Negative Case
Sorry, Virginia ...
December 13, 2009|By David Kyle Johnson
Editor's note: The following op-ed article is for grown-ups only. Children are warned that if they read it, they will not receive any gifts from Santa Claus this year!
Parents should stop teaching their kids to believe in Santa Claus. Reading stories about Santa is fine, and encouraging generosity and imagination is great. But tricking children into believing that an omniscient fat man, with a red suit and rosy cheeks, will slide down the chimney bestowing presents on Dec. 24 is just flat-out immoral.
First of all, it's lying. It's one thing to lie to save someone's life, but stop kidding yourself. "It's fun to watch the kids get excited" is hardly a noble cause. Nor is it harmless. I've amassed recollections of "finding out the truth about Santa," and many were stories of genuine embarrassment and resentment. The systematic deception makes children feel taken advantage of or like the butt of a joke.
Children crave knowledge about the world - they want the truth - and parents are their most trusted source. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that a violation of that trust spawns strong reactions.
Additionally, parental efforts to perpetuate the lie discourage children's efforts to think critically. A parent telling a child to ignore the evidence against Santa's existence encourages the child to think that believing whatever one wants is more important than weighing evidence and believing the truth. Parents who try to explain away the evidence with crackpot excuses skew the child's ability to discern good evidence from bad. And magical explanations? Do you really want your kids to be gullible enough to believe in magic? To perpetuate the lie, the parent has to effectively tell the child to "stop thinking and just believe." That is not what you want to teach your children.
And that is not what society needs you to teach your children. Gallup, Pew, and other polls reveal that a frightening percentage of Americans believe surprisingly ridiculous things - that the sun revolves around the earth, for example (18 percent), or in communication with the dead (21 percent), witches (21 percent), astrology (25 percent), clairvoyance (26 percent), telepathy (31 percent), ghosts (32 percent) and ESP (41 percent). How many Americans still believe that President Barack Obama is Muslim and not a U.S. citizen, that the world will end in 2012, and that Sept. 11 was "an inside job"? Not to mention the fact that "stop thinking and just believe" is the most common impetus for fanatical religious belief. All such beliefs are damaging - and they are also demonstrably false. If only there were some way we could set our children down the path of "knowing better."
Christmas has not been celebrated the same way for 2,000 years. Our holiday celebrations date back at least 4,000 years (Jesus' birth wasn't added to the mix until the Fourth Century), and they have been in a constant state of flux. The idea that you should tell the Santa Claus lie to your children was perpetuated by the New York elite - most notably, Clement Clark Moore, author of "A Visit From St. Nicholas" - in the early 1800s. It was an effort to domesticate Christmas, to change it from a holiday about giving to the poor to a holiday about giving to one's own children. It's time for another change.
Say Goodbye to the Santa Claus Lie
Can lying to your children about Santa be excused in the name of imagination?
Published on December 17, 2012 byDr. David Kyle Johnson, Ph.D.inPlato on Pop
Parentsoften feel a twinge of guilt when they lie to their children about Santa Claus. But in her article, “The Santa Lie: Is the Christmas Con Hurting our Kids?”SlateauthorMelinda Wenner Moyerbut argues that the Santa lie “belongs in the ‘good lie’ pile.” There is no need for guilt, she says, “because parents invoke him for their kids’ sake.” I disagree. We need to pay attention to that twinge of guilt to steer us clear of immoral and potentially dangerous behavior.
I first argued this in 2009, in an op-ed for the Baltimore Sun, entitled “Sorry, Virginia,” I suggested the Santa Lie should be avoided for three reasons. (1) It’s an unjustified lie, (2) it risks damaging your parental trustworthiness and (3) it encourages credulity and ill-motivated behavior. One of the arguments people made in response—amidst an unbelievable amount of hate mail I recieved, which you can seehere—was essentially the argument that Moyerbut presents.The Santa lie promotes imagination, and imagination is good for kids.As Moyerbut puts it, “What Kris Kringle does…is feed the imagination” and a “type of imaginative play that sparkscreativity, socialunderstandingand even—strange as it may sound—scientific reasoning.” (And her same argument has been repeated by like minded fans of Santa in defense of the Santa Claus lie,againandagainandagain…andagain.)
