Maryte Gurekas, HW Columnist
Halloween is over and the next commercial push will be the mother of all holidays (or should I say the father of all holidays) as Christmas will take center stage. My colleagues and friends are already posting their “I’ve- got-half-of-my-Christmas-shopping-done” statuses on Facebook. Soon we shall also see the frenzy of shoppers with their lists for Santa Claus tucked secretly into purses and pockets. If a certain item on that list is very popular, very expensive, and becomes scarce, parents will undoubtedly scour the stores; check adjacent cities for the item, check e-Bay, do whatever it takes to get that item because they can’t tell their child “Santa Claus doesn’t exist.”
Why do we lie to our children? What is so horrible about the truth that makes parents, teachers and extended family collude to maintain a bold-faced lie that perpetuates the existence of Santa Claus, a mythical character at best, no greater than Hercules or the unicorn.
Okay, I already sense the vibes of disdain: “Aw c’mon, let the kids be kids…childhood is short.” I am quite confident to say that children will be children regardless of the non-existence of Santa Claus. They will play, they will fantasize, they will use their imagination to conjure up their own stories. They will develop through their phases of sitting, then standing, then walking. They will learn words and put sentences together and become more and more competent as they evolve through childhood. A lie isn’t necessary to “allow” them to be kids.
Yes, I hear the next one, too: “Are you one of those parents who will ruin it for the rest?” This is the peer-pressure among new parents that often makes them relent and maintain the lie. One does not want their child to be less accepted than others, nor be stigmatized as “one of those.” Fitting in is as important to parents as it is to children. Yet, families have different beliefs and traditions from one another and children can be instructed to respect those differences. Children can also be instructed not to “spoil” things for others. Classrooms today in America are multi-cultural with many families that do not even celebrate Christmas. Do these children “spoil” it for those choosing to believe in Santa Claus? No. Nothing can really spoil it, even when older children taunt and tease younger children with their belief in Santa. There is a good reason why: Children believe their parents and have unwavering trust in them. The realization of this alone has given me great pause about betraying this trust.
I have often wondered how we can expect to lie to our children, and I’m not talking about just a little white lie, but an elaborate ruse for almost 10 years, and then expect them to just accept it as part of growing up? What happens to the parents’ credibility? The Santa lie teaches children that lying is morally acceptable. If parents, whom they trust explicitly, can lie, engage in intricate deception and subsequently defend their lie, why wouldn’t this work in other areas of life? In relationships? At work? Back at their own parents?
Finding out about Santa has often been the moment for children when their innocence is shaken, their trust in their parents is questioned, and their memory of that moment remains indelible. This is good?
There are greater concerns, however, related to the Santa Lie. It breeds greed. Worse still, it is based entirely on a reward/punishment paradigm that encourages children to be good for the sake of a reward. Rather than creating a sense of charity among children, it perpetuates the “What’s in it for me” mentality. Furthermore, Santa brings gifts that children like and want and in most cases have requested. So children try to be good because they want to get presents, not because they want to be good. The all-seeing, all-knowing Santa easily trumps the all-knowing, all-seeing god because Santa’s rewards are tangible. Good behaviour equals good stuff. If I were a Christian, this would worry me.
The Santa lie is so heavily entrenched within consumerism; it serves to further separate the rich from the poor. This sends a sad message to less fortunate children. It sets up poor children for disappointment and self-doubt: Are they “not as good” as other children who receive better gifts? Does this inferiority become internalized?
In the end we need to seriously ask ourselves what purpose and/or value does believing in Santa Claus have? Does it make our children better people, charitable, does it serve a broader goal that would benefit the well-being of humanity? Does believing in Santa Claus give children opportunities to enhance their understanding of themselves and the world around them?
Oh, I hear the disdain again. “What about the magic of Christmas, the joyful anticipation of finding gifts under the tree?” Children readily believe in magic and fantasy as they are the curators of imagination. It’s how they learn and experiment with the world. They also experiment with critical thinking, a process that develops like any other process and helps them to distinguish between a myth and reality. We have no right to blur this process with a lying scheme.
—
Photo credit: Taken from the 2008 Annual Convention Newsletter of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas
—
Popularity: 37%
I agree with almost everything in this article. I do, however, think that it is an important part of a child’s maturation to learn that their parents are capable of lying to them.
