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♥ Why I don't do Santa...
Saturday, 24 November 2012 @ 09:24
I know a lot of children have fond memories of Santa, getting excited about visiting him, getting gifts from him - I can understand why parents would want to play this game with their children. But I have a lot of issues with this game. I do not intend to upset anyone with this blog post, and I am in no way saying that parents who play the Santa game are bad people. This is just my take on the whole thing. In this article I want to address the issues surrounding Santa.
Lies, Tricks and Scare Tactics
Such strong words I know, but if we look at the alternatives..Instead of "lie" lets call it "magic", and instead of a "trick" lets call it "pretending". I still feel my words described it better, though, so let me explain.
Lie or Magic?
For a start for me Santa wasn't the "magic" of Christmas, and I have barely any memories of him. But I do remember getting excited about other things, obviously getting gifts from my parents (Because I got gifts from both Santa and my parents), I remember getting excited about seeing peoples houses lit up, and decorating the Christmas tree, eating the chocolate out of my advent calendar, so many things I love about the holiday - none of my personal happy memories even involve Santa! So I think the magic of Christmas is in the eye of the beholder.
One thing I can tell you for sure is that Santa is most certainly a lie. A lie is "an intentionally false statement" telling someone that a big fat man in a red suit is going to come down your chimney and bring you gifts - is an intentionally false statement - because we KNOW it isn't true, and we are intending to make someone else believe it is true...so we are teaching it as a FACT when we actually know it is a LIE.
Honestly, I don't want to lie to my children - I want to teach by example as much as I can, and telling a child lying is bad while telling them a big lie doesn't fit the parenting description I want to follow.
Trick or Pretending
I have an issue with the use of the word "pretending" when referring to Santa - for me pretending is where everyone involved in the game know's it is a game. When we tell children about Santa, and they believe in him like they would anything else, they are not part of the game at all, they believe it is real, it is as real as the sky is blue or the grass is green. They believe what you told them is a fact - in any other circumstances we would call this a trick.
When I play pretend with my children, I want it to be a on a mutual bases, I don't want to trick them.
Scare tactics
What ever could that mean? Maybe it's this idea of the naughty and nice list. What we tell our children during the year is that Santa is watching you (which is a scary sentiment on it's own), but not only is he watching you he is also making a list, and checking it twice, and if you're not nice, you go on the naughty list! Now, if it makes them behave that must be a good thing, but at what cost? They believe that they believe they won't get any gifts - I don't threaten adults so I don't want to threaten my children either. Discipline is about "teaching" not scaring the child or threatening them.
I don't want to have to resort to threatening my children to get them to behave, I'd rather direct them to correct behaviour by getting them to understand natural consequences and why we need to behave in a certain way.
My children's childhood is clearly ruined
I've heard this a lot - my children will be ruined by me not lying to them. I struggle with this because we teach children not to lie, then tell them this HUGE lie.
Now, I am not going to teach them the story of Santa as a fact, but that doesn't mean they won't know Santa - they will know him, they will just know that he is a story, a fairy tale, a fun character, like Mickey Mouse.
I think one of the issues I have is that people then go, what about the tooth fairy? Or the Easter Bunny? Or the birthday fairy? Or the leprechauns that turn your milk green? Well dare I say my childhood must have been just awful? Because I don't know the majority of these characters. The only one's that visited me are the Tooth fairy and Santa. I was taught that the Easter bunny was a made up character, the Easter bunny never brought me anything, my parents bought me my eggs. I've never heard of the birthday fairy and unless some leprechauns got lost on the way back to Ireland, I've never had them in my house turning any of my belongings green!
To say that someone's childhood would be ruined because you decided NOT to LIE to them, is madness.
I also like to think about those poor children who never got to experience Christmas! What must the people who think Santa is so important think about these children? Everyone celebrates different Holidays, and everyone has different traditions. Let's not tell people that they are ruining their children because they don't follow those same traditions that we do.
Your children will ruin it for mine
First of all, I will teach my children to respect other peoples beliefs, in the same way I will teach them that some people believe in God and Jesus, some people believe they will come back to earth again after they die etc, I will also teach my children that some people believe in Santa, and that we must respect their different beliefs.
Secondly, I have seen people use this answer...you are the one who decided to lie to the child, if and when the child finds out (which they will at some point) that Santa isn't real, then you are the one who has some explaining to do. You have to explain to them why you lied, and admit that he isn't real. Your child is most likely to either work it out for themselves after a bit of thinking, or be told by someone else who found out it was a lie - and they tend to be the worse culprits because they often are the one's who feel tricked and betrayed, they feel like they are doing other children a favour by telling them he isn't real - I knew a few kids like this.
It is made a lot harder for kids who don't believe because people ask "what did Santa bring you" and other things that require the child to give an answer. I won't encourage them to lie about it, but if they say "I don't believe in Santa" that makes them sound nasty.
~*~
Parenting blog posts are always hard to write because if you do the opposite you generally feel attacked. I don't think that the Santa game makes anyone a bad parent, but it troubles me personally.
posted by lbftw
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♥ The Webmistress
Name: Sarah.
Age: 22.
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I'm an animal lover, human rights advocate, intactivist, west ham fan. I'm currently in a long term relationship.
