When I was young, my elders taught me that Santa Claus was real and did all the things he is supposed to do in accordance with age-old tradition. And then I discovered he was not real, and that I had been told, basically, a load of untruths.
Now I am older, I see parents telling their children the same sort of thing, and even some teachers do so at school.
I’m not sure how worthy you people out there will regard this as a topic for philosophical discussion, but to my mind, it is a worthy one.
So, in case you are interested in offering your considered opinions, my question is: Is it morally justifiable that parents (and others) teach young children about Santa Claus?
I don’t think so. I remember from the time (when I was 4-5ish), everybody close to me telling me that Santa Claus was just a man dressed in a suit (I wasn’t allowed to know who it was, but usually it was someone I knew in real life). Then, later, other people (adults) tried to tell me that he was from the north pole, etc. etc, and I just thought they were dumb and I remember they sounded pathetic to me. Thinking back, it was kind of funny - I trying to teach them that he wasn’t real, and they (adults) trying to teach me that he was.
Santa, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy teaches kids to expect irrationality. That is a very good thing in such an irrational world. It teaches to play, to think abstractly.
And most importantly to kids,it teaches them blackmail their parents for obscene amounts of things if the kid is smart enough to pretend a broken heart once they find out their fantasy is not real.
Mr Doom, is your answer to the question something like: teaching young children about Santa Claus is irrational; but since the whole world is irrational anyway, why should we care whether teaching about Santa Claus is right or wrong? Or something else?
This is an interesting topic. I have fond memories of believing in Santa when I was a kid, so of course I followed the tradition when I had kids. All went along well until my younger son found out Santa wasn’t real.
He was very, very upset, not because Santa wasn’t real, but to think he was lied to, and by his parents no less. He felt completely betrayed. I lost his trust that day, which was one of the most awful things I have dealt with as a parent. It took a long time to earn it back.
All kids are different, and it’s impossible to predict their reactions. But while I still love all of the things Santa stands for, I would definitely rethink it, if I had it to do over again.
We taught our children Santa as an idea. (keep it simple) Children grasp the fairytale side of a story at a very early age. They know “pretend” intuitively. Snowmen don’t dance and talk, reindeer don’t fly, etc. The “magic” is in the pretending. They “get” that. They always knew it was dad that scarfed the cookies and milk on Christmas Eve.
Who bloody cares. I remember finding out that Santa wasn’t real and I didn’t bat an eye. I wasn’t scarred. I didn’t think lying was OK. I just moved on.
Oh, I think lots of people care, not least because the Santa Claus issue raises another, to do with the propriety of knowingly presenting fiction to young, receptive minds, as if it were fact. A number of consequences arising from this are possible, some more serious than others. Reading the posts above teaches us that. The range is from the perfectly harmless consequence, to the discovery of deceit and ensuing distrust. And we’re talking about possibly the most significant relationship of all - between parent and child.
One problem with the Santa Claus case is that it begins with a ‘little white lie’ and is succeeded by a whole plethora of others, each cunningly planned to reinforce the veracity of the first.
We are soon treading in the waters of moral propriety, as well as the psychological well-being of some young children.
I have no quarrel, incidentally, with fiction being presented to children as fiction - for what it is. Fiction can inspire young writers and set imaginations alight. Fiction presented as fact can be destructive, even if not in all cases.
Interesting, anon. In my limited experience of life, you must be the only one I know who can claim as much. The notion of Santa Claus seems to be endemic to all civilised nations (I said only ‘seems’).
If you escaped this fiction-cum-fact, then I think you were lucky.
If you were taught that Santa was real and didn’t believe it, then you were still lucky.