The blind trust that a child needs to put in their parents while they are learning many things about the world for the first time also needs to be shattered at some point. Perhaps having a singular, unified lie that is used among many cultures and religions can relieve some of the pressure on the individual parent to come up with an effective and appropriate lie ritual that teaches their child to question authority.
It is stated in the article that the “Santa lie teaches children that lying is morally acceptable.” I believe it is more likely that the Santa lie teaches children that their parents – and perhaps more importantly all adults who have colluded to sustain the Santa lie – are capable of being immoral. And, as I stated above, I believe that is an important thing to learn, especially through relatively non-traumatic experiences (I don’t think there are many 16 year olds who are still traumatized by / resentful of the revelation that Santa does not exist).
With all that said, the whole notion of Christmas being a holiday which largely promotes / celebrates greed and materialism, and Santa Claus being the icon at the pinnacle of such values, is very disturbing. It is terribly saddening to think that poor children might be riddled with self-doubt this Christmas when they receive few (if any) gifts from “Santa,” while their richer counterparts will receive more gifts than they could ever ask for and won’t have a moment to question their entitlement to such material possessions.
The Santa lie is certainly a complex issue, and this article did a great job at opening up the debate.
Ironically, while I think that the “lie” aspect of the Santa ritual could be the only thing worth continuing, I imagine that the entire concept of Santa would become largely obsolete if the excessive and outrageous consumer ritual was removed from the holiday season.
Lastly, on a much more personal level, when I do have a child of my own, I can see it being much easier for me to practice honesty with my child than to sustain the Santa lie for a few years.
Everybody lies at some point about something, and parents lie to their children when necessary. The part that bothers me as a parent has been the collusive aspect and peer-pressure to maintain the lie. The Santa Lie is huge in comparison to the “Tooth Fairy” or “Easter Bunny” or “Great Pumpkin.” It also attaches many major positive cultural aspects — extended family, celebration, gift-exchange, meals, emotional sharing. So my issue is with the magnitude of Santa’s mythical presence to a religious event (one which I believe already has a significant mythical figurehead, “god”).
As for 16 year olds still being traumatized or resentful of the non-existence of Santa, I would agree. They are not. Yet, later on, when they are adults they recall the time it happened, how it happened, how it “changed xmas for them forever”, and other similar sentiments.
Finally an article on Christmas I can get on board with! The author makes an excellent point about children of families who do not celebrate Christmas at all. They grow up perfectly fine without Santa Clause, I’m sure with a fully developed imagination. As a parent, I refuse to lie to my child. I’m not taking the fun out of a holiday, I’m building a trusting relationship with him. What is wrong with knowing his gifts come from his parents? And he can still hear all about Santa, the same way he hears about Mickey Mouse – as a fictional character. It boggles my mind when I am confronted with the outrage of other parents who can’t believe I would steal this magic from my son. These same parents are often the the ones who still remember with horror the day the Santa lie was shattered. Make something up just to pull the rug out from under my own kid? No thanks.
“What is wrong with knowing his gifts come from his parents?” I agree. If you choose to celebrate the event of Christmas there is nothing wrong with your child knowing the gifts come from parents! This is precisely the ridiculousness that I had to endure as a parent who joined into the collusion: gifts from Santa (elaborately hidden, wrapped differently, “on the list”) and then gifts from parents (some token cheaper things because the expense stuff was encroaching upon our lifestyle). The lie also leads to consumer irresponsibility, putting parents into debt until summer. How stupid is that?
Growing up in Colombia, it wasn’t Santa that brought us presents on Christmas morning but “baby Jesus” himself. I’ve always found this hillarious, especially after moving from Colombia to other countries (like Canada and the US) where it was the same idea but with Santa. In Colombia, it seemed like somewhere along the way the commercialization of the holiday tried to retain the Christian part of Christmas. Nevertheless, the same idea applied.
Another funny thing was that many times I remember my parents telling me the following: If you don’t get presents on Christmas morning, don’t worry, it doesn’t necessarily mean you were bad, but that little baby Jesus was just really busy and couldn’t make it to our house. So, if he didn’t make it we’d have to wait until Jnauary 6th for the Three Kings to bring us presents. Talk about being able to keep the “Santa/baby Jesus” lie AND get the presents after everything went on sale.
