Is Santa Real?

I grew up knowing that Santa didn't exist. My parents had to then explain to me that I couldn't tell certain kids about this because their parents wanted them to still think Santa was real until they were a bit older. I still remember being quite shocked that these parents were lying to their kids, along with grandparents and other family members, and then expecting even me to join in. I was further shocked by the fact that most of these kids never worked it out themselves and had to eventually be told by their parents or a group of their friends (being told by one or two friends usually wasn't enough.)

So, while I never experienced the shock of finding out that Santa wasn't real, watching these parents lying to their kids about Santa again and again certainly left a strong impression on my young mind.

One of the reasons parents often give for the Santa myth is that it is "fun" and it's good to give children a sense of wonder and joy. This is not a trivial argument.

I don't have children yet, but this post has made me wonder if a strictly no-lies-about-basic-reality policy wouldn't lead to just as much wonder. Is Santa really that necessary, even for the stated junior-level purpose it's given?

There are lots of fantastic, amazing things to wonder at, as a child and as an adult:

Everything in our universe may have started in the biggest, most gigantic-est explosion ever! BLAM!

There are millions of tiny critters living inside your tummy right now and they are helping you every day to eat your food! YUM!

All 7 billion people in the world are the great-great-great-(....)great-great grandchildren of one large-sized family of people who came from Africa! WOW!

Whatever your opinion on Santa Claus, I hope we can agree that the woman in the link handled the issue badly. The girl believed in Santa because her mother said he was real, then disbelieved because her mother said he wasn't. Of course she cried -- she was powerless from beginning to end.

Parenting Beyond Belief gives a much better Santa disillusionment tale:

My boy was eight years old when he started in with the classic interrogation: How does Santa get to all those houses in one night? How does he get in when we don’t have a chimney and all the windows are locked and the alarm system is on? Why does he use the same wrapping paper as Mom? All those cookies in one night – his LDL cholesterol must be through the roof!

This is the moment, at the threshold of the question, that the natural inquiry of a child can be primed or choked off. With questions of belief, you have three choices: feed the child a confirmation, feed the child a disconfirmation – or teach the child to fish.

The “Yes, Virginia” crowd will heap implausible nonsense on the poor child, dismissing her doubts with invocations of magic or mystery or the willful suspension of physical law. Only slightly less problematic is the second choice, the debunker who simply informs the child that, yes, Santa is a big fat fraud.

“Gee,” the child can say to either of them. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I need any more authoritative pronouncements.”

I for one chose door number three.

My oldest child is six. She has always been taught to distinguish 'real' from 'pretend', and encouraged to decide which is which herself.

She seems to have no problem discovering that something she previously believed is false - at this age there is still so much to learn, and her world view is updating pretty constantly.

What does seem to be distressing for her is finding out that some adults believe things which she has placed solidly in the 'pretend' category. Her teacher's belief in god is particularly perplexing for her.

Well, one thing to keep in mind is that most kids aren't taught about Santa because their parents are trying to set up a rationalist epiphany opportunity for them. Rather, they're taught about Santa because, well, the parents themselves were probably taught about Santa (and God, for that matter) when they were kids, and they probably just figure it's one of those things you do when you have children.

Plus (and I think there might have been an OB post about this once), many adults find ignorance/innocence of certain types in children to be "cute" or appealing in some way. I think the appeal of the Santa mythos for some parents is that it feels to them like they are giving their child a chance, if only a brief one, to live in a world where "magic" actually exists.

In any case, I got in trouble on multiple occasions growing up for talking about how the Easter Bunny wasn't real, how Minnie Mouse (at Disneyland) was a human in a suit, etc., in front of younger kids. That probably confused me more than anything else, more than the fact of having been told things that weren't true to begin with -- I felt like I was being pressured to perpetuate some weird group fantasy and had a terrible time figuring out what I'd supposedly done "wrong". I mean, you can still hunt for Easter eggs and exchange presents and have fun at a character-themed park with full knowledge that actual humans (and not supernatural entities or magical anthropomorphic animals) are behind the whole thing.

