Should parents stop pretending that Santa is real?

nozzferrahhtoo

seamus wrote: »

I doubt it is "mostly" down to just diverting from the narrative, but certainly a fair amount of it is.

I certainly can not figure out what else it is. But that of course could simply be my failing. But it is something I see quite often in so many other realms.... where diverging from the narrative most people live their lives by wins you suspicion, derision and even outright hatred.... that I can only imagine it is a significant factor here too.

seamus wrote: »

In most cases it's not that they're angry with you for diverting from the narrative or jealous that you can, but they're genuinely trying to understand why and how you could ever feel that way.

I am sure there are such genuine people but I wonder if a cursory read over this thread would suggest they are anything but a minority. Not that this thread is representative of course, but still. Where are the people "genuinely trying to understand why and how" we feel that way? Which posts are they? nelly17s comes close I guess but I am struggling to find more.

I timed myself here. A random 180 second read over the thread shows that it is not THIS selection of posts anyway.....

• One post with a random unprovoked attack on atheists.
• "only miserable pricks want to destroy the whole santa magic"
• "Bunch of festiviphobes."
• a couple of posts with snide sarcastic "You must be great crack" and "You sound like mighty craic, buck." type comments.
• assumptions that they "must have had a **** childhood."
• "The amount of buzz kills around here.. Christ.. must have been miserable and joyless around Christmas time in your houses."
• "You'd want to be some miserable prick to even suggest taking that away from children."
• "You'd have to be some killjoy to never let them experience that."
• "Just because all of you are miserable bas*ards that's no excuse to destroy children's childhood."
• Can these fcukwits perhaps consider doing something useful with their funding?
• And popping up MULTIPLE times the absolute wanton assumption behind the comment "Leave kids be kids." as if somehow by not doing Santa you must OVERALL be a parent who is not doing exactly that.
• "Ah the miserable bastards thread."

..... because that sounds like the opposite of genuinely wanting to understand anything. That sounds like people who have STRONGLY already made their mind up on it and have little interest in what the other side have to say or why they do (or do not do) what they do.

Not so many posts there saying "Oh interesting you are doing things differently, and how is it you achieve the same level of joy and wonder at Christmas without doing the things we do?"

So yea not seeing this "genuine interest" myself. But I have long suspected you see the good in people a lot more readily than I :-)

Poor Uncle Tom

_Jamie_ wrote: »

Well, my parents used to make sure they got some credit, they used to tell us that they had a chat with Santa over the phone about our presents.

The internet put paid to the notion that any child over 6 still believes, if anything can be done about the whole christmas debacle can it be to restrict it to a week at the end of December only please, the whole fu**in mess is sprawled over 3 months now......

Advbrd

D0NNELLY wrote: »

Pagans stole it from the Egyptians.. watyagonnado eh?

Would the Egyptians not be classified as pagans?

iguana

nelly17 wrote: »

Its something I've been wondering myself recently - would my children appreciate knowing that all of this stuff actually came from me and my wife and we worked hard to provide it. Honestly I don't know.

They do figure that out eventually you know. My parents had very, very little money when we were growing up but my mum was a budgeting genius and both my parents were great at making things or turning broken crap back into something of value. (Which made my dad's job as a binman a bit of a goldmine.) And when I look back on my childhood Christmas now, I think of my mum putting away an untouchable £2 each week for Christmas. Of my dad scouring the dump for fixable toys or missing parts of broken toys he'd already found. Of the two of them putting us to bed at night in December and getting out their tools, paintbrushes and sewing kits to make and refurbish the toys they couldn't afford to buy new. They worked so hard, so cleverly and so carefully, probably half stressed out that they'd get it wrong and half filled with glee at the thought of out faces on Christmas morning.

And then they gave all that credit to someone else. All that work without any expectation of even a thank you. That's one of the purest forms of love I can imagine. I'm in total and utter awe every time I think about it.

