To have told DD(7) that the Easter Bunny isn't real?

[VictorianSqualor]

Talking about Easter this morning to DP explaining that DD is only off for Good Friday and Easter Monday then half term is the week after so DD says to DS(3) "I won't be home when you get to eat chocolate eggs".

I tell DD, yes she will, but it's not half term and anyway doesn't she know what Easter is about, cue the Jesus talk.

"But what about the Easter Bunny? They'll bring us eggs won't they?"
So I tell her no, EB isn't real, it was made up by peopel who want to make money out of us by selling Easter Eggs, it's not like Jesus was eating maltesers on the cross and that she can have one fairtrade Easter Egg (lets hope I can find one!) from us because we love her.

Didn't think much of telling her the truth til I saw DP's 'look' though that might have been the fact that I was giving the poor girla 'talk' on Fairtrade at 7:30am

i did have a moment of pure grief 2 years ago when my dd had to admit in public that she'd never had a cadburys creme egg. i'd never thought to get her one. she has since made uo for it and even went to cadbury land with the brownies!

TBH I think there's a pretty big leap from saying that the easter bunny isn't real, to turning it into a lesson about fairtrade practices.

So for example, if dd was to ask what comic relief was about, or children in need, I would say what the charities getting the money are helping to achieve.

If dd was to ask about whether the easter bunny was real I would say no, but explain about the origins of the easter festival, what people believed and so on. And still do an easter egg hunt. She doesn't need a tirade about the origins of the chocolate. I'm the one who buys the chocolate and I will buy fairtrade stuff. If she was to ask why she wasn't having a kinder egg or whatever, then would be the time that I'd explain about fairtrade (though she already knows because she had the charlie and lola book last easter).

So I kind agree with your husband's look.

I don't think teaching children about fairtrade is being selfish ONE BIT! It's part of a life lesson about being fair to everyone, which they need to learn - if not about trade, then about just bumping along with their classmates. I don't get how telling them that buying a chocolate egg with fairtrade stamped on means that the producers get paid a proper price for it heaps the world's woes on their shoulders. They learn about world poverty at school in any case. And you don't need to go into the whole scenario with them, they will accept the 'fairtrade means a fair price', if my children are anything to go by.

LOL.
I didn't give her a 'horrible lecture' I took them to bloody Lazytown last week as their 'treat' and then told her this morning she would have one egg.
She asked me which type, ie mars/twix/malteser type and I said we'll get a fairtrade one, she asked me what fairtrade was and I said simply 'it means the peopel in poorer countries that aren't always paid good money by supermarkets etc get paid properly for their stuff so they have more money!'
How is that a 'horrible lecture'?

I don't give a horrible lecture - I do tell my children why we buy fair trade whenever we can. I tell them about fair wages for work done, and how there are children in the world who are less fortunate than them, and we shoud do everything we can to help them - what's horrible about that?

Ska - I'm 51 (aaaaaaaaghhhhh - hate saying it!)

x-post pooka, that's basically how it happened.
Though I didn't know the origins of the Easter Bunny so we just talked about the religious side of easter, now I do know I'll explain it to her later.

we are lucky (kind of ) as my bil comes from the dominican repluclic and he has family members who are fairtrade producers (well who work on the farm) so when we buy fairtrade bananas we say we are helping uncle francisco's family. brings it home and it is understandable - and thank god fairtrade choc has got nicer!

dominican republic obviously. seeker - where are you?

ynbu
and as for comic relief being for adults what tosh.
dd's school do red nose day and children in need. not bad going as they are the children in need.

I also tell my kids about buying free range, and as we keep chickens ourselves, they understand better what that means. Obviously I don't go into the gorey details, but they do know that some chickens, like ours, are 'happy' and some aren't happy, and the way to encourage farmers to keep 'happy' chickens is to only buy products from 'happy' chicken farmers.