Bottom of Form
Of course, Moyerbut is right about the benefits of imagination. What she (and the others who makes similar arguments) fail to recognize, however, is that the thing she is defending—The Santa Lie—does not actually promote imagination or imaginative play. Imagination involves pretending, and to pretend that something exists, one has to believe that thing doesn’t exist. Does the Christian “imagine” that Jesus rose from the dead? Does the Muslim “imagine” that Muhammad’s rode his horse Barack (Al Boraq) at lightening speed from Mecca to Jerusalem and then assended into heaven? Of course not; they believe these things are true. Tricking a child into literally believing that Santa exists doesn’t encourage imagination, it actually stifles it. If you really want to encourage imagination in your children, tell them that Santa doesn’t exist, but that you are going to pretend like he does anyway on Christmas morning.
Lots of children “play act” like they are Santa, and that does require imagination. But you don’t have to trick them into believing that Santa is real in order for them to play that way—just as you don’t have to trick them into thinking thatStar Trekis real in order for them to pretend to explore alien planets in the back yard.
Moyerbut recognizes the worry that your children might develop trust issues when they realize that you have lied to them, but she argues that such worries are ill-founded. When they learn the truth, on average at around 8 she suggests, they know the difference between good and bad lies and will see it as a good lie. Consequently, they won’t resent you, thinklyingis always acceptable, or reject theirreligiousbeliefs.
While Moyerbut is right that many children suffer no ill effects from learning the truth, she is wrong that none do. In “Against the Santa-Claus Lie: The Truth We Should Tell our Children” (Chapter twelve in Scott Lowe’sChristmas and Philosophy) I document some horrific stories about the “big moment”—stories that show discovering the truth about Santa is often not with consequences--everything from the erosion of parental authority and trust to turning a child into an atheist. For example, Jay defended Santa’s existence in front of his whole class on the mere basis that his “mother wouldn’t lie” to him, only to read the encyclopedia entry on Santa in front of the whole class and simultaneously discover that she indeed would. When little Tennille realized that the reason she didn’t always get what she asked Santa for was that he didn’t exist, she figured that God’s non-existence was the best explanation for why her prayers also went unanswered. I’m not saying that this happens to all kids; I am saying it’s a possibility. If you are religious, I doubt it's a possibility you would willingly invite. Of course, if you are an atheist, you might like that the Santa lie does this. But there are even more reasons for not liking the Santa lie--reasons that should resonatequite quite loundly witheveryone(espeically atheists).
Moyerbut suggests that Santa encourages “Fantasy play [that] forces kids to think through hypothetical or counterfactual scenarios, which bolsters their reasoning skills.” Again, it’s not Santa belief itself that does this; simply telling them the story but admitting it’s not really true would suffice—just like it does for all other fairy tales we tell our children. But any positive effect Santa belief had in this regard would be completely counteracted and outweighed by the negative effects of what is necessary to keep the belief going. Don’t get me wrong, children need to learn how to reason effectively and think critically, and I applaud Moyerbut for encouraging parents to promote this. But encouraging your children to literally believe the Santa lie is the last thing that encourages critical thinking and effective reasoning in children.
Think about what many parents do to keep kids believing. When a child brings doubts, parents often encourage the child to stifle those doubts and continue believing: “Just believe what you want to. After all, isn’t that more fun?” They will sometimes plant false evidence (or show terriblefake “scientific” documentariesthat do so), make up faux ad hoc explanations, or—worst of all—just say “he’s magic.” But all these things are directly contrary to what parents who want to develop critical thinking in their children should do. Stifling doubt, believing based on desire (instead of evidence), being convinced by bad evidence, being fooled by ad-hoc explanations, and appealing to magic—these are all “bad habits of lazy thinking” that I have to drive out of my critical thinking students every semester. And, not surprisingly, the students in which these bad habits are most deeply entrenched are often those who believed in Santa for too long—far beyond 8 year old (sometimes into their teens!).
If your children already believe in Santa, then there is one piece of advice from Moyerbut that I endorse: Turn their experience of learning the truth into a critical thinking exercise; try to get them to figure it out on their own with solid reasoning.
If you are still deciding what to tell your children, however, decide now to tell them the truth. After all, as Moyerbut tells says, “Though lying can be an awfully convenient parenting crutch…it’s generally best to keep it to a minimum, both to develop trust between yourself and your child and to lead by example.” She’s right! She’s just wrong that December is a time for an exception to this rule. And if you are worried about what your kids might tell other children, just teach them seven simple words: “At our house, Santa is just pretend.”
David Kyle Johnson
Copyright, 2012
Santa Claus: Innocent Fantasy or Harmful Lie?
ByCHALEY-ANN SCOTT
From Psychology Central.com
Most progressive parents know that lying to our kids is not a good idea — it’s not respectful or kind, and is likely to erode the trust our child has for us.
