I didn’t let my kids believe in Santa

I say this as someone who is a Christian and who believes in God, Jesus Christ the Son of God, etc.

It's amusing that evangelicals can happily believe that the entire human species came from Adam's rib, that a mean snake conned Eve into eating a forbidden magical fruit, that a dude was swallowed by a whale and survived, that a giant flood destroyed the entire world except for this 900-year-old man who built a big wooden ship and saved two of every single animal species on the planet, that a virgin had an immaculate conception, and that Jesus Christ died, descended into Hell, and rose again after 3 days....but the belief that a jovial fat bearded man flying around the world delivering toys is a bridge of belief that's just too far.
 
My wife is Jewish and no gentiles had entered her family until her generation become adults. When she was very young, she asked her grandmother why Santa didn’t visit her. Her grandmother told her Santa was just some made-up thing. My wife was devastated to hear that even though Santa was never part of her life back then.
 
CFordUNC said:
I say this as someone who is a Christian and who believes in God, Jesus Christ the Son of God, etc.

It's amusing that evangelicals can happily believe that the entire human species came from Adam's rib, that a mean snake conned Eve into eating a forbidden magical fruit, that a dude was swallowed by a whale and survived, that a giant flood destroyed the entire world except for this 900-year-old man who built a big wooden ship and saved two of every single animal species on the planet, that a virgin had an immaculate conception, and that Jesus Christ died, descended into Hell, and rose again after 3 days....but the belief that a jovial fat bearded man flying around the world delivering toys is a bridge of belief that's just too far.
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Fwiw, five of every clean species, two of every unclean. There was serious crowding and sanitation issues. Can you imagine what it would have been if the dinosaurs hadn't missed the boat.
 
My mistake. I was operating from memory and Genesis was decades in my past. Let me cite the source. I obviously understated the sanitation and crowding issue.


According to the Bible (Genesis 6-7), Noah took two of every unclean animal (male and female pair) and seven pairs (14 total) of every clean animal and bird, not just two of every single species. This distinction allowed for more genetic diversity in the "clean" categories, which were used for sacrifices after the flood
 
Icky Mettle said:
8 is still relatively young. That is when I found out after asking my mom, but years later my mom told me, in hindsight, she would have waited at least one more year before telling me.

My kids are 11 and 9 and we told them both this year. I think my son (the 11-year-old) had pretty much figured it out by the age of 8 or 9, but he played along. Granted, I still think there was something in him that wanted to believe. We told the kids because my daughter confronted us with the question a couple months ago. We figured if she really wanted to know, it was time to tell her the truth.

IMO there’s no need to tell them while they’re still young if they don’t ask. At some point they’ll probably ask and they will be an age where you feel good about telling them. Or they may never ask but figure it out for themselves.
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Yeah, at 11, if your kids are in any kind of normal school, they are playing along with you in order to keep from hurting your feelings.

I think there's as many different way to handle this as there are parents. The way I personally chose to handle it was as soon as my daughter began expressing any doubts, I began to reassure her in an obviously over the top way that it was all true, which was a transparent nudge,nudge, wink,wink that "you caught us". That gave her permission to feel like she was in on the secret and to not have to go crazy defending Santa at school, but also squeezed out a few more years of us cooperatively playing out the Santa Clause thing inside our family. She's 12 now and we still keep up a semblance that Santa brings her presents. She hasn't believed it for about 4 years now, but we all still enjoy the pretense.

