Or is this Santa post unreasonable?

[BusySyllabub]

The author of gentle parenting books Sarah Ockwell Smith posted on Instagram that it’s best to never pretend that Santa is real.

I did some research on this just to be sure and discovered research that indicated that very few children are adversely affected by the Santa myth.

AIBU to think that we are overthinking everything, taking the magic out of childhood, and that educators are now posting nonsense for clicks and engagement?

So you want others to tell their children to lie? And then you want children to act like adults and lie, em nope.

Your lie doesn't overrule others choice to tell the truth.

Why are you not telling your child that different people hold different beliefs?

Not doing those things or having those "moments" doesn't make Christmas any less magical.

There seems to be a bit of a running theme on here that if Christmas isn't done a certain way then it must be shit

Ah same! Definitely Father Christmas here... and I have never ever admitted to DD20 and DS16 that he doesn't exist 😂 They worked it out at the appropriate time and dont harbour any resentment as far as I can see.

I remember finding 'Father Christmas' presents accidentally when I was little, and I was gutted he wasn't real, not cross I'd been lied to.

I was that purse-lipped 5-year-old in my primary school class and yes, it went down chaotically. It wasn't because of my parents (who were mortified), I just never believed and thought it was important for other children to know the truth.

On the subject of the thread - it really doesn't matter as long as you don't blow the whole thing up into something unduly important. Parents keeping a traditional myth alive doesn't matter. Parents choosing not to lie to their kids also doesn't matter. Kids working it all out at whatever age (or being told) doesn't matter and is part of the whole tradition in a way. If they don't work it out themselves an older (or smarter) child will tell them, that's how it works.

Parents who go to extreme lengths to "preserve the magic" and who have meltdowns at the idea their child might be told the truth, even as that child approaches the end of primary school - they're the problems.

Nor is it down to her child to tell other children their parents are 'wrong to lie'. If the child is too young to understand that that's an inappropriate opinion to be sharing, then they're too young to have it shared with them. "There isn't santa but a lot of parents think it's fun to pretend there is, and that's fine, it's just a way they make Christmas special for their children" I mean, it's not hard is it? Especially given that these people are apparantly so skilled in gentle validation.

Ouch! Poor child being set up for a fail like that. There are more diplomatic ways that parents can manage raising their child while bucking the prevailing culture.

I doubt that she'd stand in a public space in Riyadh pronouncing her views on feminism and expect there to be no consequences...

There's plenty of families that don't celebrate Christmas at all that manage not to blow it for those that do.

There's a big area between "wanting others to tell their children to lie* and a 5 year standing up at a Christmas party telling all the other children that he isn't real and their parents are big fat liars.

My DD27 had probably the most traumatic experience possible on Christmas Day at 10. It certainly wasn't Santa.
And we have managed to retain Christmas as a joyous time and she has loved being part of it with her nieces.

Some people just want to suck the joy out of everything.

So you want a five year old to not be a five year old.

Don't be ridiculous. They could easily have stood up and shared their last trip to the toilet. They literally have a brain that is forming.

Hand on you want people to not tell because they are too young to keep a secret.

So how does that work. I have to lie to my child because of your chosen lie to your child?

It’s not an opinion that Father Christmas doesn’t literally exist and deliver presents around the world accompanied by a red nosed reindeer. That’s a fact. It might be a fact a majority of parents don’t want their young children to know, but it doesn’t make it less true. Other people shouldn’t have to tell things they don’t want to so that their children can protect the views of others. I think children should be taught to be sensitive to others beliefs, be that in terms of religion or Father Christmas or whatever but children can and will talk to each other and their world and beliefs, and children don’t always do as they’re told by parents!

Any talk of secret, etc by any adults to my children won't go well.

There are some things that are appropriate to keep quiet though, and not telling little kids about Santa would be in the same category as not telling dad you've bought him socks for Christmas, for me anyway.

There's also things like medical info that we teach them to keep private, and thoughts we teach them not to say out loud like "why does that man have no legs".

It's not as simple as secret = bad.

I was so upset when I found out Father Christmas wasn’t real I had to take the day off work.

😀

You can be diplomatic about it. "Some people believe..." is a respectful way to approach differences in beliefs whether it's about Santa or other aspects of lifestyle or belief systems.

Isn't it often just lazy typing? I say Father Christmas IRL as do many people I know, but it is long and I am lazy so will often type 'Santa' for ease. If it will be obvious what I'm talking about, I use even fewer letters and shorten it to 'FC' 😬
Ditto Xmas/Christmas...

I think its lovely for kids to believe in Father Christmas. I remember being really excited on Christmas eve waiting for him to come. My dad had some bells he used to secretly ring when we were little, he used to say that it was Father Christmas going past on his sleigh making sure we behaved before Christmas. Lovely magical times.

It's perfectly possible to have a magical Christmas without presenting Santa as the absolute, literal truth.

Why does "magical" have to include "deluding people you unavoidably have power over"?

I don't hear anyone say Father Christmas anymore. All the kids I know say Santa.

As a child I never felt remotely humiliated or lied to. On the contrary I was very grateful for that make-believe that made Christmas so exciting during my early years, especially given that my parents were almost invariably skint, so the stocking presents were an extra expense they could certainly have done without.

And once I found out - a gradual dawning as I recall - I was only too happy to play along for younger siblings - it was lovely to see their excitement, too.

As for the ‘gentle parenting’ author, it’s probably best if I keep my comments to myself!

It is a pretty harmless tale, and most kids figure it out for themselves anyhow, particularly if they live in a house without a chimney 😃

I've not heard of Sarah Okwell Smith (and have generally found "gentle parenting" methods = nightmare unruly kids).
But, I'm probably one of those few children who did feel lied to when they find out, so I've never really made Santa out to be a big deal and told the children as soon as they asked.

In this family we all call him Father Christmas, too. An exception was Gdd1 when very small, and called him ‘Farmer’ Christmas. 😂
(He didn’t mind, BTW, as long as he got his tot of something warming and a couple of mince pies.)

In Scotland he's always been Santa, no FC here!

When I was a kid I believed in Father Christmas. I believed Narnia was in the back of my wardrobe and fairies lived in the garden. I believed in vampires (I was a bit goth, even when I was very small!) and ghosts and myth and magic. Now I work in a creative field and all the imagination and wonder I experienced as a child feeds into who I am today. There was never a terrible reckoning or devastating realisation when I learned 'the truth'. I grew up with an appreciation of the value of stories and folklore and the capacity to dream of different worlds. Calling it a lie is so reductive and simplistic and I really don't think most children experience it as such. It's fun, and for most families not something to take so seriously!

The difference between Father Christmas and religion is that everyone knows it’s the children’s parents putting presents in their children’s stockings. No-one outside of childhood believes that on 24th December a man who lives at the North Pole packs up the gifts from his elf factory and flies around the world on a reindeer. So I can very comfortably tell my children that. I can’t with all confidence say that there is no God, although I think it’s vanishingly unlikely and I have no belief. I won’t be teaching my child to believe in any religion as fact because my husband and I don’t have any religious faith. And as I said in another post, children should be taught to respect the views of others - religion, Santa or otherwise- but they are children, don’t always behave perfectly and should feel free to discuss the world as they see it with their friends.