All that said, I don't know if it's possible to extrapolate out the role being taught Santamyths and Godlore as a child might play in someone's adolescent and adult rationality. I haven't looked to see whether a large scale survey has even been conducted, but I bet the results of such a survey would be interesting.

In my own limited sample set (consisting of myself and various people whose upbringing I know a little bit about), there doesn't seem to be a major correlation between the type/level of Santa mythos they were exposed to and how much they value truth, how much they appreciate/understand science, what their thoughts are on evolution (for example), etc. What seems to be a far more influential factor is whether the kid has opportunities to actually confront reality without necessarily being sheltered by privilege or convention in certain respects -- e.g., the more spoiled kids I went to elementary school with seemed totally uncurious about how things physically worked, what they were made of, etc.

So while I probably wouldn't personally tell my kids (and I don't have or want kids, but we're talking hypothetically here) that Santa was real -- I'd feel silly and fake if I did -- I don't think parents wanting to raise little rationalists need to dwell extensively on the Santa question so much as make sure their kids actually learn about things like cause and effect and basic physics and such through experience.

My experience is that most people claim to have suffered no trauma from eventually finding out that there is no Santa.

It is also my experience that 100% of the people who claimed they weren't harmed were also irrationalists, in that they not only had no concern for rationality but actively embraced rationality-incompatible worldviews and methods.

Does that mean anything? I don't really know. You likely already know my position of its effects on me.

One bit of advice, though: I think you're really dealing with two questions: Should we tell our child that Santa is real? If not, should we tell our child that Santa isn't real?

If your goal is to encourage inquiry and doubt, never mentioning anything about Santa until you're asked is probably a good way to do so. Then when the kid is exposed to the idea, hopefully they'll be doubtful and seek confirmation.

Hrm... I'd say try to raise them, well, to think rationally. If you actually do decide to give them a "easy obstacle to train on", make sure you're otherwise getting them thinking rationally, and if they ever start calling you on the inconsistancy, or get suspicious, don't try to "cheat" or otherwise discourage such. Heck, maybe the correct thing is to do such, but to right way admit it when called on it, no hesitation at all.

Or alternately, if they ask "if santa's real", explicitly suggest it to them as an exercise, as something for them to try to figure out a way to actually test or otherwise determine.

Unless you're going to cloister your children until the state forces you to release them into the world, they're going to encounter plenty of irrationality without your needing to deliberately lie to them. I would try leading by example, rather than hoping for an epiphany that may never come.

I say don't bother with Santa, unless you really think the shattered emotional engagement is necessary for some reason. Instead, come up with a technique similar to the one used in My Favorite Liar. Although much less complicated, of course.

I have to wonder what else you'd be teaching them alongside Santa, as a necessary corollary, that might not come unstuck when Santa himself does. At that young age, you are helping them create some pretty basic ground-state assumptions about reality.

Interestingly, this is related to a question of whether being religious is a good thing because of the various associated benefits, even if it brings certain grave flaws, and an objection that certainly religion with all its lies can't be anywhere near the best thing to practice, that one can greatly improve on the status quo. But guess what, it's hard to improve on the status quo, it may be a right thing for the humanity to try, but it may be an impossible thing for a person to try. So, you need to choose not between the status quo and the best thing that's theoretically possible to construct, but between the status quo and the best thing that you, personally, can construct.

So, the Santa Claus lie has a benefit of pervasiveness in the culture, everyone repeats it. You can't fake this for a different, improved lie.

I believe that you have an unexamined assumption in your post. Namely, can you have any effect on what your child believes?

A book by Judith Rich Harris called "The Nurture Assumption" makes the case that it is not parents that shape a child's attitudes and beliefs, but the child's peers. Parents impact on children tends to be primarily genetic and in the basics (no abuse, well fed and clothed, and choosing the general environment where the child is raised.) For a more detailed look on Harris's argument, see Malcolm Gladwell's article at http://www.gladwell.com/1998/1998_08_17_a_harris.htm .

