids whose parents lie to them about Santa drawing out the lie with ever more elaborate hoaxes in the hope they will keep “the magic alive” - usually way beyond the age when kids should have figured it out for themselves.

From an objective point of view Christians are at least teaching their kids about something they actually believe in (God), not something they know to knot be true (guy flying through the sky on a sleigh).

Agreed 💯
Ragwort · 10/10/2021 17:24

Christmas 'magic' means totally different things to different people ... just because you think getting excited about Santa is a magical experience doesn't mean other people do. It is perfectly possible to have a lovely celebration without the hype of 'Santa' and sacks of presents.

GreyhoundG1rl · 10/10/2021 17:25

@M4J4

No actually - in my experience, it makes them feel really grown up to be 'in' on such a special secret, and love carrying it on for the younger ones.

So Santa isn’t real is a ‘special secret’? Confused

The lengths people go to to perpetuate these lies is insane.

What a crab apple you sound. What exactly is your problem with this?! It's not compulsory 😂
julieca · 10/10/2021 17:25

My family didn't teach that Santa was real, although they did teach me as a child about St Nicholas. I love Christmas and always have. It is a magical time full of wonder.

dongke · 10/10/2021 17:25

I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t lie to their children, I’ve met people who say they don’t lie - but they still tell their children that the mess they painted at school is pretty or that the song they’re screeching sounds lovely...

Well aren't you are dreadful parent! I've just told my 5 yo that they will be working until they die, got to prepare them!

onelittlefrog · 10/10/2021 17:26

I think we should just be tolerant of each other (at the risk of sounding naive).

Santa was a special part of my childhood, but I do understand the view of not wanting to be untruthful with children.

My view is that it's worth it for the magic that you can only truly feel as a child.

But some people feel it is too deceitful, and that's fair enough too.

Each to their own. It doesn't really impact you.