However, what about Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and unicorns? Is it okay to tell our child that Santa Claus and the like are real? Are these just innocent ‘white lies’ that we all tell our kids so their faces light up with joy as they indulge in the pleasure of make-believe?
Or is it a dangerous path that deeply affects our child’s capacity to trust adults when they eventually find out the truth?
Both my husband and I grew up believing in Santa and never felt betrayed when we figured it out. However, my eldest son, Jack, was told Santa was real, and boy was I unprepared for the fallout when he eventually found out the truth.
I can still remember the look on his face of dismay, confusion, sadness, and incredible anger when he discovered that I — the person he felt he could trust the most in the world — had lied to him.
He looked directly at me with such sad, tear-filled eyes and said, “I will never trust you again.”
Ouch.
He did (eventually) and we moved on but, many years later, he still occasionally mentions it and pulls me up if I say anything remotely resembling a white lie to his younger sisters. He has turned into the ‘lie police’ in our house (no bad thing!). Needless to say, I have regretted my original approach to Santa ever since.
From my counseling work, I have discovered I am by no means alone in this experience. Just like my son, many children are devastated to find out the truth about Santa.
We were one of those families that really played it up. We baked cookies for Santa and left out carrots for the reindeer, on Christmas morning there would be some half-eaten cookies and some strangely chewed-up carrots on the plate. Santa wrote letters and everything. In hindsight I wish I wouldn’t have played that much into it. Draven, 11, was one of the ones who felt really betrayed… He gets the whole idea behind the spirit of Santa, but truly feels we lied to him for many years. He just told me he doesn’t even want to set up a tree this year because Santa isn’t real, so why decorate. His feelings of betrayal have put a dimmer on the season for us for the last 2 years. If I had it to do over again I wouldn’t play so much into the make believe. I would let the child lead and I’d follow.
– Tina
Some children take the feeling of betrayal and confusion into adulthood, and it has long-lasting effects on the parent-child relationship.
Some families go a bit nutty on the Santa hoax — my parents did. They actively did things to make it look like Santa had visited and told stories of hearing noises on the roof or just missing seeing him. I don’t think my younger brother bought it all as long as I did, but I definitely felt betrayed when I found out it had all been an elaborate lie, and that feeling lasted a long time.
– Meredith
Lying to our children about Santa, or any other mythical figure, isn’t kind or necessary. Our children will still be able to enjoy the wonder of make-believe without our fabrications. On the flip side, some parents, thinking they’re being honest and progressive, go too far and kill all the joy of Santa. However, there are gentler approaches in between outright lying to children about Santa and exposing the whole thing as a cruel hoax. These approaches are motivated by joy, love, respect, and imagination.
In our house we have always played Santa, but it has always been an imaginative game and she has always known that he isn’t real. She is 11 now and we still play the game and it’s still magical and fun. But that’s always all it’s ever been, just a fun game.
– Tova
So how can you keep the magic of Christmas alive for your children without betraying their trust? It is important to remember that all children are different when it comes to fantasy. Some take things more seriously than others and are more literal. Some fall right in with the game. Some catch on to the whole ‘spirit of giving’ thing and see Santa as part of that. Some get their feelings hurt and end up bitter about it. And some are downright terrified about the thought of an elderly man coming into their house at night!
My daughter was terrified of Santa coming into her home, so we left her presents at Grandma’s house. It satisfied her to an extent, but she was still really anxious about the whole thing, and was afraid when she saw people dressed as Santa. I wish I told her the truth because she really didn’t get any joy from it.
– Bec
Playing ‘The Santa Game’ with our kids can be great fun for all concerned. Just like we might talk about fictional characters such as Dora, or Power Rangers, Santa can fit right in! Going out of our way to try to make our kids really believe there is a man living in the North Pole with his wife and elves, who rides around on a sleigh just isn’t necessary. It is still possible to really get into the whole Christmas spirit as much as our children wish by following their lead, maybe by decorating the house, telling stories, watching movies, going to carol services, present-giving, baking, and dressing up.
Playing ‘The Santa Game’ Without the Harm
So how exactly do you play ‘The Santa Game’?
By making sure that the make-believe world doesn’t cross over into our world — which is what leads us to lie.
For example, because the tooth fairy is supposed to trade teeth for coins, we tell our children the coin was left by them, not us. Because we tell our child that Santa delivers presents, or that the Easter Bunny leaves them eggs, we have to pretend to do that, often by being deceitful.