Lying to Children
December 10th, 2009 at 10:16This post from Penni Russon about her eldest child figuring out the Santa thing made my heart hurt a little bit.
Ah, the Santa quandary. To lie, or not to lie?
Our only defence is that we never told Raeli that Santa is a real person who flies around giving out Christmas presents. But when she came home from daycare and informed us about that fact – we copped out and smiled and didn’t deny it. It was easy to let other people spread the story, and to let her believe it. (cough, likewise I didn’t disabuse her from her latest theory, that all the dead people in the world especially Tigey the budgie and Kassia the cat and her great-grandparents who died before she was born are coming back some day – it makes her happy and less panicky, and I don’t have any coherent religious concepts to share with her, so I’m going lalalala and ignoring it)
I’ve regretted the Santa myth a few times. Quite frankly when I go to so much trouble to pick out lovely thoughtful perfect presents for her, I want the damn credit. I’ve almost put my foot in my mouth several times over, when bitching to friends about the sheer effort it takes, for instance, to source a Beauty and the Beast DVD without paying more than anyone should pay for a single movie.
That, and I really hate lying to my child. It makes me feel icky inside. We talk about story a lot, how they work and adapt and change, and I’m hoping that we can segue into Santa being ‘a nice story’ without any trauma, some year really soon. Hope. Of course by then Raeli will have passed the Santa myth on to Jem and we’ll smile and buy into it… sigh.
On the other hand I’m also juggling the religious iconography of Christmas for the first time. I was raised in a firmly anti-religious household, and my Christmas is all about cherrypicking the parts that I like, and constructing my own traditions – quietly avoiding the angels, nativities, etc and emphasising the Santa story, presents, reindeer, the holly and berries and bringing greenery into the house, the historical traditions, Victoriana, gingerbread daleks, the Nutcracker and the Night Before Christmas…
(yes, the Deepings Dolls do peddle Nativities and angels, believe me we thought long and hard about this, but we couldn’t take on the business and cut that aspect out, they’re too important to too many people, and besides, they’re pretty)
I am a firm believer that Christmas is what you make it – that there is no ‘must’ about it. I think that attitude is a particularly important one for any Australian who has ever ended up facing a roast dinner at 1pm on a 40º day. I do however subscribe to the thoroughly bizarre Australian tradition of sticking to winter iconography even though snowflakes in December are just So Wrong. I have snowflakes on my tree. Hush, they look good. I also have a robot, a robin, a Harrods deliveryman, a Hawaiian dried starfish painted as Santa, and Livia Augusta.
Anyway, this year we’ve been listening to Christmas Carols through a musical advent calendar, and Christmas stories are included in that, and it means I need to explain some things. I found myself telling Raeli the story of the Nativity the other day. Let’s face it, she’s going to be well and truly immersed in it over her primary school years. I managed to present it as a nice story. Like, you know. Santa.
Hmm.
Of course, by next year Raeli will be reading well enough that she can check out my blog and find this out for herself. Sweetie, there’s no Santa. Sorry about that. But doesn’t the world make a bit more sense now? Also you owe your Daddy BIG for getting you a slide this year…
While I’m responding to Penni’s posts, here’s a sneak peek of something wonderful that “Santa” (that credit-taking old bastard) is giving Raeli this year.
This is me kowtowing to her delight in ballet and sneakily combining it with my own childhood obsession with paper theatres (I visited Pollock’s Toy Museum at 10 and imprinted upon it forever). Also, awesome holiday activity!
Tags: christmas, family, presents, raeli, toy theatres
December 10th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
There are two kinds of lies to children which I feel are acceptable, indeed necessary. The first is the story or myth from popular culture, the belief in which identifies a child as belonging to that culture. Moving from belief to acceptance of a story as a myth (such as Santa or the Tooth Fairy) is an important part of growing up IMO.
The other kind of lie is more of an abbreviated story, whereby the hard facts of life are modified into a form which can be more readily grasped by young minds. How mummies and daddies make babies falls squarely into this category
Such stories can be built on or modified as a child matures.
December 10th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
That’s a really lovely way of putting it!
I agree to both of these (which is a good thing I suppose, heh).
When it comes to complex issues I do try to give Raeli simplified versions of reality that are, while not exactly informative, will not entirely conflict with a more detailed version later on.
The making of babies is a great example of this, and often. You may have heard my attempts to soften Romeo and Juliet the other day, after she got her hands on my manga version of it. I know you think I told her too much, but she had already taken in the illustrations (he’s dead and she’s weeping on the cover) and I wanted to give her some explanation – and then she just kept taking it in calmly and asking intelligent questions, so I answered them within the bounds of what I thought she could handle.
And hey, it’s given her fewer nightmares (which is to say, none) than Violet Beauregarde turning into a blueberry, and that damned Tiddilik puppet show they did at the school.
December 11th, 2009 at 12:15 am
Since our Christmas is a bit different I was never really “lied” to about santa. In the abbreviated form, a relative dresses up as santa, comes knocking on the door and gives presents to everyone, but in our family only ONE present per person, so the rest of them we were always very aware that they were from our parents!
And of course, since kids are smart they realise pretty early that santa is just a story, since they recognise their dad/aunt/grandparent behind the santa mask, and figure it all out by themselves. Then there are also books, like this lovely story about Madicken by Astrid Lindgren, in which the MC notices that santa has the same voice as a neighbhbour and look the horses in front of his carriage looks like said neighbours horses! Very diplomatic way of nudging a child in the right direction…
But in all, as long as you pick out the parts that you like about Christmas, and makes it more fun than religious, I think you’re on the right track!