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I'm not a Mother yet - I do intend to be. This blog is about my research into the choices parents make and why, and in some cases, why they shouldn't be choices at all...I also talk about some other things too :)
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♥ Why I don't do Santa...
Saturday, 24 November 2012 @ 09:24
I know a lot of children have fond memories of Santa, getting excited about visiting him, getting gifts from him - I can understand why parents would want to play this game with their children. But I have a lot of issues with this game. I do not intend to upset anyone with this blog post, and I am in no way saying that parents who play the Santa game are bad people. This is just my take on the whole thing. In this article I want to address the issues surrounding Santa.
Lies, Tricks and Scare Tactics
Such strong words I know, but if we look at the alternatives..Instead of "lie" lets call it "magic", and instead of a "trick" lets call it "pretending". I still feel my words described it better, though, so let me explain.
Lie or Magic?
For a start for me Santa wasn't the "magic" of Christmas, and I have barely any memories of him. But I do remember getting excited about other things, obviously getting gifts from my parents (Because I got gifts from both Santa and my parents), I remember getting excited about seeing peoples houses lit up, and decorating the Christmas tree, eating the chocolate out of my advent calendar, so many things I love about the holiday - none of my personal happy memories even involve Santa! So I think the magic of Christmas is in the eye of the beholder.
One thing I can tell you for sure is that Santa is most certainly a lie. A lie is "an intentionally false statement" telling someone that a big fat man in a red suit is going to come down your chimney and bring you gifts - is an intentionally false statement - because we KNOW it isn't true, and we are intending to make someone else believe it is true...so we are teaching it as a FACT when we actually know it is a LIE.
Honestly, I don't want to lie to my children - I want to teach by example as much as I can, and telling a child lying is bad while telling them a big lie doesn't fit the parenting description I want to follow.
Trick or Pretending
I have an issue with the use of the word "pretending" when referring to Santa - for me pretending is where everyone involved in the game know's it is a game. When we tell children about Santa, and they believe in him like they would anything else, they are not part of the game at all, they believe it is real, it is as real as the sky is blue or the grass is green. They believe what you told them is a fact - in any other circumstances we would call this a trick.
When I play pretend with my children, I want it to be a on a mutual bases, I don't want to trick them.
Scare tactics
What ever could that mean? Maybe it's this idea of the naughty and nice list. What we tell our children during the year is that Santa is watching you (which is a scary sentiment on it's own), but not only is he watching you he is also making a list, and checking it twice, and if you're not nice, you go on the naughty list! Now, if it makes them behave that must be a good thing, but at what cost? They believe that they believe they won't get any gifts - I don't threaten adults so I don't want to threaten my children either. Discipline is about "teaching" not scaring the child or threatening them.
I don't want to have to resort to threatening my children to get them to behave, I'd rather direct them to correct behaviour by getting them to understand natural consequences and why we need to behave in a certain way.
My children's childhood is clearly ruined
I've heard this a lot - my children will be ruined by me not lying to them. I struggle with this because we teach children not to lie, then tell them this HUGE lie.
Now, I am not going to teach them the story of Santa as a fact, but that doesn't mean they won't know Santa - they will know him, they will just know that he is a story, a fairy tale, a fun character, like Mickey Mouse.
I think one of the issues I have is that people then go, what about the tooth fairy? Or the Easter Bunny? Or the birthday fairy? Or the leprechauns that turn your milk green? Well dare I say my childhood must have been just awful? Because I don't know the majority of these characters. The only one's that visited me are the Tooth fairy and Santa. I was taught that the Easter bunny was a made up character, the Easter bunny never brought me anything, my parents bought me my eggs. I've never heard of the birthday fairy and unless some leprechauns got lost on the way back to Ireland, I've never had them in my house turning any of my belongings green!
To say that someone's childhood would be ruined because you decided NOT to LIE to them, is madness.
I also like to think about those poor children who never got to experience Christmas! What must the people who think Santa is so important think about these children? Everyone celebrates different Holidays, and everyone has different traditions. Let's not tell people that they are ruining their children because they don't follow those same traditions that we do.
Your children will ruin it for mine
First of all, I will teach my children to respect other peoples beliefs, in the same way I will teach them that some people believe in God and Jesus, some people believe they will come back to earth again after they die etc, I will also teach my children that some people believe in Santa, and that we must respect their different beliefs.
Secondly, I have seen people use this answer...you are the one who decided to lie to the child, if and when the child finds out (which they will at some point) that Santa isn't real, then you are the one who has some explaining to do. You have to explain to them why you lied, and admit that he isn't real. Your child is most likely to either work it out for themselves after a bit of thinking, or be told by someone else who found out it was a lie - and they tend to be the worse culprits because they often are the one's who feel tricked and betrayed, they feel like they are doing other children a favour by telling them he isn't real - I knew a few kids like this.
It is made a lot harder for kids who don't believe because people ask "what did Santa bring you" and other things that require the child to give an answer. I won't encourage them to lie about it, but if they say "I don't believe in Santa" that makes them sound nasty.
~*~
Parenting blog posts are always hard to write because if you do the opposite you generally feel attacked. I don't think that the Santa game makes anyone a bad parent, but it troubles me personally.
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