Should you tell your kids the ‘truth’ about Santa?
Is Santa a damaging or wonderful lie? Do yourself and your kids a favour and drop the “Santa charade”. You don’t have to be a Grinch about it — just tell them the truth.
By Ben Pobjie
I was 10 when I found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. 10. As in, double digits.
What made it worse was that I hadn’t just believed in Santa, I had defended him.
At school, all my friends had stopped believing long ago; they told me Santa was just a fantasy, a story for babies, and I was a fool for believing in him at such an advanced age.
But I knew they were wrong. My mum and dad told me Santa was real. They had assured me the legend was true, and that magic existed. I would never disbelieve, because I knew my parents would never lie to me. I felt sorry for the other kids, whose parents had let their scepticism go too far.
Then the bombshell dropped. My mother told me. In fact, she didn’t really even tell me — she just casually said one day, “You know about Santa, right?”
She just assumed I already knew, because of course she did — who the hell still believes in Santa when they’re 10?
I guess it was a disillusioning day for all of us. I learned that Santa wasn’t real, and my parents learned that their son was an idiot. Of course I learned that I was an idiot, too: I’d been an idiot for 10 years, and the two people I trusted most in the world had worked assiduously to keep me that way.
‘There is potential for children to be harmed’
This is exactly why parents are being urged to reconsider, in the lead up to Christmas, what impact lying about Santa has on children.
In an article published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, two psychologists suggest lying to kids — even about something as fun and seemingly harmless as Santa — could undermine their trust in their parents later on, and leave them open to experiencing “abject disappointment”.
“The Santa myth is such an involved lie, such a long-lasting one, between parents and children, that if a relationship is vulnerable, this may be the final straw,” writes University of New England clinical psychologist Kathy McKay.
“If parents can lie so convincingly and over such a long time, what else can they lie about?
“There is potential for children to be harmed in these lies.”
Which is why my kids, aged seven and 11, don’t believe in Santa Claus. We told them Santa was pretend when they were about three or four — when they were old enough to start asking questions about it.
He was just a story like the ones in books and movies, we said, a bit of fun at Christmas. They took it well; there was none of the shock or anger I recalled experiencing as a kid, probably because we were just conveying information, not shattering a long-cherished belief.
And if I’m unsure of pretty much every other parenting decision I’ve ever made, I am absolutely certain that I was right on this one.
How does lying make Christmas merrier?
After all, Christmas is such a wonderful time of year. A time of wonder, of giving, of love and togetherness that can make the world seem a little more bearable for a few weeks.
Does the knowledge that we are deliberately and systematically deceiving our offspring somehow intensify the joy we wring from the season?
The argument against telling kids the truth, of course, is always, “Oh, let the little ones have their fun”. We say, “Don’t spoil the magic for them” or “Let them have their childhood”.
But who decided that believing in nonsense was a vital part of childhood?
Sure, it’s great for kids to have a sense of wonder, but we don’t need to lie to give it to them. You can enjoy Harry Potter without believing owls actually deliver mail.
You can enjoy The Princess Bride without believing that Billy Crystal can re-animate corpses.
So you can certainly enjoy Christmas without believing in the annual suspension of the laws of time and space to allow a global delivery run by an ageless man with an over-active generosity gland.
Indeed, if it’s immoral for adults to take advantage of their kids’ credulity, it’s also demeaning that we do it with such a patently ridiculous story.
Does it really seem like a constructive use of time to keep holding together this tissue of imbecility? Some parents even tell their children that the Santa at the shops is the real one.
I feel blessed mine at least respected my intelligence enough to not take it that far: telling your kid that an omniscient physics-bending man-god not only exists, but likes hanging out next to Big W, is just depressing.
What to do when your kids’ friends still believe?
Some parents also use Santa as blackmail, and threaten an empty stocking if their children misbehave.
But, as the Lancet Psychiatry article’s co-author Chris Boyle points out, “It’s potentially not the best parenting method. You’re talking about a mythical being deciding whether you’re getting presents or not”.
The only really tricky bit is that, unfortunately, many of our kids’ friends have persisted in Santa-belief long past our family’s Age of Enlightenment.
But all it takes is a little tact, and an instruction to not go around bursting anyone’s bubbles.
As Dr Boyle argues, you don’t have to be a Grinch about telling your children the truth: “I’m not planning to go through the streets of Exeter dropping leaflets through doors,” he says.
And so we’ve explained to our kids that not everyone knows the truth about Santa, and it’s not our job to correct them.
Of course they get it: it’s amazing how smart children can be when you don’t treat them like idiots. And that’s a habit you start early, if you drop the Santa charade.
So do yourself, and your children, a favour: stop telling that tale. Free your family from the shackles of Yuletide myth, and breathe the fresh air of reality.
I promise you’ll be merrier for it.
