NationStates Jolt Archive

The question is quite simple. I am having an argument with someone on the effects of Santa Claus on a child's development.

My parents never tried to feed me the Santa Claus story, and I appreciated their always being straight with me, and think that feeding your children lies destroys your credibility.

Her parents taught her the Santa Claus story, and she was glad she got to enjoy the fantasy, and thinks that it improves the child's creativity, and that they bounce back from the whole trust thing.

What is your opinion? Poll coming.

EDIT: I *really* should proofread my poll one of these times. Reread poll as "Is the Santa Claus story helpful"

I see no evidence that it does any harm.

Nah, I turned out fine, besides, USUALLY the kids figure it out on their own when logic kicks in.

Expanding on the 'they figure it out on their own' thing, here's a take that's FFMA...

What if, in addition to fostering a sense of wonder, it instead (or also) fosters a sense of skepticism and critical thought. Consider, they believed you and bought into the whole Santa mess only for them to start questioning the logic ("Wait, how does he reach all the houses, and a couple billion cookies wouldn't make him just 'rolly polly,' he'd be a fucking diabetic shut in" and "Why does a team of elves make Playstation games?" etc.) and come to the conclusion that Santa is bullshit. Now, either they realize the illusion is all for fun and continue to play along (and have a developed sense of wonder) or they realize that not everything that comes down the pipe of adults is gospel and should be examined, thus forming critical human beings. Or a little of both.

I spent a few years as a costumed performer and eventually realized, I'm not fooling these kids and they don't think they're being fooled. They know it's all play, they're enjoying the play, they don't know that they're supposed to be fooled, they don't have terms like 'suspension of disbelief' or theories of audience and performance to explain it - two hours ago they were pretending to be Power Rangers, pretending the guy in the giant green suit is a Ninja Turtle is a cake walk. It's the insecure children that have to pull down Santa's beard.

but Santa is real :confused:

anyway I'd say its one of the greatest things our society offers because for that brief period it all goes bananas and we (even adults) choose to pretend that a giant fat man travels around the world spreading joy which is a welcome break

Expanding on the 'they figure it out on their own' thing, here's a take that's FFMA...

What if, in addition to fostering a sense of wonder, it instead (or also) fosters a sense of skepticism and critical thought. Consider, they believed you and bought into the whole Santa mess only for them to start questioning the logic ("Wait, how does he reach all the houses, and a couple billion cookies wouldn't make him just 'rolly polly,' he'd be a fucking diabetic shut in" and "Why does a team of elves make Playstation games?" etc.) and come to the conclusion that Santa is bullshit. Now, either they realize the illusion is all for fun and continue to play along (and have a developed sense of wonder) or they realize that not everything that comes down the pipe of adults is gospel and should be examined, thus forming critical human beings. Or a little of both.

I spent a few years as a costumed performer and eventually realized, I'm not fooling these kids and they don't think they're being fooled. They know it's all play, they're enjoying the play, they don't know that they're supposed to be fooled, they don't have terms like 'suspension of disbelief' or theories of audience and performance to explain it - two hours ago they were pretending to be Power Rangers, pretending the guy in the giant green suit is a Ninja Turtle is a cake walk. It's the insecure children that have to pull down Santa's beard.

/\ This /\
Said much, much better than I would have managed

Expanding on the 'they figure it out on their own' thing, here's a take that's FFMA...

What if, in addition to fostering a sense of wonder, it instead (or also) fosters a sense of skepticism and critical thought. Consider, they believed you and bought into the whole Santa mess only for them to start questioning the logic ("Wait, how does he reach all the houses, and a couple billion cookies wouldn't make him just 'rolly polly,' he'd be a fucking diabetic shut in" and "Why does a team of elves make Playstation games?" etc.) and come to the conclusion that Santa is bullshit. Now, either they realize the illusion is all for fun and continue to play along (and have a developed sense of wonder) or they realize that not everything that comes down the pipe of adults is gospel and should be examined, thus forming critical human beings. Or a little of both.

I spent a few years as a costumed performer and eventually realized, I'm not fooling these kids and they don't think they're being fooled. They know it's all play, they're enjoying the play, they don't know that they're supposed to be fooled, they don't have terms like 'suspension of disbelief' or theories of audience and performance to explain it - two hours ago they were pretending to be Power Rangers, pretending the guy in the giant green suit is a Ninja Turtle is a cake walk. It's the insecure children that have to pull down Santa's beard.
Well said!

