Santa Claus: Should Parents Perpetuate the Santa Claus Myth?
Saturday November 29, 2008
Although Santa Claus was originally based upon the Christian figure of Saint Nicholas, a patron saint of children, today Santa Claus is wholly secular. Some Christians object to him because he is secular rather than Christian; some non-Christians object to him because of his Christian roots. He is a powerful cultural symbol which is impossible to ignore, but this doesn't mean that he should simply be accepted without question. There are good reasons to dispense with the tradition.
Read Article: Should Parents Perpetuate the Santa Claus Myth?
Comments
I’d guess the percentage of atheists in a country is hard to measure with polls. This is because the definition of “atheist” is not clear to many people.
In my country (Germany) virtually everyone I know aged below 40 isn’t a Christian in any meaningful sense. Jesus doesn’t play the slightest role in their lives, they never pray, don’t go to church, never read the bible and generally know next to nothing about its teachings. I’d say you can’t really call them Christian believers. But none of them would call himself an atheist (or an adherent of another religion).
You’d need smart polling questions to get a good measure of the percentage of atheists here.
I think it is important for children to learn that anyone can lie to them-even their parents-and for no good reason.
Is there any empirical evidence to believe that children who are taught about Santa Claus have worse outcomes in any area of life than children who are not? I’ve never heard anyone say that they wished their parents had never told them about Santa Claus. Ia there any evidence of any long term damage to the relationship of trust between a parent and child as a result of this belief? Or is this solely a matter of principle?
Santa myth? Santa myth?!
Santa, like all benign deceptions, ought to go the way of the dodo. Why do a surprising number of adults find deliberately taking advantage of a child’s trust-prone nature to be cute?
I dunno - at some point, parents either a) finally tell their children the truth about Santa or b) they find out on their own, and the parents admit the whole thing.
Theists, on the other hand, will NEVER admit (or agree) that gawd is imaginary.
“Santa, like all benign deceptions, ought to go the way of the dodo. Why do a surprising number of adults find deliberately taking advantage of a child’s trust-prone nature to be cute? ”
Would it not teach them the kinds of arguments against organised religion, that they could use for themselves later in life.
Great article.
I’m undecided as to whether Santa encourages or discourages scepticism but, regardless, I think the importance of minimising the amount of lying to children is enough reason to do away with him.
>Why do a surprising number of adults find deliberately taking advantage of a child’s trust-prone nature to be cute?
I don’t know if I find it cute or funny. There is something humorous to me about young people and how you can really amaze them with the stupidest crap. Every adult I know has stories about stupid crap they believed as a child, and usually they laugh about it–and others laugh about it as well.
To be fair, I don’t know what makes it funny. Just like I don’t know why I laugh when I see someone take a nasty fall (someone I know calls it “the Three Stooges Gene.” I guess on some levels I can’t help what I find humorous…?
But some of the funniest comix I recall reading were in Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin’s dad would tell him an absolute load of crap–and you could just imagine some kid believing all this garbage.
Part of it, I think, is perhaps novelty. Kids don’t stay at that stage for very long–so you only have a limited time to sort of pull the wool over their eyes before they get wise to such simple ploys. I think that’s why they refer to it as a “magical age”–because, quite literally, your head is very open to magical thinking.
I think most of us outgrow these things. Those who don’t likely go on to be fantasy writers or fantasy film directors. Some may go on to be Tarot Card readers, and take it really seriously all their lives.
But Xianity is a bit scarier because it does employ all the features of the Santa lie. And it does it on such a larger scale and with such broad appeal, that it’s really unnerving. It makes me wonder how susceptible I am to nutty ideas–and what beliefs I might still be clinging to that are wholly irrational (but I just haven’t identified it yet…?)
If I ever have kids, they shall not be told the Santa story. Or, rather, they shall, with the point added that the story is simply a story.
Personally, my oldest memory of Santa is of doubt, and my second oldest is of recognizing “Santa” written in my dad’s handwriting.
I did intentionally milk it for a few years, though, in the hopes of squeezing extra goodies out via good behavior. It did not work, however, and I ended up just mostly pointing out my revelation to other kids at school, in a manner that would have gotten me spoiler tagged on Wikipedia.
