Regardless of which holiday your family celebrates, good old Santa will come up in conversation, simply because your kid talks to other kids and watches television. It's inevitable. It will happen sooner or later.
This is the first year that Ari has been aware of it all and so we had to make a decision. We were always leaning towards saying the truth. Santa is pretend, just like Dora, Diego, Barney, and all of them. She can talk about Santa and enjoy the character as much as she wants. I just don't want to lie to my child. I want her to grow up knowing that mom and dad were always truthful, at an age appropriate level, of course.
What about what my child might do with the information about Santa being pretend? You know she will tell her peers at preschool when one of them starts talking about how Santa is coming! If another family decided to tell their child that Santa is real, I don't think we should get in the middle of that. It is their decision and we ought to respect that. What happens in that case? Do I tell her not to talk about Santa? That's not realistic. Do I say that different people believe different things and that is ok? Will she understand that? I wonder how the teachers handle it. I will be asking in the next few days. I am very curious!
Here is a blog entry from a mom who had the talk about Santa with her four-year-old recently:
http://thefeministbreeder.com/on-being-honest-with-our-children/
Thoughts? What did/will you be telling your children when they ask about Santa?
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In my family, I didn't find out about Santa not being real until I was 9, which is too old. Mom did this because I had three younger siblings at the time.
ReplyDeleteBut Santa was more than a character in our family. He was instead an adjective for what is good about people: generosity, joy, caring, and even a little strict, for your own good. So even though you find out that the character isn't real, the embodiment of the Christmas season is. I'm hoping to make this Santa a part of my kids' life from age 2-7, and then expand the lesson of what he stands for when all is revealed. We are too earth-bound sometimes. But of course, that is a couple's decision...consistency is the most important thing.
I never felt lied to, just kind of wronged that my mom waited too long to tell me. She did the same with bras and deodorant though too...the trouble with being the first!