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A Child Finds Out About Santa Claus
My ten-year-old son figured it out this week. The Easter Bunny too. At our house, we do family Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, then Santa delivers overnight. And on Easter Sunday, the Easter Bunny hides a basket for each kid. That Bunny is sneaky too – I think last Easter it took about 30 minutes of looking before one of the kids found theirs.
He’s been suspicious for a while, but we’ve held him off by saying, “C’mon, do you really think Dad would spend that much on Christmas presents?” – which is a pretty convincing argument in our house.
But my wife was driving him to school the other day, and the following conversation took place:
Jason was talking about us buying him an oboe and said that we bought Michael a sax. I said, “No we rent the Sax. We bought Michael a guitar.” Jason’s eyes got really big, and he sucked in his breath and said “You’re Santa Claus!”We were both silent for awhile and I said “Would we buy you a 60-gallon fish tank?” and he said “probably not.”
And then this morning:
This morning in the car we had a conversation about Santa, and the Easter Bunny, and he figured out that both of them are us. About 10 mins go by and he yells…”You knew where the Easter baskets were?!”
So, childhood ends.
I’m a little sad and a little relieved. It was a real pain getting that 60-gallon aquarium up out of the basement Christmas Eve without waking the kids.
Your error is in seeing it as lying. It is kind of like seeing fictional stories as lies. We do all sorts of teaching with stories and metaphor. In this case, the world is full of things we don’t understand; some of them are wonderful and wonderful fun. This is one that also personalizes (as in “representing as a person”) the love of one person for another. The proof that it is a good thing is that I loved it, my kids loved it, most people I know have had the same experience, and the tradition endures.
If you’re naughty, you get a lump of coal. So also training wheels for divine justice for believers and moral desert for non-believers.
I think your second point is valid. I am always open to the argument “it works,” even if I don’t understand why it works. In this case though, I would like to see some actual evidence that it works, beyond your anecdotal observation. I’m sure that the myth of Santa makes kids happy before they know it is a lie. Why wouldn’t it? Some guy is gonna bring them great free stuff! (All kids under five years old are Democrats.) The real question, though, is how it affects the rest of their lives after they find out it is a lie.
Your first point, though, I think is mistaken. When you tell a fictional story, or a parable or metaphor, the listener understands that it is not literal fact. I can enjoy Star Trek without believing that there are actual space ships flying around the galaxy. If you tell me that the space ships are real, you would be lying. There’s just no getting around that. A lie is a lie.
The generational persistence of Santa Claus suggests that it has some value.
That’s your best point. On the other hand, I can think of some things that are very bad, and yet had generational persistence for a very long time. Slavery, for example. Anti-semitism. Criminalization of homosexuality. Socialism. Good grief, it seems to be impossible to get some people to give up on socialism no matter how much proof accumulates that it has catastrophic outcomes. Come to think of it, socialists are the people who never really gave up on Santa Claus. They just changed his name to “Government.”
Eeeyanh….. not so much. Works just as well with Mommy or Daddy or any one else you want to tag with ability to sustain dependency. Based on my experience, Santa is a good thing. Based on your lack of experience and a set of entirely reasonable questions, you are in doubt. I think that is the way it is going to be.
Fair enough. Thanks for the conversation.