Anyway, it would be irrelevant. I do not celebrate Xmas as such. My family mostly does, and they have a tendency to give me things even though I never participate in the gift-giving, admittedly primarily because I cannot afford it.
But, living on my own (I currently live with my mom to cut college expenses), I would not celebrate it. I am fond of capitalism, but Xmas is a celebration of consumerism.
Instead, I mostly just celebrate New Years and sometimes request the time period between the winter solstice and Jan 1st off of work to relax and gear up for the spring semester.
Maybe the Santa myth has a benefit. After the children learn that authority figures have been lying to them about the supernatural Santa, they may be more skeptical about other claims regarding supernatural beings.
tracieh writes: Kids don’t stay at that stage for very long… before they get wise to such simple ploys. I think that’s why they refer to it as a “magical age”–because, quite literally, your head is very open to magical thinking.
Not so fast, tracieh!
There’s a current occupant of the White House who lives in a world full of magical thinking! Also, I’m able to “pull the wool” over the eyes of far too many of my high school students (sadly). Example: I have one of those replica 1930s tombstone radios with a hidden tape player, and sometimes I play a tape of really old music and tell students that, since it’s such an old radio, all it picks up is old music. Invariably, I get a few students who nod along as if that makes perfect sense (of course, most of their classmates are soon on the floor in laughter).
It’s a tough choice. My daughter said she was “heartbroken” when she found out the truth about Santa and the Easter Bunny, but the alternative would have been for her to be the only child in our neigborhood and in her school who knew the truth. It’s one thing for me to personally take on the role of warrior against modern cultral norms, it’s another thing to ask my child to do it. She found out eventually that the big purple dinosaur at her second birthday party wasn’t the real Barney, that the fireworks in the summer weren’t all for her birthday (she was born in July 7th) that the Snow White she met at Disney World was a person dressed up to play a part and despite all of this pretending and play acting and more, she is growing up to be a critical and independent thinking young woman.
Is “we’ll be different from everyone else” really a good argument? I’m sure you wouldn’t send your daughter to church on such a basis.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t send your daughter to church on such a basis.”
It’s hard to say. Belief in Santa is nearly unanimous amoung kids under nine in our area. On the other hand, despite the dozens of churches in our little town, the majority of people don’t attend Sunday services. When my daughter was a little older, she had several friends who were active in their churches. She thought it would be fun to go and have an additional chance to socialize with her friends, so I took her to the churches several times. Once the churches started trying to separate her from her friends so they could try to indoctrinate her, however, she quickly lost all interest.
Belief in Santa is also different from belief in Jesus. Going to see Santa is more like going to see “Elmo on Ice.” I didn’t feel it was necessary to explain to her that Elmo isn’t a real monster.
“we’ll be different from everyone else”
I think it’s a question of whether of not it’s okay to set up a five year old to be a social outcast. She’s old enough now to reach her own conclusions and defend her own beliefs, but that wasn’t true when she was in pre-school or in the first years of elementary school.
My kids are 19 and 21 now. We celebrated xmas at our convenience when they were little because my husband was a Sheriff’s deputy and I worked for an airline.
We didn’t push “Santa” but he did bring gifts. However, the gifts weren’t all from Santa. I made the “from” tags from celebrities like Scooby Do and the Ninja Turtles and Raffi.
The tradition goes on, because the kids are still excited to see if they got gifts from Batman or Harry Potter or Hallie Barry or Shaun White or Venus Williams or Edward Cullen. (You get the idea)
It’s fun. It’s the way the apatheist Sobieralski family marks the Solstice holiday season.
I truly believe that the Santa/Easter Bunny/tooth Fairy have outlived their usefulness…perhaps they should retire in Unicorn/Pixie/Leprechaun Land…
It seems as if much of this debate is about a false dichotomy.
It is easy to argue against lying to children and against promoting comsumerism. However, the trappings and symbols of X-mas or Yule are basically whatever we choose to make of them. I think it would be a mistake to dispose of all the beautiful traditions and imagery just because we disapprove of negative associations. We can stop the deception and the commercialism without robbing ourselves of all the good things. Just as Christians coopted Yule and changed the meanings of the symbols, so modern secularists are capable of coopting X-mas. In fact this is already happening, it seems.