The Bishop Basher

Ah back here again. Hard to believe it's been a year already :-)

Love Christmas. Love Santa. It was such a magical part of growing up and has been for my own kids too. They're past it now but he still comes every year and they'd go nuts if we ever stopped.. they don't get anything extra as they only ever got Santa presents anyway so it's not about greed or anything. They never asked for much. it's just a tradition they love and hold very dear..

But I do resent the insinuation from this article that we've done something wrong and damaged our relationship with them by carrying this on. That's just complete and utter bollox.

I get all the other magical stuff too by the way. We used to visit nursing homes and sing carols for the old people. The way their faces lit up was magic. We still have carol singers where we live and there's magic in the air when they come round. The sights, the smells, the sounds of Christmas, making decorations, putting up the tree, baking, cooking, spending time with loved ones, playing games etc etc. It's all magic and we enjoy all of that that too..

But based on my own experience, my siblings experience, that of my wife and our kids and all of our nieces and nephews and anyone else i've ever spoken to about it.. Nothing comes even remotely close to creating the same magic as was created by the belief that Santa was coming to visit when we were young enough to still believe..

Would a kid be damaged or at a loss because they don't get to experience this ? Of course not. Each to their own. But let's not pretend that it's the same.. For most kids Santa is a massive part of the magic and always will be. That magic lives on as we get to witness it through subsequent generations and i'll be forever grateful to my parents for making it part of our Christmas..

Advbrd

iguana wrote: »

They do figure that out eventually you know. My parents had very, very little money when we were growing up but my mum was a budgeting genius and both my parents were great at making things or turning broken crap back into something of value. (Which made my dad's job as a binman a bit of a goldmine.) And when I look back on my childhood Christmas now, I think of my mum putting away an untouchable £2 each week for Christmas. Of my dad scouring the dump for fixable toys or missing parts of broken toys he'd already found. Of the two of them putting us to bed at night in December and getting out their tools, paintbrushes and sewing kits to make and refurbish the toys they couldn't afford to buy new. They worked so hard, so cleverly and so carefully, probably half stressed out that they'd get it wrong and half filled with glee at the thought of out faces on Christmas morning.

And then they gave all that credit to someone else. All that work without any expectation of even a thank you. That's one of the purest forms of love I can imagine. I'm in total and utter awe every time I think about it.

There you go, that's Christmas. Fcuk the begrudgers.

nozzferrahhtoo

Swanner wrote: »

Would a kid be damaged or at a loss because they don't get to experience this ? Of course not. Each to their own. But let's not pretend that it's the same.. For most kids Santa is a massive part of the magic and always will be.

I think the comparison that jumps to mind is an analogy to color blindness. For those of us with the "full" color spectrum it is hard to imagine life without it. We would say things similar to what you say above. "Its not the same" and "it is a massive part of our sight and always will be" and so on.

And while all that is 100% correct, I do not think we would turn around to people who can not see a particular color and tell them they are somehow missing out, or that they are not enjoying sight and life as much as we are, that somehow life and sight are things that are more special for us than for them. Because the majority of that would simply be nonsense judgemental and assumptive tosh.

But I fear that is what many people on this thread ARE doing. They are, through the comments I summarized for seamus above, assuming exactly that. That somehow Christmas without Santa, or Families without Santa, are missing out, or could not possibly have the same quality of joy or memories or experience that they have/had. To the point of outright insulting them with comments like "miserable ****es" and worse.

And this is simply is not true. At all. Even a little bit. And I think phrases like "Well it just is not the SAME" are phrases that while pedantically 100% accurate and true.... still manage to say absolutely nothing at all or actual worth. relevance or utility.

DredFX

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Not so many posts there saying "Oh interesting you are doing things differently, and how is it you achieve the same level of joy and wonder at Christmas without doing the things we do?"