To date I don't think I've ever explicitly said words to the effect that there is no Santa Clause to her. But we're all in on the joke of my bad overacting protests that Santa is real.
 
my two big issues with the Santa story are:

a) the class dynamics that Bigs23 brought up; I would never want my kids thinking that Santa liked them better than their less fortunate classmates (or worse, making those less fortunate classmates feel that they were disfavored)

b) the fact that it puts a lot of pressure on all the non-Christian kids to lie to their friends and classmates. Kids from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and many but not all secular familes are never going to have reason to be told about Santa, so it puts them in a weird spot with like 2/3 of their classmates, and given how kids that age are, it probably ends up with them being ostracized for being no fun.
 
akillesheel said:
my two big issues with the Santa story are:

a) the class dynamics that Bigs23 brought up; I would never want my kids thinking that Santa liked them better than their less fortunate classmates (or worse, making those less fortunate classmates feel that they were disfavored)

b) the fact that it puts a lot of pressure on all the non-Christian kids to lie to their friends and classmates. Kids from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and many but not all secular familes are never going to have reason to be told about Santa, so it puts them in a weird spot with like 2/3 of their classmates, and given how kids that age are, it probably ends up with them being ostracized for being no fun.
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As for (a), I don’t think that generally crosses the minds of kids who are young enough for really believe in Santa. They just don’t really grasp the real-life implications of socio-economic status. And if that is a concern, does it really matter if it is Santa or the parents giving gifts? Isn’t that concern just as applicable if it’s the parents who give the gifts, and parents with money can give their kids more and/or nicer gifts than kids from poor families get? It seems that there is a similar risk of poorer kids feeling disfavored (and possibly even worse: that their parents/guardians favor them less than parents/guardians with money do their kids).

Of course there is also the benefit of the long two-week holiday breaks. Those to weeks are an eternity for young kids. By the time they get back to school, Christmas is a distant memory.
 
Icky Mettle said:
As for (a), I don’t think that generally crosses the minds of kids who are young enough for really believe in Santa. They just don’t really grasp the real-life implications of socio-economic status. And if that is a concern, does it really matter if it is Santa or the parents giving gifts? Isn’t that concern just as applicable if it’s the parents who give the gifts, and parents with money can give their kids more and/or nicer gifts than kids from poor families get? It seems that there is a similar risk of poorer kids feeling disfavored (and possibly even worse: that their parents/guardians favor them less than parents/guardians with money do their kids).

Of course there is also the benefit of the long two-week holiday breaks. Those to weeks are an eternity for young kids. By the time they get back to school, Christmas is a distant memory.
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i can assure you that poor kids know that they're poor.

if my kids were to know that it was their parents giving them gifts, i could feel comfortable knowing that it was in my power as a parent to tell them that not everybody has the same kind of fortune they do as far as family and comfort. it's harder to explain that Santa, a presumably objective third party, favored them more than somebody else. it wouldn't sit right with me to just say that kids who get less must just have been "naughty."

perhaps this is skewed by my perspective as an atheist who didn't grow up in a Christian household. i'm not averse to Christmas and gift-giving, but I think Santa could safely die out. And the elf on the shelf absolutely terrifies me.
 
akillesheel said:
i can assure you that poor kids know that they're poor.

if my kids were to know that it was their parents giving them gifts, i could feel comfortable knowing that it was in my power as a parent to tell them that not everybody has the same kind of fortune they do as far as family and comfort. it's harder to explain that Santa, a presumably objective third party, favored them more than somebody else. it wouldn't sit right with me to just say that kids who get less must just have been "naughty."

perhaps this is skewed by my perspective as an atheist who didn't grow up in a Christian household. i'm not averse to Christmas and gift-giving, but I think Santa could safely die out. And the elf on the shelf absolutely terrifies me.
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I’m an atheist who enjoys the pagan rituals associated with celebrating the winter solstice.

But my point is that when your kids are at an age where they believe in Santa, you don’t have to explain anything to them. At that stage they’re clueless about it all, as evidenced by the fact they actually believe in Santa.
 
Icky Mettle said:
I’m an atheist who enjoys the pagan rituals associated with celebrating the winter solstice.

But my point is that when your kids are at an age where they believe in Santa, you don’t have to explain anything to them. At that stage they’re clueless about it all, as evidenced by the fact they actually believe in Santa.
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Now wait just a gosh darn minute !

I'm 74 years old and I believe in Santa. Are you saying that I am clueless ???

Wait...don't answer that:censored:
 
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