The other day one of my twin four year olds asked me “Mama, is there only one Santa Claus?” Having seen Santa just that week at the mall, the zoo and a local tea house, he was understandably confused. After congratulating myself on having a brilliant kid, I did, what many parents do, I lied, or shall we say, I continued the lie I had begun telling him several years earlier. “Of course there’s only one Santa. Why do you ask?” “Well,” said Quinn, “his beard was different.” “He probably got a haircut, I mean a beard trim, you know like your Papa does sometimes?” I thought myself rather clever. “No Mama, it was longer,” he replied. I proceeded to make up some an absurd story about how Santa’s beard tended to grow faster than most because of it being so cold in the North Pole. In the last few weeks I’ve told my boys that Santa’s reindeer live at the zoo and the Academy of Science while they rest up for their big flight. I’ve recounted how elves make toys—but only eco-friendly toys, because Santa would never allow the lead and phalates in plastic to harm little children, and that the bad toys are sometimes accidentally purchased by parents who don’t know better. All this has been done while being sure to explain that vampires are not real, that witches and monsters are all make-believe (except for The Switch Witch) and that heaven is something some people believe in and some people don’t. While I remember cherishing the myth of Santa Claus (despite my atheistic upbringing and my 1/8 Jewish blood) I question the moral logic of teaching my children that lying is a high moral crime, even as I lie to them. My second dilemma remains: Why am I teaching my kids to wait in anticipation for a day when a mythical person will bring them lots of stuff?
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3 Responses to “Santa Claus vs. The Buddha: What Am I Teaching My Children?”
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The lessons of Santa above aren’t lessons of Santa. All of those lessons are things parents teach or don’t teach their children. Santa is a fun story about someone who does give to others, but he’s just a story, much like princesses and other fairy tales folks. I.e fun to share with kids, but parents and society set the tone, not the stories themselves. I don’t believe that a little girl who loves princesses will grow up to be some weak person waiting for a prince and I don’t believe that kids who believe in Santa think stuff is all that matters and global warming is a good plan, not if parents raise their kids right.
Parents allow holidays and other traditions to become over-saturated with stuff and greed or not, depending on how they discuss the holidays with their kids. I think blaming a historical imaginary figure for the commercialization Christmas is a massive oversimplification. It’s akin to blaming fast food for overweight kids or advertising for greedy, stuff grabbing kids, when in reality, parents who ignore food issues and leave kids alone to deal with advertising are to blame. Parents have the biggest influence on their kids, and we can sell holidays as we wish to our kids (i.e. make them more about giving and being with family) if we choose. I think if we call out imaginary people for turning the holidays into one big commercial mess, we’re just bucking the blame as parents.
Interesting article Pamela – I certainly laughed and recognized a lot of my own dilemmas in the first paragraph. My son currently thinks that ‘there are lots of santas’ – and basically that anyone who dons a red Santa hat is a Santa. Do you guys have Santacon out west? Try explaining that to a 3 year old:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SantaCon
“Don’t worry honey, all of those nice, over-friendly, loud, drunk people are Santa. Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!”
I do think that maybe some issues are being conflated in this post,though. What to say about Santa is one thing. I like Jennifer’s suggestion to treat it as a fairy tale, like any other fairy tale we read or tell. That seems to be the direction that we’re headed in here. My son doesn’t seem to mind the inconsistencies of reading about all different types of contradictory Santa stories.
Then the other issue is the materialism and “too much stuff” issue of Christmas, which can be a problem with or without the Santa Claus story. I think the solution to this is to focus on limiting gifts to children (as you suggested), get children involved in the gift-giving (gift making?) procecss and also organize volunteer activities for your children. All sound suggestions.
Hi Pamela,
Great article! This is Jarmin (I worked at Acrosports). I saw the picture of the boys on my facebook newsfeed and thought they looked familiar! Sounds like everyone is doing great. Happy Holidays!
best,
Jarmin