(In addition, as a child I had this theory that all the fake Santas are only there performing so the real Santa could make good time on his busy schedule and deliver the presents. :tongue:)

I was lucky enough to grow up in Santa Cruz, California, during the '60s. Yes, I'm talking about Santa's Village being only ten minutes from my door. Santa was a huge part of my childhood and it would have been darker for the absence.

And then there's the story about how I heard Santa's reindeer on the roof and saw Rudolph's nose as they flew by, one Christmas night. And I knew it wasn't Dad and his friends staging an elaborate prank because he'd have hammed it up with the "Ho Ho Ho's" and he didn't have any friends that would climb on a roof in the cold midnight and make sounds like reindeer for him. Heck, I doubt any of them even knew what sounds reindeer make anyway! National Geographic television specials weren't that good back then.

That said...I don't think kids are fooled by Santa in the costume. I wasn't. But I don't think it stops them from chasing a flight of fancy for at least awhile. So don't think logical "cluing them in" does anyone any favours. Let 'em dream! If they don't stop dreaming — horrorshow, it's no skin off your nose and they could write the next classic novel.

And if you think about it from a metaphorical standpoint, Santa exists because people make his works their own and that's how he can deliver toys to billions of kids of all ages.

I was lucky enough to grow up in Santa Cruz, California, during the '60s. Yes, I'm talking about Santa's Village being only ten minutes from my door. Santa was a huge part of my childhood and it would have been darker for the absence.


Santa Cruz rules

<---Banana Slug

I remember finding out on my own and not really caring, as long as I got the presents! :D

Santa a story? Unthinkable! I've seen him with my own two eyes I have.

*Psh* Everyone know that Santa is actually Satan's son who lost a bet with an angel. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393685/)

*Psh* Everyone know that Santa is actually Satan's son who lost a bet with an angel. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393685/)

lol

My parents didn't know who Santa Claus was, I had to be educated by Christmas specials on TV.

My parents didn't know who Santa Claus was, I had to be educated by Christmas specials on TV.

So you learn that Santa is basically a dick, right?

I'm not so sure, myself. There are so many different lessons - good and ill - that children can take from the Santa story.

I'm not so sure we think about many of them carefully. Example:

The Puritans held that prosperity in the material world was a sign of God's favor. This is a lesson that children may also derive from Santa Claus by watching wealthier children get more presents.

I don't know.. I think learning that Santa Claus didn't exist was one of the first steps that lead me to be an atheist..

I don't know.. I think learning that Santa Claus didn't exist was one of the first steps that lead me to be an atheist..

OK, not sure I see the connection there...

I don't think it's a good idea to encourage your kids to believe that Santa Claus really comes down the chimney and really goes around the world in one night. I think it's better to treat it like a fun fable surrounding Christmas, approaching it as tradition rather than fact/truth. My father said his dad used to dress up as Santa and hand out the presents. It's so much healthier to approach it that way. I found out Santa wasn't real very young, probably around 5 or 6, and I was chastised by other kids for not believing it. It's ridiculous.

OK, not sure I see the connection there...

Well, there's not that much of a difference between a magical bearded man who delivers presents and is all-seeing and a magical bearded man who creates men from dirt and women from ribs who is all-seeing and all-powerful.. I just assumed that if they lied about Santa Claus then they probably lied about god too..

My parents didn't even try this crappy lie. I've always known that Santa was false. So, no worries here. :p

My parents didn't know who Santa Claus was, I had to be educated by Christmas specials on TV.

So you learn that Santa is basically a dick, right?

So here's the thing that always gets me on the Santa stories...essentially they're all some variation on Miracle on 34th st., a child who believes but maybe their belief is tested, and an adult who either never believed or used to but due to some trauma, or just too caught up being an adult, vehemently doesn't. And then, Santa manifests himself somehow restoring the kid's faith and the adults sense of wonder (I'm going to use that in every post in this thread now.

Here's the thing, before Santa manifest, was the kid not getting presents from Santa? I mean, wouldn't the jaded parent have noticed presents under the tree that they didn't put there? Or were they just thinking that it was one of the relatives sneaking presents in? Was this building resentment, like "My meddling brother thinks I'm warping my kid and is interfering by slipping presents in" and that's why they haven't been talking? Or was Santa just shafting all the kids who didn't believe hard enough to make it a family crisis. For that matter, did the parent not get Santa presents as a kid? Do they not believe because they've been shafted.

