Stop me if you've heard this one.

[fflo]

As far as I recall, my brother and I were never encouraged to believe in Santa Claus. Not in any actual buying-it kind of way. In fact it strikes me as odd that parents perpetuate the ruse, knowing it will be busted eventually by rumors at school. After all, if their kid is the one who most staunchly defends his parents' word, he'll be the laughing stock of the place---the last one to stop believing in Santa. But I guess the innocence/ignorance naturally growing into learning not to accept everything one's folks say works well in some ways. And the joy of myth is not lost on me. There's probably a much better chance than I used to think there was that I'd be a perpetuator of Santa, were there a kid around to fool or not.

Robbie & I, the way I remember it, had a kind of wink-wink understanding that Santa was really our parents, and the goal became to get them to admit it. Or, better, to prove it. (Same thing, at that point, I suppose.) The first year I remember our attempting such a triumph involved comparing Santa's handwriting in his cookie thank-you note to samples of each parent's hand. We found a citable similarity, but, in the face of their denials of it, were at a loss to establish our case. The next year Santa wrote distinctly differently from either.

But one year Santa brought us a Monopoly game. A few months later I asked my mother, "Where'd you buy the Monopoly game?" --- so pointedly casual I was probably dripping with it. When she answered "Western Auto," I had 'em. QED. Ha. Yeah.

It was like being confirmed in the church of secular humanist realist rationalist relativist agnostic philosophical academic intellectual heady thinky cogitatin' atheism.

Comments

[fearfuloptimist.livejournal.com]

Last night my four-year-old son asked me if the elves were real, then if Mrs. Claus was real. I said yes. I'm not ready to debunk the myth. I don't like the weird feeling that he may find out and be disappointed in us, or worse, feel deceived. However, I grew up with a therapist father in the 70s. I had been living with other relatives in a different state when he came to get me and my younger brother when I was six and move us to California with him.

It was just after Christmas, and not long after he got us, he told me he needed to talk with me (something I would hear over and over as a child, many serious talks were held). He put me on the counter of the kitchen in the weird hippie adobe house with three rooms (small kitchen leading to bigger middle room leading to biggest main room) that he rented and told me there was no Santa. I think he had similar fears to mine - that I would find out and feel duped. Or maybe blame him for perpetuating the myth. Whatever his intention, I remember it as one of the most traumatic events of my childhood. I cried and cried and was horribly upset.

The fact is, I didn't need to be told to assuage his therapist guilt and need for total disclosure. I wanted to believe. I wish he hadn't done that.

Now, as a parent, I get to wonder how to handle it all. My kid is still young - hopefully we won't have to have the same talk, he'll be more like you and your brother, trying to catch me and his mommy in the act in a sort of game. That seems much better.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

The more I've been thinking about this subject, the more I think it's how the myth is set up or maintained that counts more than the fact of whether the Great Lie is told. Context (in this case that the figure is question is supernaturally "real," like magic) can be conveyed indirectly in so many ways. There's real and there's real, of course. A twinkle in the eye or a tone of voice like that used reading stories that are supernatural and fantastic could set up a sort of different imaginary territory in which all that magic stuff resides.

I suppose it's related in a way to religion, and how one may suggest to a child what we talk about when we talk about God. Honestly presenting that stuff according to one's belief system, and timing it for the kid's level of comprehension, seems appropos. (In my case it'd mean explaining that some people believe x or y, and giving some context for religion; in the case of the religious, it'd be nice if that'd mean saying "we believe x and such, and some people believe other things or none of it," but I don't suppose that's the way that usually goes down.)

Santa = Jesus/God in recent "Boondocks" strips; Jesus = magic in Sarah Silverman bit/film.

I must say, the way you got the word on the no Santa thing seems pretty freakin' harsh. Literally sitting you down to break the news that the biggest kid fantasy was a buncha baloney. Ouch!