I’ve long had the idea that, if I ever raised a child from a young age, I’d introduce Santa Claus as a make-believe game. I might be a little coy about it: tell the story of Santa and see if the kid can figure out the truth without giving a direct answer one way or the other; but I wouldn’t lie. OK, there’s a plan, but it’s all theory, since I’ll probably never raise a child.
But now I’m dating the single parent of a six-year-old. She is raising her child to believe in both Santa and Jesus; she herself knows the truth about Santa but still believes in Jesus. One the one hand, I’ve played the Tooth Fairy for the child; I removed the tooth from her pillow and put quarters under it, at her parent’s request. On the other hand, I told her —in response to a direct question— that I don’t believe in Jesus. (Then she asked me if I understood that I have to accept Jesus to go to Heaven, and her mother gave her a lecture on tolerance, in the course of which we learnt that not everything taught at her Christian elementary school is necessarily correct, so that was good.)
I am not raising this child, and her mother and I have such different views on how to do so (Santa, and even Jesus, hardly even begin to cover it) that I have decided not to make any effort to even help to raise her. (ETA: Not that I’ve been asked to, but I have my answer if I ever am asked.) I am her friend and occasionally her baby sitter, but I am not her parent and probably never will be (and certainly never will be without a long discussion about it, some years into the future).
Still, if she asks me a direct question about Santa, then I’m not sure how I’ll answer it.
I would suggest you be a good skeptic and answer the question about Santa Claus the same way you answered the question about Jesus: that you don’t believe in him. Note this isn’t the same as saying he doesn’t exist, as this would be stating as fact that which is only highly probable.
The problem is that I’m already complicit in the deception. Besides putting quarters under her pillow, last night (Dec 24) I helped her mother put presents from Santa under the tree. Even before then, I was with her mother while she bought presents that were going to be (and eventually were) from Santa, and I knew all about it.
If somebody were fooling her about Jesus in this way, I would be a lot more worried. (I’m not sure how I’d intervene, which would depend a lot on circumstances, but I’d certainly want to.) But she’ll find out about Santa soon enough; I justify it to myself as less important. Lying to a kid about Santa, like making honest mistakes when talking about Jesus, is raising a child differently from how I would (whereas as lying to a kid about Jesus, with the intent that they believe the lie forever, is a step beyond).
However, I do have an answer for questions from random children about the existence of Santa (which I haven’t really tried out yet). And that is to quiz them about where they think that their presents come from, giving them a chance to figure out this answer for themselves. That’s probably what I’ll do here; the complication is that I know exactly where her presents come from (and by direction observation rather than by deduction from reasonable assumptions, as I would for a random child).
In any case, I don’t think that she’s likely to ask me for another year now.
Well, she asked me a couple of weeks ago, for no reason that I know. I did as planned: asked who got the presents. She replied that Santa uses different wrapping paper than her mother does and seemed satisfied with that. (However, I never suggested the hypothesis that it was her mother who got the presents. Of course it’s the obvious guess, but this means that she was actually thinking about it.)
I’m struggling with this myself right now.
I’ve long had the idea that, if I ever raised a child from a young age, I’d introduce Santa Claus as a make-believe game. I might be a little coy about it: tell the story of Santa and see if the kid can figure out the truth without giving a direct answer one way or the other; but I wouldn’t lie. OK, there’s a plan, but it’s all theory, since I’ll probably never raise a child.
But now I’m dating the single parent of a six-year-old. She is raising her child to believe in both Santa and Jesus; she herself knows the truth about Santa but still believes in Jesus. One the one hand, I’ve played the Tooth Fairy for the child; I removed the tooth from her pillow and put quarters under it, at her parent’s request. On the other hand, I told her —in response to a direct question— that I don’t believe in Jesus. (Then she asked me if I understood that I have to accept Jesus to go to Heaven, and her mother gave her a lecture on tolerance, in the course of which we learnt that not everything taught at her Christian elementary school is necessarily correct, so that was good.)
I am not raising this child, and her mother and I have such different views on how to do so (Santa, and even Jesus, hardly even begin to cover it) that I have decided not to make any effort to even help to raise her. (ETA: Not that I’ve been asked to, but I have my answer if I ever am asked.) I am her friend and occasionally her baby sitter, but I am not her parent and probably never will be (and certainly never will be without a long discussion about it, some years into the future).
Still, if she asks me a direct question about Santa, then I’m not sure how I’ll answer it.
I would suggest you be a good skeptic and answer the question about Santa Claus the same way you answered the question about Jesus: that you don’t believe in him. Note this isn’t the same as saying he doesn’t exist, as this would be stating as fact that which is only highly probable.
The problem is that I’m already complicit in the deception. Besides putting quarters under her pillow, last night (Dec 24) I helped her mother put presents from Santa under the tree. Even before then, I was with her mother while she bought presents that were going to be (and eventually were) from Santa, and I knew all about it.
If somebody were fooling her about Jesus in this way, I would be a lot more worried. (I’m not sure how I’d intervene, which would depend a lot on circumstances, but I’d certainly want to.) But she’ll find out about Santa soon enough; I justify it to myself as less important. Lying to a kid about Santa, like making honest mistakes when talking about Jesus, is raising a child differently from how I would (whereas as lying to a kid about Jesus, with the intent that they believe the lie forever, is a step beyond).
However, I do have an answer for questions from random children about the existence of Santa (which I haven’t really tried out yet). And that is to quiz them about where they think that their presents come from, giving them a chance to figure out this answer for themselves. That’s probably what I’ll do here; the complication is that I know exactly where her presents come from (and by direction observation rather than by deduction from reasonable assumptions, as I would for a random child).
In any case, I don’t think that she’s likely to ask me for another year now.
Well, she asked me a couple of weeks ago, for no reason that I know. I did as planned: asked who got the presents. She replied that Santa uses different wrapping paper than her mother does and seemed satisfied with that. (However, I never suggested the hypothesis that it was her mother who got the presents. Of course it’s the obvious guess, but this means that she was actually thinking about it.)