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

Ah well, in which case YAtotallyNBU!

DD is however still at the age where she will listen to me off on a tangent, and take in some small random bit of information and then use it for evil. She was talking the other day about how she'd heard that women cannot marry each other, so she'd marry boy x at school instead. Cue me telling her about civil partnership ceremonies. So now she tells her best friend that while women can marry each other, they have to get married on a ship, so she'll still have to get married to boy x because then they can marry in a church with pretty windows.

Oh no, 'Squalor, they don't believe me, they look at me in that sideways "humour her" way. Which is better than the outright derision I get for trying to introduce the concept of Father Birthday...

LOL, DD told DS he was gay because he said he loved his friend.

DS'I love drew'
DD'ah, you're gay then, can you say gay?'

I don't think my two (7 and 4 yrs) have ever believed in the Easter bunny and I don't think I did either. I don't think I even know the story behind it (if there is one).

Easter eggs come from Mummy and Daddy (or relatives) and we do do Easter egg hunts both at home or go to organised ones. They have fun and they don't care about the stories particularly. They do go to church and hear about the real meaning of Easter there. If they want to know why we have eggs I put it in the context of new life and the beginning of spring.

I have never thought the easter bunny is in the same league as father christmas anyway.

I would have thought you can get FT eggs in most places these days, by the way. M&S and Sainsburys seem to be pretty big on FT at the moment.

Can't speak for Jesus but the Church of England, the Methodists and the RC Church are huge supporters of the Fair Trade movement, possibly because it helps people in very poor communities help themselves to independence and access to education and better health care
So fairly WJWD I think
Am right with you there VS and tortoiseshell, we are big fans of Fairtrade in our house too
Have never done Easter bunny. Can still have lots of fun with Easter Egg Hunts, making miniature gardens etc.

choccypig - it always strikes me as odd at Christmas (and I suppose Easter too, though less extreme) when people who don't believe in the Christian story get outraged at their children doing a 'nativity' etc, but will defend the Father Christmas story to the death.

Seems to me, the Christian story is one which may or may not be true - it's a question of belief - so I tell my children it's true, because I believe it to be so, others say it isn't because they believe it not to be.

All parents know Father Christmas doesn't exist! And yet to some parents, it is more important that their children believe in something they KNOW to be a 'lie', whilst totally not wanting them to hear something which may or may not be true...

Good point tortoiseshell - I hadn't thought of it in those terms but you are absolutely right.

there is a difference. You know the kids will eventually grow out of the Father Christmas and Easter Bunny thing. But some people never grow out of believing in God.

As an atheist I am not in the business of "debunking" Bible stories, just treating them as stories like the myths and legends from any other culture.

My DC's know bible stories, but they have been taught that it is a book written by men, interpreted by men and used by men to preach for centuries, and that if they believe in God then by all means live as they believe Christians should live, but be aware that we don't know how much of the bible is true, how much is metaphorical and how much is purely made up to control the masses.
I can't expect them to believe anything they have no proof of, be it Jesus/Easter Bunny/Gnomes etc

Good gracious, I've never even heard that the Easter bunny brings chocolate eggs, never mind told the kids he doesn't. I though he was just a fluffier version of fertility hares, which don't really come up much in our general approach to Christianity.

So, I don't even bother with it, just like I wouldn't bother about telling the children that Baboushka doesn't bring their Christmas presents, because it's not even on our cultural radar.

Who says the Easter bunny doesn't exist??? News to me. Think its best if you let kids work it out for themselves instead of squashing some myths and pushing others. Easters about as pagan as a festival can be so think there is room for ALL the myths.

Actually, what IS the myth surrounding the Easter bunny...

All I know: Big bunny appears and leaves chocolate eggs, usually in difficult to find places - therefore requiring a 'hunt', with a 'golden' egg at the end of the hunt........ Little kids spend several minutes finding said eggs, eating as quickly as possible, are overcome with a sugar rush, forget about the rest of the eggs (which are still being found for weeks on end) and puke up.........

What is the background to that????????

Something to do with the belief that hares laid eggs, iirc.

But surely that's got relevance for an easter egg hunt, not for you handing your kids a foil-covered milk chocolate egg in a Tweenies box, with a plastic bag of generic jelly tots inside it?

Apparently it comes from the pagan goddess Ostara/Eastre whose sacred animal was the hare, and it is entwined with the eggs being a symbol of fertility.
The egg is meant to represent the moon God and the hare the Goddess and the germans changed it to the bunny rather than the hare that actually laid eggs.

OH FFS.

YAB very U.

Glad I didn't grow up in your house.

Elaborate? What is so unreasonable about telling her the truth?

And Easter changes date every year according to the moon phases.

The reason for that I believe madamekoto is because it ties in with the Jewish Passover (which is obviously Maundy Thursday in the story) - the Jewish calendar is based on the moon cycles, hence the reason Easter is.

you're bonkers
really, really bonkers
your children actually believe that an ACTUAL rabbit brings the eggs?
and they are 7 and up?
my 4 year old doesn't believe it's real. I didn't have to tell him - he knows it's just a story

Thanks for Easter bunny history. I've been wondering

How many children really believe in the Easter Bunny then?

I wouldn't have honestly thought that many children even give a thought to the Easter Bunny. I don't think I have ever met a child who gets excited about it.

What is wrong with mentioning to a child it isn't real - it isn't like there are elabourate rituals based upon the Easter bunny which a majority of people take part in - it isn't Father Christmas and it doesn't sound like VS's DD was in the slightest bit bothered.

didn't know there was one and that it brought eggs

We didn't get eggs when we were little

We had chocolate eggs from our family as children with the odd chick or so scattered around but no flipping bunnies. I think I had an Easter Egg with tiny bunnies insside which I refused to eat as it was so cute so that was the last time I was bought a bunny egg. Obviously I am not so sentimental now!!

Have not read the whole story, but I'm with F&Z on this one. The DC (10 & 8) worked out years ago that Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Birthday bunny etc were fun figures - we didn't tell them. When DS1 was 4 he tried to convince us that a children's santa brought presents for mums & dads ( he had bought them @ a secrets stall @ the school Xmas fair) he was clearly being ironic and letting us know he knew, but without spelling it out. DS2 was always more forthright and declared it was impossible. It does not seem to have blighted their childhoods, they seem happy and I am relieved that we have not have to have elaborate charades to continue the deception. Can't help thinking this is more about adult needs than the kids to keep them believing long past when they would naturally be sceptical?

I think it's up to you when you decide to tell your children about Santa or the Easter Bunny etc. As long as she doesn't ruin it for other children who still believe in those things.