The existence of Father Christmas is a lie that children shouldn’t be told

[maybein2022]

I’ve noticed on social media recently that a LOT of people are posting about not allowing their children to believe in Father Christmas. The rationale being they don’t lie to their children about other things, and it doesn’t sit comfortably with them to create this big ‘lie’. Some talk about how St Nicholas was a real person, some talk about how other children believe in the magic so they shouldn’t spoil it for them etc.

My eldest two are way past believing but it never occurred to me that it was anything more than a harmless story/magic that they would grow out of believing. But I now have a baby/toddler too (too young to understand this year) and wondering if we do the whole thing again.

We’ve always done stockings from FC as small, inexpensive gifts, and always done bigger under the tree gifts from us. A lot of the issue comes with of course not all children will get any gifts at all, and therefore it’s awful if they believe in FC and are disappointed or think they’ve been ‘bad’ (kids living in poverty with no parental money to buy anything, kids living with domestic violence etc). Also the idea that FC brings some kids big gifts and some just small.

So: (I am still on the fence anyway about it all)

YANBU: It’s fine, FC is a magical thing that it’s fine for kids to believe in.
YABU: A lie is a lie, kids shouldn’t believe in FC.

@WhileMyDishwasherGentlyWeeps surely you’d just say ‘sorry cookie got run over and died.’ You don’t need to add either a lie or gory detail to that. It makes no sense

Thank you for the apology.

Social media is full of all sorts of crap so I wouldn’t let that be your deciding factor.

i tell mine that mummy contributes money to Santa Claus which is why they get a different amount of gifts to other children.

chachaching
So do you not read any fictional books to your children @BabaBarrio? Just because a child choses to believe something doesn't mean they've been 'forced' too. You can foster a child imagination without lying to them.

Yes we read fictional books to our children and we tell them what is just a story and what is real. There is no such thing as a chupacabra, there is no Land of Oz, the moon is not made of cheese, and so on.

*Yes, you can foster a child’s imagination without lying to them, that is why we have not lied about Santa.

A child who depends on their parents to tell them what is real and what is imaginary, isn’t choosing to believe in what parents tell them is real. They believe because they trust. Such unconditional trust isn’t to be toyed with and manipulated for adult pleasure in my opinion as a former child and current parent.*

My children believe what they want, I have never told them what to believe and they have naturally drawn their own conclusions about Santa, and other things in their own time. I also have never lied. If they want to believe the moon is made of cheese, then why not let them explore that, I'm not going to tell them it's not, I've never been to the moon after all, but they use their brains like us to figure out there's probably a good chance it's not when they are ready to figure that out for themselves. If my child asked me if the moon was made of cheese and I said that it was, that's completely different.

@LolaSmiles well clearly you must be much better than me because I tell lie sometimes to make my life easier. Because I don't want to fight with my 2 year old after a 12 hour shift about why we can't go to the shop🤷🏻‍♀️
now could I say we are not going to the shop end of yes but do I potentially want a tantrum......nope! So I say it's closed and me move on. Makes perfect sense to me which one I'm picking.

The rule in our house is simple - if you believe and leave a brandy, a mince pie and a carrot out on Xmas Eve then you are rewarded with a stocking - because you are GOOD! When DS turned 18 a rudimentary stocking turned up for me 😂then when DD got to 17 my stocking seriously ramped up 😂We will only get away with it for a while longer, soon they will be making stockings for their own DC but now it is lovely 😁

As for the not lying, I've just told my six year old she's great at singing Rudolph the redness reindeer complete with actions. In reality it was pretty tune less and she missed half of them out but I'm sure no one would actually say that.
She tried hard and I want her to enjoy doing her show next week.

Similarly I lie that I cannot see her when she's hiding behind a cushion, lie that I can't guess which paw patrol is her favourite etc, etc

That is so incredibly sweet. 🥰 And exactly what the whole thing is about: kindness and showing thoughtfulness to others. You should be proud of them. 😊

“How did she die? Can I see her? Please Mum, I want to say goodbye to her”

”Well a nice lady on the internet says I mustn’t lie to you, so let’s start by emptying the wheely bin and go from there.”

I think we have a similar approach chachaching.
We don't preface every book with read with a disclaimer, nor did we sit DC down and say "we're going to watch Frozen but before we do we need to explain that people can't shoot snow from their hands with magic powers and snowmen don't talk".
They're free to believe what they want to believe. They'll negotiate their own understanding of reality and imagination.

What we don't do is push the idea of a literal Santa on them and spend weeks getting them hyped up about it and coming up with increasingly obscure responses to questions to 'keep the magic alive'.