My children seem to be cast in the 'campaigner' mould though - ds1 (6) has declared himself a vegetarian because he 'doesn't see why we should kill animals just so we can eat meat', and as I said before, dd (4) has launched a war on Tesco....

DD is the same with meat, do they have a 'happy' life then be killed or are they mistreated then killed. Pretty simple concept to a child.
At 7 everything is so black and white it's quite refreshing.

VS you crack me up"it's not like Jesus was eating maltesers on the cross" correctamundo but hey i also dont think the lord jesus was up there debating fair trade and the inequalities of oligopoly, and nestle trade

Dont choke on your fair trade chocolate reading Does Fairtrade do more harm than good?",

your quips are worthy of Mrs Doyle in Father Ted

BTW it should have been a i love your quip

That article doesn't say that it doesn't help, it says that it could do with more people buying fairtrade for a real difference to be made and that it does give producers long-term contracts which they otherwise wouldn't have had.
Me not buying Nestle, or only buying free range or products not tested on animals doesn't do anything significant, nothing will until more of us do it, but it doesn't mean I'll stop, just means more people could do with starting.

As far as chocolate goes, I only buy fairtrade because otherwise I am probably unwittingly putting money into the hands of child traffickers, who traffic children from places like Mali to Cote d'Ivoire, where they are forced into slavery on some of the cocoa farms. Whatever the economic arguments, I do not personally wish to sponsor child slavery, and therefore I buy fairtrade, where I know that the money is going to reputable farmers. If you want to learn more about it look here. I wrote an article for our parish magazine about this very subject, and I think it's too important not to take notice of!

Just to add, 50 % of the world's chocolate uses cocoa beans from Cote d'Ivoire, where there are no controls on whether the workers are child slaves, what conditions they work in. It's estimated that 12,000 children have been trafficked into slavery there.

what would the lord jesus say on the cross about oligopoly and nestle i wonder
fwiw, im not having a go at your beliefs just contemplating it at 7.30 so the look was probably tired amazement

I can honestly say that I never believed in Father Christmas, the easter bunny, tooth fairy etc etc. In fact I didn't get an easter egg at all until I met DH and his mum bought me one, but thats just down to my mother being very anticommercial.

And you know what ? I didn't miss out on childhood at all. And what did I gain ? I always knew that my parents were telling the truth, and that they would never lie to me.

tortoiseSHELL has a good point, I'm not putting my money somewhere because I don't want my money to support whatever trade it is supporting, not because I think I can change the world.

Jesus would probably have been horrified at the thought of thousands, nay millions of people consuming pagan imagery, possibly made by slaved children, and calling it 'Easter' .

You can buy fairtrade eggs in Oxfam shops btw.

I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

I don't think it's at all unhealthy for kids to know that the Easter bunny / father christmas / tooth fairy / monsters in the cupboard or under the bed are just make believe.

No-one is saying you can't enjoy them, just that they aren't real.

Sorry if I've ruined any fantasties for adults who still actually think they are real!

You mean that the funny shapes under my bed is just my clutter under there and not monsters?

'Fraid so!

I'm trying to get my DH to understand that we don't have sock faries / washing faries or food faries as well... but not with so much luck!!!

I haven't read the whole thread but am rofling with glee at the irony. The Christians are telling DCs the truth about Easter Bunny and Father Christmas (but what about the tooth fairy ? I spose that's OK cos it doesn't impinge on a religious festival.), while insisting on giving them gory details re real meaning of Easter.

The atheists are all for debunking the Bible stories while telling tales about Father Christmas etc.

Tee hee

I haven't read the whole thread but am rofling with glee at the irony. The Christians are telling DCs the truth about Easter Bunny and Father Christmas (but what about the tooth fairy ? I spose that's OK cos it doesn't impinge on a religious festival.), while insisting on giving them gory details re real meaning of Easter.

The atheists are all for debunking the Bible stories while telling tales about Father Christmas etc.

Tee hee