I just came across this question & answer on catholic forums.com .
The questioner asks whether it is considered lying to tell one's children that Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy etc exits.
The reply from the apologist is that basically, no, there is no problem, because these things are like telling children myths and legends, which is okay.
But I'm not sure how I feel about that.
If you want my honest opinion, the answer seems like it is trying (desperatly) to justify this, without really giving the issue any genuine and objective thought (just my humble opinion).
Also, telling a child about Greek myths and legends for example, one stresses they are legends and myths...one don't actually tell one's children that they are real and really did happen...which is what happens with Santa etc.
So I'm not totally sure how valid that comparison is anyway,
I was speaking with Chris about it and he seems kind of uncomfortable with the idea too.
Both of us were brought up in Santa & Tooth Fairy-believing households, so it's not like we're innately biased by our upbringing.
Perhaps I am being a bit too over-the-top, but I can't quite get over the feeling that it doesn't seem right to out-rightly lie to one's children...even if it just for fun.
I can't quite think of the term to describe it...perhaps I mean it lacks 'moral consistency'.
I want my children to know that when I say "XYZ", I mean "XYZ".
I don't tell them "XYZ", when actually the truth it is "ABC".
Sure sometimes you can't tell a child the whole truth, so you tell them "XY", instead of the full "XYZ". But to maintain a consistent untruth of "ABC" for several years, doesn't quite seem....authentic.
I'm not saying the child will be damaged when they find out; Chris & I weren't! (Although I did cry a lot the first Christmas I found out Santa wasn't real!), it just seems like there is something innately right about maintaining one's moral integrity in all things...no matter how trivial they may seem.
If we don't lie.....then we don't lie. at all. about anything. no matter how 'cute' it may seem.
I have no idea what I will actually say to my own children! It is kinda sad to think that they may never have the excitment of 'Santa and his reindeers' coming to drop off presents, but perhaps there is something more valuable we can instil instead?
But perhaps I am being over the top?
I would be really really really really interested in hearing any comments or thoughts you all have about this issue!
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5 comments:
My husband and I never outright lied to our children about Santa. Rather, we kept it all sort of mysterious. Like when asked, "Mom, is Santa real?", I would always start with, "Well, what do you think?" and try to help them sort it out. More than once, I told one of the kids that, "Well, I can't say for sure that Santa is real because I've never SEEN him...but I do know that each year we wake up to presents." When the truth finally dawned on each of the kids, we joyfully could admit that WE were Santa, and that it was one of the happiest parts of being their parents ... being Santa to them. (So, yes, Santa IS real.)
'Santa Claus' is real inasmuch as St Nicholas was /is real!! The tradition of Father Christmas is following on from the story of St Nicholas leaving coins in the stockings of some poor girls, right? It's not some random invention. So our parents are continuing this charitable, loving, (exciting!) 'practice'. I too was very sad when I found out there is no jolly man dressed in red and white who comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve, but it wasn't really a case of Fr Christmas not existing... just St Nicholas' work being carried out in a different way to how I thought... through my parents instead! In other words, Fr Christmas is definitely an XY rather than an ABC!
As a newly ordained priest I was once asked to be Santa. I agreed to help out as soon as I appeared the adults who recognised me started to call me Father Father Christmas. I then had to say something disguising my voice. The only voice that would come out was Mrs Doubtfire. So I had to keep it up for the whole time. Children came to see me in and one lovely 5 year old child turned to her friend at the end of the audience and said “that was the real Father Christmas”. It made it all worth while.
Some years later when doing some parish visiting I remember a conversation with a father. Heaven knows how we got on to talking about Santa since it was summer. The man shared with me that a younger daughter of his, had rumbled the Santa Myth. However an older sibling still believed. After much thought the father explained that Santa is an adult thing and that he did not exist, then added, neither does the tooth fairy. The older child burst into tears and said I suppose now you are going to tell me Jesus doesn’t exist. The Father stopped him and assured him that Jesus will be with him always. Further more the Father of this Family with his wife gives good example in the living out of their Catholic Faith.
I like what each person has said in response to this post. Differing points of view, yet I find myself agreeing a bit with each person.
I agree, Radical Catholic Mom, I strongly dislike the movement to take fairy tales away from kids. I was shocked when I first encountered this amongst Catholic home educators, because there's nothing contrary to our faith in reading fairy tales and ancient world myths.
But, with a myth, I can teach them that Truth can be learned from a story, even if that story didn't literally happen. I haven't found there to be the same kind of "wiggle room" with Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny. I have been put in the position of having to lie about the actual existence of these characters.
Because I didn't know what to do about it when my first child was born, I left it all to chance. I've never sat the kids down and told them, "This is Santa/Tooth Fairy/Easter Bunny, and this is how they do their thing." They picked it up from the culture around them.
When the truth comes out, I'll be able to say that it's the only thing I willfully deceived them about. But, I'll also point out that when they asked the truth before they were ready, and I tried to put them in the picture, they didn't want to hear it!
I'm a Catholic dad with two young children, and the tooth fairy 'exists' in our household. My own feeling is that you shouldn't be overly anxious about this, for three reasons:
1. Children have ways of dealing with reality that don't always exactly match adult ways, and we shouldn't try to force them not to do this. The simplest example of this is empirical knowledge, and it applies in all kinds of things - to take a very reductive example, when we're young we're told that we breathe in air, and then a few years later we're told that actually we breathe in oxygen, etc... Are we being lied to in the first instance? No, of course not, though it's not the entire truth. There are levels of knowledge about reality that kick in at different ages. A slightly different example is the imaginary friend, which is a common device for young children both to engage with the world around them and to explore the possibilities of social interaction. Are they lying when they talk to their imaginary friend? Should we force them to stop? Of course not: there's nothing wrong in children using their imagination in this way, even though it's not 'true' in the sense you seem to be using.
The correlative to this is that children's belief in 'imaginary things' is often more sophisticated than adults suspect - it's just a different kind of belief. I'm sure my eldest daughter (5) is fully aware that the tooth fairy doesn't exist; but she likes fairies and princesses and suchlike and plays along with a game which distracts her from the distress and discomfort of losing a tooth.
2. Communication with young children, as I'm sure you know, is very far from simply verbal. God's life of love, as lived by the family, is not simply verbal and never could be. My eldest daughter knows from the tone of my voice whether I'm being serious, praising her, correcting her or pulling her leg. She also knows if my wife and I have had a disagreement, even if she hasn't witnessed it. And she will certainly pick up on it if I agonise over every minutest aspect of our communication. I want her to understand that the moral life is there to be lived joyously, not agonised over moment by moment.
3. I once went to confession and went through every tiny detail of what I had and hadn't said and done to every one around me. Part of what my confessor sensibly told me was that if I spend more time agonising over what I do and say, and less time actually doing stuff - actively loving - then that's a sin in itself. It's a form of self-indulgence, and it doesn't truthfully benefit the other person you've been thinking about. The half an hour I spend worrying what to say to my children could be spent giving them lots of hugs and praising what they've been up to at school, etc - quite apart from the fact that they will pick up on my worry, and that will not be good for them. They will know very soon that the tooth fairy doesn't exist; they will probably continue to play out that illusion for a short while anyway; and then they will happily move on.
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