So yea not seeing this "genuine interest" myself. But I have long suspected you see the good in people a lot more readily than I :-)

Many of the folks with grievances about Christmas have explained themselves, and the consensus (from what I've gleaned, obviously not everyone is the same) is that the fantastical side of Santa damages children and rewarding good behaviour with gifts teaches them the wrong values.

It is presumptuousness of that level that warrants disagreement. Sure, the sarcasm (which I have partaken in) went too far at times, but it really is ridiculous that some people believe that the Santa myth will turn them into selfish, unappreciative curmudgeons, when in reality the real culprit will always be bad parenting. Parents can decide whether to spoil their kids, whether to encourage generosity, whether to tell them to lighten up if they get whingey that their new iPhone arrived white instead of pink.

It is rhetoric we see every year, and it almost always follows the same questionable logic. If you won't tell your kids about Santa, fine; do what you want, disregard those who think you're being mean. But if you come along insisting that Christmas tales will hurt the youth of today, you're going to be rebuked, because many people here have great childhood memories of said tales, and most have grown up to be rational folk capable of sympathy and altruism. (Most, anyway.)

Also,

One post with a random unprovoked attack on atheists.

I'm struggling to sympathise with this because a lot of atheists in this thread have come along with the usual platitudinous crap about religion being like Santa because hur it's also fake. And they don't do it to express their opinion. No, they do it in the hope that some ardent bible-thumper will come along and condemn them to hell, so they can smile under their breath and praise themselves for refuting another brainwashed fool who believes in a fairy in the sky, yay, good for them.

nozzferrahhtoo

DredFX wrote: »

It is presumptuousness of that level that warrants disagreement. Sure, the sarcasm (which I have partaken in) went too far at times, but it really is ridiculous that some people believe that the Santa myth will turn them into selfish, unappreciative curmudgeons

Indeed as I said earlier in the thread: "I think what these "scientists" are saying is hyperbolic at best."

But at the same time I can at least see some truth in the CORE of what they are expressing.

For example children look to us as a source of education and safety and truth and learning. So to find out that that source has been lying to them..... I can see how SOME children could be shaken by that even if the vast majority get over it.

Or for example there is at least SOME truth to what one user said that thinking the toys come from some infinite unseen power might not help them along the path towards understanding where toys come from, what they cost, what the limits are, and what the value of them is.

Similarly where Santa is used to control good behavior, is it possible that SOME children will get the message that the goal of being good is not for goodness sake, or for the benefit of others, or for any moral or ethical reasons.... but to maximize their monetary and material gains?

Again, there is hyperbole galore on the part of the original article, but it hides a few minor truths at least worth of consideration as a parent if nothing else.

DredFX wrote: »

disregard those who think you're being mean.

As my record on the forum shows I am rarely one to merely "disregard" people or their positions. I tend to explain at some (perhaps often nauseating ) length how I have considered their position and found it to be problematic at best.

I think I have not disregarded the people who think I am being mean, but explained quite clearly and logically as to why their appraisal is an error and there is not only no "meanness" in play, but no valid reason to expect there is. And in fact despite the length of my posts, I suspect I might be one of the more moderate between the two extremes on the thread so far

HellSquirrel

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

[*] And popping up MULTIPLE times the absolute wanton assumption behind the comment "Leave kids be kids." as if somehow by not doing Santa you must OVERALL be a parent who is not doing exactly that.
[/LIST]

I think in general it was referring to the article itself, rather than other speakers with the "let kids be kids". Wrote it myself and it wasn't a jibe at anyone else. But I do think that magic and stories are a part of childhood and I don't see it as damaging to children to have Santa when they're young. They'll grow out of it eventually themselves and a bit of the magic will die.

I don't think it's intended to be a dig.

iguana wrote: »

And then they gave all that credit to someone else. All that work without any expectation of even a thank you. That's one of the purest forms of love I can imagine. I'm in total and utter awe every time I think about it.

All of that post is just a lovely story. Your parents are/were wonderful people.