Santa is fiction and fiction is fun. What would life be like if there was only nonfiction? No dramas on television that aren't based on real events. No more video games that aren't educational. No more freak'n cartoons, which means no more Simpsons or South Park or Spongebob. People need to appreciate fiction and maybe suspend logic once in a while to keep them from blowing their brains out. If everyone stuck with what was realistic and never bothered to fantasize about what they can't get in the foreseeable future, would the Wright Brothers have even bothered with the whole air plane thing? Would we have space travel and the satellites that make long-distance communication practical and gps possible? If people never dreamed up fantasies and whatnot, would the internet be even possible?

Point is, kids need Santa. They need fantasy and fiction. They need to realize that the world does not revolve completely around logic because logic is limited by our feeble, imperfect minds.

santa is a harmless fantasy as long as the parents dont try to force the belief on children who have "figured it out"

even the figuring it out is a rite of passage for lots of kids. that moment of realizing that a cultural icon so devoutly pushed by all the adults you know is really a bunch of crap can serve you well later in life as you "figure out" just how much of the rest of it is crap too.

So here's the thing that always gets me on the Santa stories...essentially they're all some variation on Miracle on 34th st., a child who believes but maybe their belief is tested, and an adult who either never believed or used to but due to some trauma, or just too caught up being an adult, vehemently doesn't. And then, Santa manifests himself somehow restoring the kid's faith and the adults sense of wonder (I'm going to use that in every post in this thread now.

Here's the thing, before Santa manifest, was the kid not getting presents from Santa? I mean, wouldn't the jaded parent have noticed presents under the tree that they didn't put there? Or were they just thinking that it was one of the relatives sneaking presents in? Was this building resentment, like "My meddling brother thinks I'm warping my kid and is interfering by slipping presents in" and that's why they haven't been talking? Or was Santa just shafting all the kids who didn't believe hard enough to make it a family crisis. For that matter, did the parent not get Santa presents as a kid? Do they not believe because they've been shafted.

That's because Santa is quantum. See, the children didn't get presents until they believed hard enough because before then there was no one to give them presents. In fact, I'm entirely certain that this was all in Werner Heisenberg's autobiography.

Santa is an anagram of Satan. Hence, telling your kids that Santa exists means introducing them to satanic cultism.

Plus, he wears red, so Santa is a commie, too. Down with the overweight demonic commie!

...

It's fun to play fundie...

Santa is an anagram of Satan. Hence, telling your kids that Santa exists means introducing them to satanic cultism.

Plus, he wears red, so Santa is a commie, too. Down with the overweight demonic commie!

...

It's fun to play fundie...

Also, A Christmas Carol is communist propaganda. See, it chronicles Scrooge's (who kinda looks like Uncle Sam) "growth" from a caricature of a capitalist to a "spread-the-wealth" socialist with the help of Jacob "Marx" Marley, the ghost of Christmas "Lenin" past, the ghost of Christmas "Trotsky" Present and the ghost of Christmas "Stalin" to come.

The fact that Dicken's predates all of these historical figures doesn't lessen the parallels at all.

Also, A Christmas Carol is communist propaganda. See, it chronicles Scrooge's (who kinda looks like Uncle Sam) "growth" from a caricature of a capitalist to a "spread-the-wealth" socialist with the help of Jacob "Marx" Marley, the ghost of Christmas "Lenin" past, the ghost of Christmas "Trotsky" Present and the ghost of Christmas "Stalin" to come.

The fact that Dicken's predates all of these historical figures doesn't lessen the parallels at all.

I bet that Stalin sent via time-travel a covert NKVD agent under the alias "Charles Dickens" in the Victorian Age.

Also, beware of the Smurfs. Communist propaganda at its finest. Look, they share everything, they look all the same except for the leader who wears red and has a Karl-Marx-style beard! And they fight against an evil magician who wants to turn them into gold... clearly a representation of a kapitali$t exploiting proletarians to gather Mehrwert.

-snippity snip-

This is why I said Santa is a dick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XOM31TpsJg)

I turned out okay.

Then again, I never had one of those overly dramatic moments you see in the movies where the kid's all crying and shit cause he just realized that Santa wasn't real. I just sort of gradually came to realize it and viewed it as a sort of game.

This is why I said Santa is a dick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XOM31TpsJg)

Oh, good, depressing Rankin-Bass holiday specials. I had blocked them out. It's not even Thanksgiving yet, dammit!

I suppose the Santa story might be damaging to a child who was unable to understand metaphor (http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/), but said child is going to have a lot of problems in life anyway.

I know an ADULT or two who still believe in Santa Claus.

:mad:

I know an ADULT or two who still believe in Santa Claus.

:mad:

Umm...are they "special"?