Yes, by their logic excluding any unnecessary detail is “lying by omission” so their the second “truth” scenario is also lying because there is no mention of at 11:23am, on the day of a New Moon, with Venus ascendant in the House of Aquarius, a Black Land Rover, 2023 license plate, driven by an 80 year old man with eye sight of -8 and wearing a Christmas jumper featuring Rudolph ran over our dear 6 year old black cat Cookie who was crossing a wet road while chasing a grey invasive species adult female squirrel who had been raiding the bird feeder during a light drizzle and winds of 5mph with forecast of potential snow…

Leaving out unnecessary detail isn’t “lying by omission”
This is concerning really that a few people don’t seem to know what lying is or is not.

We visit father Christmas, my daughter is four and really loves the whole concept of it, but we've never (and never will) use him as a punishment or bribery or anything like that, we also don't give her gifts from father Christmas, the labels always say who the gifts are actually from.

I’ve told my child that Saint Nicholas was a real person and ‘Christmas Magic’ (goodwill, joy, peace, love, appreciation of the people you love and who love you etc etc) ‘turned him into’ Santa/Father Christmas.

At the moment she understands that as a literal magical being (she’s just turned 5) but I’m hoping she grows to later understand that Santa is a symbol; of giving to others, joy during a cold dark time of the year, and even the suggestion that magic might exist (it’s good for the imagination!!)

We do all the christmas rituals like stockings, leaving out whisky/mince pie/carrot, writing a letter… because it’s fun and feels special to both of us in different ways.

Hmm that sounds like opting out of a key part of parenting, which is teaching your children about the world. That’s called a “Google it” parent.

Well that was exactly my point... you can let them believe it in the same way that lots of imaginary things are real for them without pushing it as some kind of literal truth. But this doesn't require deliberately telling small children that it is not real, or not giving them stockings and letting them have that excitement of going to see if they have mysteriously been filled. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Some.people have no magic in childhood. My husband is one. His parents didn't want him thinking a magic being you never saw who granted wishes was real in case it affected his religion. He has no sense of childhood joy about anything apart from Lego. He can't be excited about anything. So let your children believe for a while.

You clearly don’t know the difference between the truth and the whole truth.

That’s very concerning.

*“How did she die? Can I see her? Please Mum, I want to say goodbye to her”

”Well a nice lady on the internet says I mustn’t lie to you, so let’s start by emptying the wheely bin and go from there*

@WhileMyDishwasherGentlyWeeps you're doing bloody gymnastics with this one. The answer would simply be ‘no, she was hit by a car and is a bit of a mess, you wouldn’t want to see her’ or thereabouts. The fact you think the only other option here is to get a dead cat out of a bin is astonishing frankly. How do you basic parent?

I do. You do not. Courts frequently tell counsel and witnesses to not digress into unnecessary or irrelevant details.

Hmm that sounds like opting out of a key part of parenting, which is teaching your children about the world. That’s called a “Google it” parent.

Surely a "Google it" parent is the opposite of what I do... we explore, we go down different paths finding out, and always figure it out eventually. Which then builds on their skills to using their own rational to come to a decision on their own terms when they are ready to do so.
A "Google it" parent sounds more what you do, tell them the answer and that's it, end of.

@NonPlayerCharacter "immersive roleplay at an age when they dont know the difference"
There are LOADS of kids who are 8+ 10+ (even 12yos) plenty old enough to know the difference but dont. They often find out at school and get laughed at, bullied for it as a result. And go home and tell their parents how cross they are that they were lied too.
However you dress it up, its a lie.

Playing at an imaginary game for an afternoon and a different one the next week etc is a world away from every year telling and retelling the same lie as if its genuinely true.
I was gutted when I found out that my parents had been lying to me about it and wished they had never done so.

You clearly don’t know the difference between the truth and the whole truth

@WhileMyDishwasherGentlyWeeps please expand on this with your Cookie example. Humour me.

YANBU. Some people are so fucking worthy and I pity their kids.

Most of us felt the same and thought we wouldn’t go along with it until the children got caught up in the magic anyway and before we knew it there was elves and fairies and santas. I can’t imagine what sort of arsehole would rob their kids of the existence of magic. I just couldn’t do it.

@BabaBarrio out of interest, have your children asked you how they came about yet? DC1 started asking about 3 how babies are made. I lied because I didn’t want to explain sexual intercourse to a 3 year old.

When my dc1 asked if I’d come back from hospital after going in to have dc2 I lied because I didn’t want to say that statistically there was a very small risk I could die during childbirth.