Forgive me for going mommy blogger for a minute, but I had an interesting conversation last night with a friend about believing in Santa Claus. It’s a worldly tradition that we blindly pass on from generation to generation without stopping to actually think about it.
Is believing in Santa bad for a child? Sure it may seem like lots of innocent fun, but think back to the day you learned the truth about Santa. Maybe you woke up in the middle of the night and saw Dad putting out presents. Perhaps it was your peers making fun of you in elementary school. Or, perhaps you were that kid in middle school who still believed and everybody made fun of behind your back. We had one of those kids, and he didn’t turn out too well.
How devastating was it when you realized that everybody – your parents, friends, family, tv – was blatantly lying to you? It’s probably one of the saddest memories of everyone’s childhood.
So why do we put our kids through this? As a parent, you are your child’s model for God. For the first few years of that child’s life her parents are the most perfect people she knows. Now, imagine what it’s like when she finds out her godlike parents lied to her. She’s got to be crushed!
Isn’t it much better to instead teach our children about the benefits of giving?
Of course, then there’s the whole Santa as a bad influence. Here’s a fat, pipe smoking man who spends his time watching little kids (creepy) while forcing minorities (elfs) to work under slave like conditions in an inhospitable climate. This is the type of shit that goes on in China and Africa, not the type of bedtime stories we should tell our kids.
And what about the kids who won’t have a Christmas because they either aren’t christian or their families just can’t afford it. How do you explain to those kids that Santa visits all of their friends but not them. They’re too young to understand religious differences, and they’re still likely to be upset when their friends talk of all the gifts they’ve received from this magical man who shunned them.
During our conversation we decided that should we ever get really really drunk and somehow produce offspring together, that we wouldn’t let them believe in Santa. Instead, we’d teach them about the benefits of giving and doing good for others. The only challenge with that though, is preventing our own kids from ruining christmas for other kids – as that job belongs to their parents.