To not want to lie to DD just so that we don't offend other people's religious and cultural sentiments?

[AliveAndSleeping]

I (and the majority of people) don't believe in this. We know it's not true. I have told DD that I don't believe in it but it's a nice story based loosely on history and that some others do believe it. She can make Up her own mind.

However, now the country I live in has very strong feelings on this matter. I feel that because of peer pressure I need to tell DD either that it is true or ask her to keep quiet about it or her friends will feel bad. I'm worried that if she'll voice her disbelief in the existence of this entity both the other kids and their parents will be offended and possibly ostracise her for it. I'm not exaggerating. Even the Catholic diocese had to apologise today for the comments of one of its bishops who inadvertently told kids the truth.

I'm tempted to lie to her just so that she won't offend anyone. I really don't want to. I don't think I should have to.

What would you do? Would you pretend that Santa exists even though you know that's not true? I love Christmas. I love all the Christmas traditions. The lights, the decorations, advent calendars, Christmas cookies. Even Christmas carols.
Why do kids need to believe in a mythical figure to make christmas magical? Isn't the other stuff enough? If it was any other religious or cultural sentiment would I be expected to lie and go against my beliefs to enable other people to continue with their deceit?

Friends are a particular religion and they have raised their kids that Santa isnt real. Kids fine, no one distraught. They just started of bland when they were young saying people like to pretend so when your with them just dont say anything.

@Serenschintte I never believed in Santa as my mum told me of his existence then asked me to think about it. I decided it was a load of crap as there was no way he'd get past our massive dog and our fire was locked from the outside.
It was assumed we wouldn't tell others but my brother did, round the lunch table at school (not young children). He was dragged into the head teacher's office and given a right bollocking. My mum was summoned to the school to discuss his 'appalling behaviour'. Talks ended when she said 'so you've dragged me down here to tell me my son is in trouble for telling the truth?'. They just had to let it go after that.

No one died from knowing the truth. No one is mentally affected. I don't give a crap about missing out on the magic of Santa. My DD is almost 2 so thankfully too young yet but I don't think I'll be letting her believe it.

@changing221 that was definitely my mum's view. And will likely be mine when my kids are old enough to discuss it.

Op I feel you are coming to this from the wrong point of view.

I dont believe in muhammed
I dont believe in yaweh
I dont believe god rested on the Saturday
I dont believe God minded alcohol
I dont believe there is not an afterlife
I dont believe there is a devil
I do not believe there is no spirituality

Yet I have friends who believe in all.of this.
So I taught my children to be respectful of their friends viewpoints.
I taught them we can all believe different things and still manage to get along
I taught them the fact we have different view points can be a strength not a weakness

And I taught them their views does not mean they need to be rude to others and sometimes the best thing is to simply say. "That's not what I believe but you do you"

Tolerance

Thats what you are teaching your child when you teach her how to deal with how others do father Christmas.

Tolerance is a huge skill and one many are not taught enough. Just look at the many cheeky F**ker threads on mn.
Dont forget to teach her to feel good about her own view too.

But acceptance and Tolerance are important skills to have in life.

Mine are older now they roll their eyes at many things but they are tolerant and kind and yes they have strong beliefs of their own.

Win win

I always tell my kids that other people believe different things to them and it's not up to them to challenge others beliefs, FC is the same.

And you should do exactly what @DeepaBeesKit does.

There are obviously cultural differences at play here, and I think you have to accept that in the UK that Father Christmas is a big thing here.

As an aside, do you always see things in such a black and white way?

If you want to compare it to religions etc, just say what we often say in schools when teaching about them:

Some people believe in xyz.

(In our house, we don't believe in xyz, instead we believe in abc)

However, it's always polite to not tell others that their beliefs are wrong or not true. Instead you respect their belief and don't contradict it. If asked, you say that your beliefs are different but without saying 'you are wrong'

Treat it as a polite/respect for others beliefs attitude. Would you be happy for your child to tell a friend that their religious or cultural belief is untrue and make them feel bad about it?

@AliveAndSleeping

There have been some interesting and some helpful replies but the amount if vitriol this thread has attracted just proves my original point. A lot of British parents are militant about Santa (at least on Mumsnet) even to the extent that they insist that any parent who does things slightly differently has to be performance parenting for the sake of other people and any child who might inadvertently mention Santa is a smug and nasty little shit. Two things:

1. Somebody should tell Laurence Fox and his mates that the UK is not the most tolerant country in this world (not once you don't buy into their traditions)

1. The next time someone complains that in this country you have to bend over backwards for other religions I'm going to throw Santa in their face.

OP, it must be hard to read pages of people saying they disagree with you, it isn’t easy to be in the minority and to hear people think you’re parenting wrong, or will be causing hurt.

