I heard one atheist parent say, I’ll paraphrase, “I’m fine letting my children believe in Santa Claus – because I think it’s good practice for them to think through a myth and figure it out themselves. Then, when it comes time to deal with Jesus, or Allah, or whatever deity, they will have some experience evaluating claims, especially those which contradict logic and laws of physics.” That made sense to me for a long time. And I probably didn’t think about it a great deal during the next 6 years. But today, another switch flipped in my head. Who bumped it? I dunno, but the result is that I’m not so sure I’d agree with that parent anymore.
Okay. So, kids – they trust us implicitly. From the time they can decipher our words, probably even sooner, they look to us as their sole source of truth. They lack the ability to process truth claims. And they will depend on us parents for the next 5-8 years, I estimate, to provide almost 100% of their ideas of what’s true of the world, what’s real, what’s pretend. Monsters aren’t real, but some Kindergartners aren’t easy to persuade. We tell them, without hesitation, that monsters are imaginary – because we don’t wish them to be unnecessarily afraid. We don’t want them to feel the psychological pain associated with wondering if there’s something in your closet with long sharp teeth and long sharp claws. But many of us parents, even many secular parents, seem to find no problem in allowing, even encouraging the Santa myth. My kids are 7 now, coming up on their 7th Christmas, and my wife and I have definitely played the game. Milk and cookies left for Santa, letters to Santa, labeling gifts: ‘from Santa.’ I even went so far as to track wood ash from the fireplace with my boots, to add to the illusion that Santa ACTUALLY WALKED IN OUR LIVING ROOM!!!
I don’t know if they’re still buying the act wholeheartedly, but here’s the point: Maybe the Santa myth isn’t the harmless fun we’ve assumed. Maybe, and if you are a non-religious parent, or are going to be, this should concern you – maybe, by perpetrating this fun little ruse for 5-10 years, we are teaching our children to accept supernatural claims. That is, claims that a man who lives at the North Pole does things which violate laws of physics, principles of space, time, and logic. We, who they trust without question, allow them to believe or tell them explicitly, that a magic man in a red suit has flying reindeer, keeps tabs on children year round from a remote location, visits every house in the world in the span of a single night, carrying cargo, either reward or punishment, in the trunk of his magnificent sleigh. Are we not priming their malleable minds to accept the very next set of outlandish, and downright nonsensical supernatural claims? That other magic man of America, who wore not a red coat, but a crown of thorns? Who walked on water, fed the 5,000, healed the sick, cast out demons, forgave sins, was crucified to death, but resurrected, appeared to his followers, and flew to Heaven a la Ironman, sans the suit?
But! You protest, “It’s only natural for children to indulge in fantasy. Their minds aren’t even capable of distinguishing the real from the imagined, for years. Why would you deny them those precious few years of carefree indulgment in fantastic play?”
Well, I’d agree with you. I might even hypothesize that this kind of play represents a critical phase, and a critical aspect of the cognitive development of a young child. I’m not a neurologist, or anything of the sort, so take that as you will. I’d say, yes, let the children play, by all means! Let them be princesses, and dragons, butterflies, and any number of fairy tale characters. Let them have an imaginary friend – let them have 50 imaginary friends if they like. Why do we need to add any? They do plenty on their own.
Why don’t we, instead of lying to them about Santa (which is technically what we’re doing), tell them the truth from the start? Why don’t we show them that we can be trusted? (sidenote: why don’t we take the damn credit for the shopping, the credit card sprees, and gift wrapping? But these are another topic) When all the other kids start finding that Santa is bullshit around their 8th birthdays, your kid could look back, and see that you were straight with them. I don’t suppose we much suspect our parents’ general veracity, post-Santa, but it can’t help any that we’ve been stringing them along on a known myth for the better part of a decade – though they probably can’t recognize or articulate that feeling. And of course, whatever sense of betrayal we may have felt toward our parents has probably faded out of memory by the time our own little ones come along.
But back to religion: Having primed their thoughts to embrace miracle men, do we not set them up to swallow the next myth, the ‘Jesus Christ as Son of God and savior of sinful humanity myth?’ The stakes involved in leaving the Santa myth are painful but tolerable. Christmas can still be fun. You still get gifts, still get to sing carols and drink egg nog, still get to see the grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But the stakes on the next run, on the Jesus myth, go up infinity percent. Leaving the Jesus myth, once you’ve been indoctrinated, means coping with loss of an afterlife, loss of the chance to see grandma and grandpa again, a life severely shortened to about 8 decades if your lucky, loss of comfort, meaning, and purpose immediately, and loss of the only community you’ve ever known – the church. Growing up out of the Jesus myth means you become a minority at best, an exile, a pariah, an outcast, or worse. Outgrowing Jesus means you might lose your mother, your father, siblings, your spouse, your entire family, and all of your friends. Unless you are fortunate, letting go of religion means years of loneliness, isolation, and struggle. My point being that having been primed to accept supernatural stories as truth, from our earliest, most impressionable years, and that the stakes of leaving religion can be overwhelmingly painful, it can be extremely difficult, and for many impossible to give up the Jesus myth.
Now then, given the infinite supply of healthy, fun, and natural pretend-play in the life of a child, to replace the once a year buildup of anticipation of being showered with Chinese made toys from a magical overgrown elf, – and given the risk that, by feeding them the Santa myth as truth for years, we may be training children to accept as TRUTH, stories which should never find a place anywhere but the fiction or mythic literature shelf, why don’t we consider tossing Santa, in favor of a better tradition?
Jared Wylie 