If you agree with Harris's argument, you might rethink your attitude towards your child's belief in God or Santa Claus. They will probably make up their own mind about it despite your best efforts.

Hope this contributes to the discussion.

David

This seems to me like "status quo bias" at work.

If there were no "Santa Claus" meme, you surely wouldn't try to invent new things to lie to your children about, would you?

It might be useful to teach the Santa Claus myth in order to teach fantasising. It is necessary to know the difference between reality and fantasy, but fantasy is where one can explore how one might Like the world to be, and then begin to plan a way towards it; and fantasy can lead in to lateral thinking.

Raise them many-worlds.

I am opposed to the Santa Claus myth, mostly because I hate lying.

With my daughter now being three (and more aware of holidays, etc.), my husband and I really need to determine our strategy for this Christmas.

Currently, I'm leaning towards: 1. not lying to my daughter, 2. and yet keeping silent if/when other people tell her about Santa, 3. using the Socratic method when she asks about Santa, and 4. encouraging her to respect others' beliefs (not run around denouncing Santa yet, if, asked for her opinion, to be honest).

For instance, even if it caused no harm, I can't justify lying to her when I want her to value honesty. Likewise, I find it conflicting to teach her to believe something false when I want her to value rationality.

One difficulty for me is, am I deluding myself by making a distinction between lying to her versus keeping silent when others lie to her? My thinking is that I will keep silent on Santa and that at some point she will notice this and question it and I will explain that I was giving her space to come to her own conclusions and exercise her own intellect.

Rings_of_Saturn: I appreciated your suggestion that there are lots of fantastic, amazing things to wonder at without having to use Santa. And Christmas can still be quite fun even if the kids know the parents are the ones putting the presents under the tree.

MBlume: "The girl believed in Santa because her mother said he was real, then disbelieved because her mother said he wasn't. Of course she cried -- she was powerless from beginning to end." That is exactly why I don't want to correct every irrational thing my daughter is told by other people -- I want her to learn to think critically, not be a mini-me accepting whatever I say as 'the truth'.

Here's a debatepedia link: Debate: Should parents trick their kids to believe in Santa Claus?

This wiki suggests tricking kids into believing in Santa:
-"promotes a model of learning based on authority and accepting irrational concepts, discouraging healthy skepticism"
-"teaches children that dishonesty at the expense of those who are gullible, like younger children, can be amusing and fun"
-"that we should believe in ideas that are rewarding with the hopes that they are true, rather than believing in them for actually being true"

The phraseology "raise them X" suggests to me inculcating deep, emotional, childhood-locked belief in X. The only X for which that seems supportable is rationality itself.

My parents taught me about God the same way that they did about Santa and the Tooth Fairy, and I don't think it did me any harm. I decided for myself that God didn't exist before I figured out that my parents were atheists too, but I don't have any especially strong memories of figuring out any of the three.

Nice link - thanks. My daughter's going to be Santa Claus age soon enough. Maybe I'll print this out for future reference. Probably unbearably saccharine to the childless, but hey, they may have some crumbgobblers of their own someday, and then it will make more sense.

Seems to me (maybe I'll report back on this in, say, a decade) that the "Santa Claus shock" won't be as bad as a "God shock" because people who lie to their kids about Santa Claus know they are lying and every kid finds out the truth sooner or later; whereas theists don't think they are lying, and some people never come to believe they're wrong. So the "God shock" is a double whammy, finding out your parents are both wrong, and well, liars. In that sense, then the Santa Claus shock is going to be less harmful, as it were. But I think it sets a good precedent with your kids to be as honest as you can with them on the Big Questions while at the same time teaching them a lesson in consideration - don't go telling all the other kids at school that Santa Claus isn't real. Part of teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society.

Some 4th grader did that at school when I was a believing kindergartener - that was may more painful than finding out my parents knew Santa Claus isn't real.