Um, neither. Its a fun story you tell kids to get them excited about Christmas even more.

And then there's the story about how I heard Santa's reindeer on the roof and saw Rudolph's nose as they flew by, one Christmas night. And I knew it wasn't Dad and his friends staging an elaborate prank because he'd have hammed it up with the "Ho Ho Ho's" and he didn't have any friends that would climb on a roof in the cold midnight and make sounds like reindeer for him. Heck, I doubt any of them even knew what sounds reindeer make anyway! National Geographic television specials weren't that good back then.

Awww.

I think that nothing begins to compare to the innocence of children and their enthusiasm when it comes to Santa so... I say, if they will end up growing up and turning into cynical bastards like me, let them believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny until they want.

I know an ADULT or two who still believe in Santa Claus.

:mad:

You're kidding right? Please?

I think that nothing begins to compare to the innocence of children and their enthusiasm when it comes to Santa so... I say, if they will end up growing up and turning into cynical bastards like me, let them believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny until they want.

Yeah, I mean, I don't believe in sheltering kids and being too over-protective of them, but at the same time, there's no reason to tell them how much reality sucks as soon as possible, either.

Kids eventually gradually learn the truth on there own. When I look back, I can think of no better feeling, than waiting in bed Christmas Eve, truly believing that Santa was real. I can't imagine the story of St. Nick doing any harm, It stirs the imagination, and gives children a reason to try to be good.

Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy...unless I've missed something I haven't seen any research that these small lies somehow manage to decimate years and years of well-founded trust.

But then again, your mileage may vary.

I see no harm in it. If nothing else, it shows kids about altruism -- doing something nice for others for the sake of doing something nice. My brother and I segued from Santa giving us stuff to giving stuff to less fortunate people without a problem.

By the time we outgrew Santa, we weren't terribly crushed to understand it was our parents, unclies, aunts, etc. who'd been Santa all those years.

I think that nothing begins to compare to the innocence of children and their enthusiasm when it comes to Santa so... I say, if they will end up growing up and turning into cynical bastards like me, let them believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny until they want.
Fuckin' bitch still owes me money! :mad:

Expanding on the 'they figure it out on their own' thing, here's a take that's FFMA...

What if, in addition to fostering a sense of wonder, it instead (or also) fosters a sense of skepticism and critical thought. Consider, they believed you and bought into the whole Santa mess only for them to start questioning the logic ("Wait, how does he reach all the houses, and a couple billion cookies wouldn't make him just 'rolly polly,' he'd be a fucking diabetic shut in" and "Why does a team of elves make Playstation games?" etc.) and come to the conclusion that Santa is bullshit. Now, either they realize the illusion is all for fun and continue to play along (and have a developed sense of wonder) or they realize that not everything that comes down the pipe of adults is gospel and should be examined, thus forming critical human beings. Or a little of both.

I spent a few years as a costumed performer and eventually realized, I'm not fooling these kids and they don't think they're being fooled. They know it's all play, they're enjoying the play, they don't know that they're supposed to be fooled, they don't have terms like 'suspension of disbelief' or theories of audience and performance to explain it - two hours ago they were pretending to be Power Rangers, pretending the guy in the giant green suit is a Ninja Turtle is a cake walk. It's the insecure children that have to pull down Santa's beard.
^^ This. Totally. It's good for kids to fantasize and play make-believe. It helps their minds grow. It's good for their parents to play with them once in a while, too -- it helps their minds, too. The kids'll grow out of the need for the play-act soon enough, but hopefully, they'll still value imaginative play, which even adults need.

I'm all for it, and I also am looking forward to the time when my son is old enough to understand about Santa Claus to tell him about it. I even plan on getting that L. Frank Baum story for him.

Of course, I also share Terry Pratchett's idea that belief in Santa allows children to start believing in other unreal things like mercy, love, the inalienable rights of humans and so on.

Hmm, I went with yes.. But that's just because I find it pretty hard to find anything wrong with it. I mean, it doesn't do any damage, right?

Until you find out he ain't true, guess that's kinda damaging. Something which you held close to your heart is proven wrong..

Come to think of it, that is when life starts getting hard, miserable and painful.....

It's all Santa's fault, fuck.

Umm...are they "special"?
"special," as in mental disability? Then, one is, one isn't. There's a third person too, my "special" sibling. They're all grown men.
You're kidding right? Please?
I wish I was. :(

And to contribute to the thread, I don't like the idea of feeding the Santa story to children is that they may grow up to defend this belief religiously, like one of the people I mentioned above.