DredFX wrote: »

I'm struggling to sympathise with this because a lot of atheists in this thread have come along with the usual platitudinous crap about religion being like Santa because hur it's also fake. And they don't do it to express their opinion. No, they do it in the hope that some ardent bible-thumper will come along and condemn them to hell, so they can smile under their breath and praise themselves for refuting another brainwashed fool who believes in a fairy in the sky, yay, good for them.

Well, yeah, there's always a couple of asses. I'm fairly atheist-leaning myself, but I don't see the point of having a go at people's honest beliefs, so long as they're not hurting people. Admittedly, some of the Christians can be pretty arsish as well and you'd think they were being fed to lions with the whole "Happy Holidays" business, but people are..well, people. Some are idiots.

razorblunt

My Dad's best stories are not around the hassle of saving up over the year to afford our presents (we always got we wanted, though I'm sure we were probably coaxed away from things that were too hard hitting on the pockets), but around the pain to actually assemble things.

The GI Joe Command Center is his favourite one, took him 3 nights after work to get it done, had to start early in September as he knew the run up would mean he'd get no time at home to do it. Turns out my uncle left it until 5 am Xmas Eve to build my cousin's one. He was half pissed and was up until 3am trying to do it. To say it just about held together is an understatement.

The uncle made the same mistake the next year with the Ghostbuster house.

nozzferrahhtoo

HellSquirrel wrote: »

I think in general it was referring to the article itself

Not sure either way to be honest. A few people have said it and I do not think it was always directed at the article. One user saying it for example prefaced it with a comment about how this thread comes up every year. Which suggests the comment was not directed to the article, but in general.

HellSquirrel wrote: »

But I do think that magic and stories are a part of childhood

As do I, which I have said in most of the posts I have written on the thread so far. But I also think it remarkable and wonderful how children do not actually have to be convinced magic and stories are REAL for them to glean every bit of imagination, wonder, joy and excitement for them.

And the great thing, I feel, about that is when done right there is no need for the "magic to die" as they grow older therefore. Quite the opposite. Some people grow up NEVER losing their sense of wonder and imagination and magic and awe at the world and universe around us.

When you see the likes of Brian Cox and Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.... they pratically wet themselves with excitement and wonder and joy at the wonder and magic in the world they find themselves in.

And almost invariably when they do public talks..... one of the first questions they get asked in the Q+A pretty much EVERY time.... is how to stimulate or resurrect that wonder and joy in science and reality.

I wrote earlier for example about another boards user who wrote how he is doing "egg windowing" with his little Daugther who is around 6/7. This is where you meticulously cut a window in a developing egg and re-seal it with something transparent.

So now they are literally watching as an embryo develops into a little fluffy cute yellow chick.

Now THAT is a foray into wonder and awe and magic and imagination.... wholly based in the real world..... and I doubt that experience will ever "die" in quite the same way you describe. That for me is wonderful parenting and amazing stuff. One of those "Why did I not think of that" kinda things.

_Jamie_

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

The internet put paid to the notion that any child over 6 still believes, if anything can be done about the whole christmas debacle can it be to restrict it to a week at the end of December only please, the whole fu**in mess is sprawled over 3 months now......

That's nice but I'm not sure what it has to do with my post.

The Bishop Basher

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

But I fear that is what many people on this thread ARE doing. They are, through the comments I summarized for seamus above, assuming exactly that. That somehow Christmas without Santa, or Families without Santa, are missing out, or could not possibly have the same quality of joy or memories or experience that they have/had. To the point of outright insulting them with comments like "miserable ****es" and worse.

And this is simply is not true. At all. Even a little bit. And I think phrases like "Well it just is not the SAME" are phrases that while pedantically 100% accurate and true.... still manage to say absolutely nothing at all or actual worth. relevance or utility.

People are just relating it to their own experiences though. Speaking for myself, my Christmas's wouldn't have been anything like as magical as they were had we not had Santa so i feel my kids would have missed out if we hadn't carried on the tradition.