But I haven’t seen many people be ‘nasty’ or ‘vitriolic’. More a reflection that this means a lot to many people, they enjoy it, have seen their kids get much joy from it, and want others to have that pleasure too.

What I have felt, as I read your posts, is a lot of intense emotion on it coming from you.. As though the intense emotion you think others are expressing is actually you projecting, a lot of the time.

Did anything happen to you that was painful that has made you feel so strongly that the ‘truth’ and not engaging children in fantasy is so obviously the right thing to do?

It just feels like this is you reacting to strong emotion in you, rather than a pure focus on your child’s best interests.

No doubt you’ll reject this suggestion, but I feel it would benefit you to get clear on what’s driving you to hold this view so strongly.

It's pretence in British English OP

I have only ever heard of the 'devastation' of finding out the truth on Mumsnet.

Totally. I've read about this devastation on MN only, never in real life. Same as all the angst about 'breaking and entering' and other such nonsense.

Most people I know 'do' Santa/Father Christmas in some form. But everyone's version is different. Kids know this and they really just accept it totally. In our house FC brings one gift, unwrapped and read ti use. He still does, despite Dd being 19. Her friends growing up had all sorts of versions from FC bringing the sticking to FC bringing everything. It never fazed any of them.

Similarly she had friends who didn't do FC at all, for religious reasons. And they all just accepted that. No one said each other's beliefs were wrong. It was just accepted everyone does things differently.

England

Utter nonsense that you'd be ostracised for not doing the whole FC thing in England.
Tons of people living in England don't do it, often for religious reasons. These all live happily alongside others which do. I work in a very multicultural infant school - seriously this is rarely an issue. Most just get on with their own thing happily.

Parents may well be annoyed or upset with you if you encourage your child to go around telling their children it's all untrue and not real. But not for just not going all with the story and doing your own thing.

Parents may also roll their eyes at the whole 'encouraging breaking and entering' storyline you've gone with too. That kind of judgemental type of thing often won't go down well.

I don't remember a clear cut moment between believing in FC and not believing, and neither does DD. FC used to visit her school, so if this is happening at your DD's school she will have to know not to say "it is just Johnny's dad dressed up" or whatever.

I have never subscribed to the FC brings all the presents either. I think that creates a whole host of problems.

My late MIL used to do this and I remember her frowning when I was handing out presents saying "and this is from auntie Paule and this is from your godparents" etc. I told her that DD needed to thank the present givers, and that only the stocking was from FC.

@Chasingaftermidnight

And what happens to that child when the belief is shattered?

In my experience it didn’t get ‘shattered’. You just gradually grow out of it, on the same way as you grow out of believing fairies and monsters might be real.

Yes, exactly. It isn’t a ‘shattering’ experience that leaves kids feeling betrayed and never able to trust their parents again! Unless a child who wants to feel superior makes a huge deal of telling others FC isn’t real and tries to make the other kids feel like idiots.

It’s more a gradual realising, of adding up the little things and developing the analytical skills to work it out. And then a feeling of gratitude to parents that they went to the trouble of creating the idea that FC is real so that you had the experience of the magic of believing.

And what happens to that child when the belief is shattered?
I can't understand how any loving parent would lie consecutively for many years, only to tell them at the end it was all a big lie.

For the vast majority of people, bar a handful you read about on MN each year, they simply grow out of it if their own accord, often a gradual process. Most aren't actually sat done and told.

And in a healthy home with loving relationships it's not seen as a 'lie' - it's seen as a make believe fantasy that feting living parents did for their child to make a special time even more magical.

I suspect those who have issues with their parents lying to them probably had more strained relationships within the family, and this 'lie' was part of a much bigger picture.

And you pretty much never see this much angst about when a child realises the tooth fairy isn't real and just a lie, yet the majority of families do that too - and often for longer than FC/Santa.

I have never once read an anecdote on MN about a child being traumatised by discovering their parents lied to them about the tooth fairy, yet every year at least one MN poster will claim they were when they found out about Santa!

It was assumed we wouldn't tell others but my brother did, round the lunch table at school (not young children). He was dragged into the head teacher's office and given a right bollocking. My mum was summoned to the school to discuss his 'appalling behaviour'. Talks ended when she said 'so you've dragged me down here to tell me my son is in trouble for telling the truth?'. They just had to let it go after that.

These threads always attract a couple of these types of stories, where fantasy-peddling teachers are cowed by small children speaking truth to power, before retreating with tails between legs in the face of a parent’s cool logic. And then everybody clapped, etc.

Meanwhile, in the real world, there is a realm of difference between a child saying ‘we don’t believe in Santa in my family but it’s ok that different people believe different things’ and a child saying ‘HAHAHA you’re so LAME, Santa isn’t real, it’s just your parents LYING to you’, and it’s only the latter who would find themselves in trouble for being spiteful.

