Is The Santa Myth Immoral?

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Lancet Psychiatry has published an opinion piece (which the media is sometimes confusingly referring to as “research”) in which the authors argue that telling children Santa is real may be harmful and immoral. I have to completely disagree with the authors and I think their opinion reflects only their own biases.

Their primary thesis is that if parents tell their children a lie for years, sometimes maintaining that lie with elaborate deception, and the children inevitably discover the lie, that will undermine the child’s faith in the authority of their parents. They write:

“If they are capable of lying about something so special and magical, can they be relied upon to continue as the guardians of wisdom and truth?”

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde ... h-immoral/

The fact that adults lie to children about Santa disgusts me. I hate the fact that adults take advantage of small children's naïveté by lying to them about Santa. My mom tried to explain to me that it's about giving kids a sense of magic and wonder, but I think it just creates a sense of distrust. If I ever have children (which I almost certainly won't), I am not doing that Santa crap.

I don't think so at all. I think it's all in fun that parents keep the spirit of Santa alive. It makes childhood and its memories that much sweeter. Childhood is supposed to be a magical time. People have the rest of their lives to be jaded.

I know that, growing up and discovering the truth about Santa, I never felt that adults had been lying to me. I liked the magic of it.

That said, I am absolutely against lying of any kind and I am very carefully finding the balance with my daughter.

I'm wording everything very carefully. I'm not saying that he isn't real, but also I'm not saying that he is. I want her to grow up knowing that I've never outright lied to her, even if certain things are said in a way that lets her take away her own truth from them. I will call him 'Santa' when we see pictures or people dressed up, but more as a character than an actual person. I'm careful not to say anything that makes him sound like a real person, or to say that Santa is a man that brings her gifts. Just tonight, I've used: "You'll go to bed on Christmas Eve, and there won't be presents. But when you wake up, there might be presents under the tree that say they're from Santa". And they will.

Lots of other people, including her dad, are treating Santa as a real being. I have no issue with that. In fact, I'm almost encouraging it because I don't want her to miss out on that sense of magic. But I just can't bring myself to do it, because I want to be the person that has never lied to her.

My mom broke the news to me when I was only four but I already knew that by that time, thanks to my cousin. Since then, I knew Santa wasn't real, but my family would play along with me and pretend that I didn't know that, even ten years later. I physically can't have kids, but if I did, I would let them know but play along like they didn't.

I believed in Santa up until I was about 9, but it never harmed me. I trust my parents, and as I reached puberty I knew that the Santa thing was just one of those harmless childhood things. I'm sure we all laugh at ourselves when we remember believing that 1 man from the North Pole will fly around the entire world in one night with about a billion presents on his sleigh, driven by flying reindeers. I mean, what the f**k?

Anyway, society lies about Santa, not just parents of young children. Even when I watch adult films, they seem to be casual about Santa and not mention that he's not real. So it's like the whole world has to play along (not every culture, but you know what I mean).

This reminds me of an ep of South Park where the kids were lied to about the tooth fairy. Kyle had a breakdown when he found out that she was fake & he got hung-up on a loop about how he couldn't trust the adults.

I appreciate this information!

Thank you

I think it's wrong to trick your kids into thinking something exists when you know it doesn't. This isn't like regular fiction and make-believe that the kids are well aware isn't real.
I'm very glad my parents didn't do so to me. I would have felt so humiliated if they did, and I would have had trust issues with them. I would absolutely not be laughing if they tricked me like that. It's not cute or charming to me.
It was more than bad enough when my grandparents tried to make me believe there was a ghost in their storage room in order to stop me from going in there and finding my Christmas presents- I was 2 1/2 and I still remember not believing them, because ghosts weren't real, nor had they ever said anything about it before. Then I felt a surge of hope, because if there really was a ghost there that would be so magical. So I entered the room, and was so disappointed and I returned them and said there was no ghost there. They laughed (not a mean laughter, but it still made me feel dumb). 9 years later I brought it up again. My grandmother smiled and said I had been so cute. I didn't say anything but I fumed. I hadn't been cute, I had been hurt and humiliated. I didn't have the words for it as a toddler, but I sure had the feelings.

what is so Immoral about me? and i'm NOT a myth.

I've just never really understood the point of Santa. Same with the Easter Bunny. I understand wanting a secular alternative to celebrating intrinsically religious holidays, but why can't we take cues from Thanksgiving and just make the focus on gratitude or family togetherness? Why do we need to introduce a fictional character into the mix? Maybe I'm just being a cynical killjoy, but I honestly don't see the point.

it is a comforting myth, to me in any case.