OK, let me answer point by point:
Parents Have to Lie About Santa Claus - Kids can tell the difference between this kind of fun lie (make believe) and a malicious lie. The Santa Claus thing doesn’t seem to erode any trust between the parent and child.
Parents’ Lies About Santa Claus Have to Grow - Not really. Once they got suspicious I didn’t try to cover it up.
Santa Claus Lies Discourage Healthy Skepticism - I think it’s the opposite. It’s taught them to use their brain, connect the dots and follow their reasoning. The experience will be useful figuring out religion and other poppycock in the future.
The Reward & Punishment System of Santa Claus is Unjust - My kids get their presents whether they’ve been good or “bad”. And really, how bad can little boys be?
The Santa Claus Myth Promotes Materialism - That’s the gift-giving, not Santa Claus.
Santa Claus is Too Similar to Jesus and God - In our case, Santa Claus is just the guy who brings the presents. But if there are similarities, much the better! They’ll be able to make the connection between one fake guy and the other.
The Santa Claus “Tradition” is Relatively Recent - Why does this matter? Is this an “argument from antiquity”?
Santa Claus is More About Parents than Children - Perhaps, but my kids have known that Santa Claus is not real for some time, and they say it’s fun to make believe he brings the presents. BTW, following Spanish tradition, my kids also get presents from the Three Kings (the three wise men) on January 6th. They like that even more than than the Santa Claus thing (and yes, they know).
Finally, if you want to read about an extraordinary Christmas tradition, check out the Catalonian “caga tio”.
I don’t know how my parents did it but I am one of 5 siblings who believed in Santa and all of us learned the truth without any problem. In fact, we are the biggest “baby” adults at christmas. We just love opening our stockings and our gifts still read “Love, Santa & Mrs. Clause”. I treasure those gift tags.
I don’t have children so not sure what I’d do but I will say I imagine it would be very hard for the sfew children who know santa is not real but must play along with their young friends and classmates.
One of the real fallacies in this article certainly seems to be the premise that there is a single educative technique appropriate for all ages and at all times of life; that is, if the parent manipulates the pleasure principle as a disciplinary technique in childhood, the child will “internalize” the reward/punishment system, thus ostensibly stunting their capacities for altruism or (delayed gratification, perhaps) as an adult.
There are several problems with the argument. First, there is no evidence to suggest that internalization of the reward/punishment discipline precludes the higher forms of moral reasoning. It strikes me rather as a necessary preparatory stage, the neglect of which usually stunts rathers than aids the capacity for ethical development. Second, one does not use reward/punishment in order to teach that good should only be done for a reward, but rather because small children do not generally possess the capacity to understand the higher forms of moral reasoning. Thus, it is the only way to instill the habits of self-control necessary to useful social functioning. And if Austin, you would dispute that, I challenge you to explain to my three year old why she can’t throw temper tantrums purely on the grounds of altruism. I am still going to tell her that the elves are reporting back to Santa, and I won’t lose any more sleep over it than the candy I used to potty train her or the grounding I will do when she breaks curfew, hopefully years from now. Finally, reward/punishment is not just about an ethical system, it’s also about teaching kids how the world really works. You do bad things, you can get into trouble, unpleasant things may happen. You don’t have to believe in God to see the plain truth in that. Ironic, Santa’s most useful function may just be that he teaches us about how the world really works.
I have a problem. I refuse to tell my kids (aged 4, 6, and 7 mos.) this stupid story about the fat guy in the red suit. I take every opportunity to remind them that it’s just for play and that there’s no such thing as Santa. It is important for me to build a relationship of trust with these people who happen to be my children, and as with other relationships, that means not lying to them and making fools of them.
The problem is this: my daughters insist that there IS a Santa Claus. They don’t believe me because this idiot story is reinforced at every turn. Quite a study in the power of collective (non)thinking. How many other stupid myths do we believe wholeheartedly simply because we are insulated from reality by those around us?
Without God your lives are EMPTY.
Peter: Prove it.