Your opinion on Santa Claus, and other stories.

I think it's peer pressure for parents and other grown-ups.

 

I can't reconcile why I think it's a good thing to teach Santa Claus. It seems like it should be terrible.

 

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That's easy to resolve. I taught mine that he was not real, but told the purpose of the parables (being good and putting others before yourself). Her cousins were taught to believe.

Just tell your kids not to mention it to others.

 

Figuring out Santa wasn't real was probably the catalyst for me figuring out Jesus/god wasn't real either (or possibly the other way around), sometime in primary school. They got presented the same way, they did similar things.

I don't think I'd bother with telling them.

 

I'll probably tell my children that Father Christmas and the Tooth Demon et al are harmless fun and part of that strange magic of childhood when they start to get wise to it. And if they don't want to believe in them, they can skip the presents and go back to mowing the lawn, cleaning the swords and other mundane chores.

 

I have no intention of lying to children about anything.

(Sure, there are times when it may be best to begin explaining something with an oversimplification, but that it is oversimplified should be mentioned.)


I'd explain the history of the holiday, including holidays like Saturnalia and Yule that were subsumed into it. I'd point out that at the time of our nation's founding it was considered a pagan/papist celebration that was to be avoided. I'd say that we don't really know when Jesus was born, but that September 11th is much more likely than December 25th. I would also point out Romans 14 makes it clear that we are respect and not to look down on others based on whether or not they choose to celebrate any holiday.


Personally I would much rather give gifts when needed and ignore all the social expectations of holidays, but I expect that I may have to compromise on this to please my future wife and family.

 

I don't see a problem with telling fairy stories to very small children. Once they learn how to reason it's pretty disrespectful to lie to them.

I don't think if I had kids I would tell them fairy stories, and if they asked, which they probably would once they learned to reason, whether the fairy stories other folks told them were true, I would certainly not lie to them.

How to explain the stories? People like telling stories to children, and inventing magic. We could probably discuss some other sorts of stories and invented magic at the same time.

What's my pole option?


EDIT: A more interesting question to me: what about other peoples' children?

I don't think I would explicitly say "Santa isn't real" to someone else's kid, but I would certainly not affirm the story.

I wonder how different the internet has made finding out.

 

Well, my dad always told me that Santa was a spaceman from the future who used worm-holes to travel around and matter-replicators to make all the presents, and I'd hate to think that my kids were going to be raised without old-fashioned sci-fi values.

As for the stories themselves, they're probably a mutated holdover from some pagan deity who once fulfilled a similar function. Father Christmas, as he is properly known p), is basically a personification of the midwinter holiday itself, which stinks pretty strongly of animistic origins.

 

oooh that sounds like fun.

I'd probably do what my parents did, which as far as I remember they never said any of the things were real. I know I didn't believe in any of them from a much younger than average age (let's say 3, I know nothing about kids) except for the tooth fairy because I somehow convinced myself she was real via a dream. I don't remember ever getting presents from santa; afaik my parents just put presents under the tree when I was asleep christmas eve but didn't explicitly say "look what santa brought you!" or "from: santa".

Also it's cruel to make the parents bake the cookies to "give" to "santa". I'm far too lazy to bother cooking cookies for myself only to eat them later .

I'm kind of mixed on whether I would do christmas for my kids. I'd like to just celebrate the new years and would give them presents as "new years gifts", but I like the idea of a christmas tree or christmas morning. And just that living in the US kids would be exposed to tons of christmas things that it's part of the culture for kids.

 

When I was about 7, I somehow convinced my brother (who was 3) that Barney (from Barney and friends) was an evil space alien who brainwashed kids into his slave army.

 

Why tell a pointless lie to your own kids? I'd rather educate them on the origins of the St. Nicolas/gift-giving tradition. No reason they can't enjoy it all the same since they're still getting stuff.

 

This is pretty much what I was going to say but with some Christianity bashing that I will refrain from posting.

 

Sure thing. Figuring out the great lie of Santa Claus I feel is one of those great American rites of passage, and ensures that you get skeptical kids who question what they're told rather than having all the answers handed to them on a silver platter.

Also I think a lot of the people on this thread have to good an opinion of the intelligence of children, or rather, the maturity of children in handling situations as they have specified them.

 

Maybe it's just because I didn't grow up believing in Santa Claus, but I've never understood the appeal of this tradition. The stories are fine, but why would you purposely lie to your kids when you don't have to?? After all, if I buy my kid an Xbox, he's gonna KNOW it came from me!

 

my kids are going to suck scientific rationalism out of my androgynous tits and are going to enjoy reading textbooks before bed. i'm also going to ban them from watching TV or communing with lower lifeforms, like you guys kids. because i'm like so awesome and love mah kids so much and stuff!

who needs childhood!

 

It's not an elitist thing. I'll probably just end up doing the opposite of a lot of the stuff my parents did so my own kiddies don't become screwed up and resentful like me.

 

also my kids are going to speak like half a dozen languages before age five fluently before i educate them in latin rhetoric and classical greek. they'll be in an ivy league at six and won't ever look back at the plebs. before age 20 i hope they'll be living on pure mind power.

 

i'm also going to knock stupid concepts out of their heads like hope, good, evil and leave the perfect Nietzschean superhumans. so that they will become veritable gods who can walk around the world smiting for lols. morality shall not burden them! reason shall be their reason for existing! my kids'll usher in the apocalypse for you mortals.