I really wish they were up front with me from the beginning. It took me longer than I would have wished to finally shed the Catholic skin I was indoctrinated in because while growing up that was all I knew and was bombarded with. On top of that, the stigmatization of anyone who did not believe because if one did not believe in Santa pretty much meant one didn’t believe in baby Jesus = you’re not one of us, you’re an Other, an outsider, someone we don’t look think too highly of… and all kids want to be accepted and loved by their parents. It goes to show that there really is no such thing as a Christian child, only children of Christian parents. If lies and other forms of bullying and coercive and manipulative measures were not part of such a growing up experience — the Santa Lie being a great contributor — then I would have been able to question my life more freely from a younger age. I would have felt more comfortable digging deep into my curiosities and questioning the contradictions and inconsistencies I had from early on stumbled across.
It wasn’t until I was 9, after having recently moved to the US, that I realized there were different gods people worshipped and other religions. My best friend was from Iran and another friend from school was Jewish. I didn’t make sense to me? How come they don’t celebrate Santa/baby Jesus on Christmas? How can there be more than one god? etc. But the atmosphere was never conducive for such questioning. I now understand why more than 90% of Colombia is Roman Catholic and fights so strongly to keep the Santa/baby Jesus Lie as a huge part of the indoctrination of their children because that is what it is, an indoctrination, a social control mechanism. You step out of line, you are Othered, you are looked down upon, you are sinful, you are unethical, immoral, soul-less, unworthy, dirty, uncultured, uneducated, savage, hellbound, etc. What child wants his or her parents to think this of him or her? Great way to keep kids in line, whether it is done consciously or not it has such effects to the majority of children. In the US there’s a big uproar lately about the bullying of glbt… minors. I feel this Santa/baby Jesus lie is just another form of bullying.
Heck, it wasn’t until my second year of university that I was finally able to begin digging into my curiosity of atheism and was able to find at least one person to discuss this with. Ironically enough, this occurred while I was attending a Roman Catholic college with one of my atheist peers.
I’m glad I was able to break from that pressure. Still when I return home to Colombia, I feel it but no longer let it get to me in the ways it used to while growing up. I have to say that THIS exact issue is one of the many reasons I don’t ever want to settle down in Colombia. This social control mechanism that pushes such an indoctrination of blind faith saddens me too much.
Thanks for writing this piece, Maryte. You just inspired me to write about this topic for my Colombia Reports column and bring up the discussion in that forum. Hopefully it will spark some kind of productive discourse about the topic with Colombians.
It certainly adds a lot of pressure on parents to conform. I felt it and conformed even though I didn’t want to. It would have been impossible for your parents to do given the 90% Catholicism in Colombia.
Very true. I guess the pressure would be mostly felt by those of us who did challenge the traditional order of things. For those parents who fully accepted it, I am sure it made it that much easier.
I cannot agree more. Lying to our children is already something that I find difficult, even if only to protect their feelings (at least then I can understand the impulse). But the systematic and institutionalized lie of Santa is unbelievable (pun intended). This article is quite complete in explaining why it is unacceptable.
I have a young child and I will not be lying about Santa. Yet, the controversy it has created at the daycare, and with my circle of friends is astounding. Why is everybody so defensive? I am constantly confronted with questions like “how will you make sure not to ruin it for others?”… and my only response is that I’ll try to make sure my child only hangs out with Jews and Muslims. It’s my own not so subtle way of pointing out North American xenophobia.
And if I hear the fantasy/creativity argument again I swear my head will explode from the irony. My child’s creativity will be encouraged not within the confines of the Santa lie, or the tooth fairy lie, or even religious lies. It sounds like factory setting fantasy to me.
Richard Dawkins writes that among Christian children it is taught that “unquestioned faith is a virtue”. I assume most adult Christians believe it as well. I guess that Santa is just a smaller version of the big lie we’re expected to believe til the day we die.
“I guess that Santa is just a smaller version of the big lie we’re expected to believe til the day we die.” Well, I think you have said it all in that statement. Above all else one must “believe” — whether it be in a higher power or spirit or soul, science, the psyche or UFO’s.