That doesn't mean I think your kids are missing out. Only you can decide that for yourself and sure as long as you're happy there's no issue. I'm not going to judge and i've no reason whatsoever to doubt that your kids have an equally amazing and special Christmas.. albeit in different ways..

And that was all i meant when i said it's not the same. Because it can't be. Santa is such an integral part of the magic of Christmas for so many of us and our kids that it's not possible to create that genuine super natural magic without him. Just as it would be impossible to create it if your child doesn't believe. You can certainly create wonder and joy and special moments and call them "magic" like the egg windowing you mention which is a beautiful idea, but it's not genuine magic and it's certainly not the same magic as experienced by a kid on Christmas eve who genuinely believes in Santa.

Also worth mentioning that many of us do create the magic you speak of as well as the magic of Santa so we do see this from all sides.

RoboRat

if anything can be done about the whole christmas debacle can it be to restrict it to a week at the end of December only please, the whole fu**in mess is sprawled over 3 months now......

Why? I have kids and its 2 months of the year where they are absolute angels... come Nov 1st, better be good and do what you're told as Santa is watching.

BBDBB

RacoonQueen wrote: »

No. My parents were great at the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy things.

And gingerbread men...when they go us gingerbread men as after dinner treats they used to hide them around the house for us to find and tell us the gingerbread men had run away so we couldn't eat them.

Such innocent times.

My Gran used to hide sweets under a small ornament of a leprechaun stood on a plinth, a few times a day when visiting Id be urged to go a check to see if he'd left me anything and he always did. It also kept me quiet to be told to sit and watch him to see if he moved. I never caught him getting the sweets but as soon as I took my eye off him, a sweet would appear




Looking back now, I realise it was a cheap and nasty trick to play on a 15 year old and I am definitely seeking compensation for my damaged childhood

Cupcake_Crisis

DredFX wrote: »

Article on the Telegraph today (also published on the Irish Examiner, though they deleted it within hours of posting it) reports on a suggestion by a psychologist and social scientist that parents should stop pretending Santa Claus exists because it could hurt their relations with their children.



A professor from the University of New England in Australia also made the rather insightful claim that:



So, lying about Santa can bring progenitor-offspring relations into a serious penumbra.

Anybody here resent their parents for maintaining the great Christmas masquerade? I sure as hell do.

No. Not a bit. I always loved Christmas, still do. And when my niece was born as I got to watch her enjoy it all I loved it even more. Christmas can be magical for kids, and they've only so many years to enjoy it. Leave them be ffs!

nozzferrahhtoo

Swanner wrote: »

People are just relating it to their own experiences though.

No doubt. That is exactly the point of the analogy I used. And in and of itself there is nothing really wrong with that. But it does go to show how it can lead you to some pretty erroneous conclusions.

Swanner wrote: »

Speaking for myself, my Christmas's wouldn't have been anything like as magical as they were had we not had Santa so i feel my kids would have missed out if we hadn't carried on the tradition.

And I think that assumption is the heart of the error. Because what we do as humans, not your fault at all, is simply imagine two partitioned scenarios. The one we had.... and the one we had MINUS some element (in this case Santa) and we assume those to be the options. And almost by definition therefore one comes out worse than the other.

However you have NO IDEA really.... short of going back in time and prepping your parents not to do the Santa thing..... how that experiment would run under the new parameters.

But I think it highly likely there would not have been a Santa shaped vacuum in the narrative it would leave you sitting here with today. I would say....... as the many parents on here are telling you who do not do the Santa thing....... that it would have been filled with other equally wonderful replacements.

And the error is thinking any one of them better or worse than the other. They are all paths that lead to the same goal and there is no reason to think the children without Santa are "missing out" on anything at all. But I fear many people on a thread like this genuinely do think that. And I can see how and why they end up in that error.