@Chasingaftermidnight

And what happens to that child when the belief is shattered?

In my experience it didn’t get ‘shattered’. You just gradually grow out of it, on the same way as you grow out of believing fairies and monsters might be real.

DING DING DING!

Exactly this. Our DC like to play make-believe with fairies, monsters, mermaids etc., not once have we told them they are real. So why on Earth are parents making an exception for Santa???

Santa is treated like every other pretend character in our house, Elsa and Anna, Peppa Pig, The Little Mermaid. Their childhoods are full and complete without lies about Santa.

Their childhoods are full and complete without lies about Santa.

I find this very black and white understanding of 'lies versus truth' very limited and ignorant. Humans have always understood the world via stories, myths, legends. They are ways of understanding complex emotions and bigger human concepts.

Children's understanding of 'truth' is particularly fluid. My little boy tells me he's a ninja and at night he flies off to ninja school to learn tricks. On some level he genuinely believes this (or wants to believe it). Of course he won't keep this up for ever, but this kind of magical realism is clearly a developmental stage we all go through.

I have an 18 & 12 year old we’ve never had the conversation….. we all bounce along with the magic. Maybe because of the age gap the older one didn’t also want to ruin the magic - I do remember the year she realised but we’ve never spoken about it! We never made a huge huge thing about Father Christmas (he did bring gifts though) we don’t live near any family so it was much more about coming together and just being together!
It’s the magic in our house - both of them love Christmas- I’ve not put up all the outside lights this year and the 18 year old wasn’t impressed!! & we have a small fake Christmas tree this year rather than the huge real one we usually have!

I thought they’d all grown out of it but both have complained about my lack of Christmas spirit!!

[quote Stomacharmeleon]@Glugglejug thank you for saying that.... I say 125738 times a year that his name is Father Christmas and not chuffing Santa. [/quote]
For you, maybe. Bloody anglocentrism.

@Glugglejug

He is real OP. But he’s called Father Christmas.

Just remember - those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

@birdglasspen

The problem with it isn’t the people who tell their children Santa isn’t true or the ones who do it’s the YOUR child MUST NOT mention that they don’t believe in Santa or they will ruin every other child/parents life by this awful belief! Do Santa, don’t do Santa, accept some people do and some people don’t, do not tell parents of little children they must keep the truth of Santa a secret....impossible! If kids want to believe they will whatever a school mate says and if they don’t they are probably too old for the nonsense anyway, sorry...magic!😂

Yes, this. Funnily enough, it's not like we don't do Santa. DD makes Santa crafts and pictures, puts out her plate with mince pies and carrots, we sing songs about Santa, etc. It's a lot of fun. The only difference is that I don't tell her that Santa is real.

It's a bit like Halloween. Do you think Halloween would be more fun and magical for kids if we all pretended that zombies and ghosts are real?

Anyway, I've got zero problems with parents who do tell their kids that Santa is real. My problem is that I don't want to do that (and now the horse had bolted that stable anyway) and I don't want DD to get into trouble or end up hurting another little child by inadvertently mentioning that she doesn't believe that Santa is real.

Honesty is more important. Even with quite young kids you can say that other people's beliefs and views should be respected, and that there is nothing wrong with going to carol services, participating in the nativity play or placing a star on the top of a tree. However, you personally do not believe this.

Maybe I'm soppy but I think its beautiful that a large part of our culture comes together to collude in this myth. Don't teach your kids to believe in Father Christmas if you want, but respect that it is an important cultural tradition for many people. Respect it the same way you would (hopefully) respect other cultural traditions that you don't personally partake in.

👍🏻

Dd wouldn't ram it down anyone's throat but she might mention it. I resent having to tell her that it's better if she doesn't talk about it or tells other kids what she believes. why would there be a problem with her saying what she believes without making others feel bad for believing something different? DS1s best friend is from a very religious family and they've managed to be close for 23yrs with them each being comfortable that one believes in god and one doesn't. Even when they were 5/6 they had discussions about why they believed differently. You are overthinking all this.

Funnily enough I can talk to my kids as well about the difference between fiction and reality. then it should be easy enough to present your views on Father Christmas without telling her she has to lie about it.

Children understand and accept all this stuff much easier than we give them credit for.

FFS get over yourself- if you really can’t think of a satisfactory non comital answer or explain why, even if she’s stopped believing, it’s not kind to start telling everyone else you really have got bigger things to worry about.

Asking your DD not to discuss it with friends seems reasonable to me.

@GreenLunchBox

Tbh I don't think mine ever believed. I think they humoured me.

Same