Which is what I mean when I say the phrase "it is not the same" really does not say much at all when one sits down and unpacks it to see what is in there. It is one of those 100% pedantically correct phrases that somehow manages to say nothing in the end. It is one of those things that are "not the same" but every bit as equal anyway.

kunst nugget

iguana wrote: »

They do figure that out eventually you know. My parents had very, very little money when we were growing up but my mum was a budgeting genius and both my parents were great at making things or turning broken crap back into something of value. (Which made my dad's job as a binman a bit of a goldmine.) And when I look back on my childhood Christmas now, I think of my mum putting away an untouchable £2 each week for Christmas. Of my dad scouring the dump for fixable toys or missing parts of broken toys he'd already found. Of the two of them putting us to bed at night in December and getting out their tools, paintbrushes and sewing kits to make and refurbish the toys they couldn't afford to buy new. They worked so hard, so cleverly and so carefully, probably half stressed out that they'd get it wrong and half filled with glee at the thought of out faces on Christmas morning.

And then they gave all that credit to someone else. All that work without any expectation of even a thank you. That's one of the purest forms of love I can imagine. I'm in total and utter awe every time I think about it.

Ah, stop… I shouldn't have read that in work. You have wonderful parents.

LordSutch

FortySeven wrote: »

I wish people would stop using santy and mammy. Such infantile use of language makes me cringe.

Agreed. Although we must accept that (for whatever reason) some Irish people just talk like that. I think the whole concept of Santa visiting on Christmas Eve is magical for children, long may the tradition last.

DoozerT6

FortySeven wrote: »

I wish people would stop using santy and mammy. Such infantile use of language makes me cringe.

They're just Irish-isms. Relax, have a mineral.

Naos

DredFX wrote: »

Article on the Telegraph today (also published on the Irish Examiner, though they deleted it within hours of posting it) reports on a suggestion by a psychologist and social scientist that parents should stop pretending Santa Claus exists because it could hurt their relations with their children.



A professor from the University of New England in Australia also made the rather insightful claim that:



So, lying about Santa can bring progenitor-offspring relations into a serious penumbra.

Anybody here resent their parents for maintaining the great Christmas masquerade? I sure as hell do.

This just pushed PC madness over the edge for me. What an absolute idiot.

Capt'n Midnight

HS3 wrote: »

Absolutely not. But I think the annual 'Santa tracker ' and videos from the north pole are a stretch too far. It's not about factual proof, it's about magic! It's about using your imagination.

Video's are naff. But the tracking goes back to 1955 long before the internet.

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport

sryanbruen

Though I do think Santa myth is ridiculous, no they shouldn't stop.

Agricola

Childhood Christmases are never really the same once you cotton on to Santy.

I can still remember the excitement of opening presents that I thought a magical fat old man had delivered to me on Christmas Eve. Once that's done, its a slippery slope down to realizing you may order your own decent presents online because otherwise it's going to be wall to wall socks, toiletries and books you'd never read.

Joe prim

It's no big deal, in fact most irish people just stop believing in Santy around the same time they start believing "De Gubberment" should supply them with everything they want.

feargale

DredFX wrote: »

A professor from the University of New England in Australia also made the rather insightful claim that: bla bla bla

When is the professor's new book coming out?

DredFX wrote: »

So, lying about Santa can bring progenitor-offspring relations into a serious penumbra.

Anybody here resent their parents for maintaining the great Christmas masquerade? I sure as hell do.

Yes, but what are you doing about the tooth fairy?

Down with this sort of thing. Down with Santa. Down with the tooth fairy. Down with parents. Down with penumbras.

Grayson

I had neighbours that didn't do Santa with their kids. They were born again evangelicals and they thought it was wrong to have the kids believe in an imaginary being that rewarded them for being good. They thought it was idolatry.

So they told the kids that if they were good that God would leave presents under the tree on xmas morning.


That is so many kinds of messed up.

Sam Kade

nice_guy80 wrote: »

It also prepares them for the fact religions are a sham

And yet aliens and ancestral apes are real.