Related on OB: Lying to Kids The Third Alternative
My wife and I are planning to have kids, so of course we've been going through the usual sorts of debates regarding upbringing. We wondered briefly, will we raise our children as atheists? It's kindof a cruel experiment, as folks tend to use their own experiences to guide raising children, and both of us were raised Catholic. Nonetheless, it was fairly well settled after about 5 minutes of dialogue that atheist was the way to go.
Then we had the related discussion of whether to teach our children about Santa Claus. After hours of debate, we decided we'd both have to think on the question some more. It's still been an open question for years now.
Should we teach kids that Santa Claus exists? This isn't a new question, by any means. But it's now motivated by this thread about rationalist origin stories. Note that many of the posters mark the 'rationalist awakening' as the time they realized God doesn't exist. The shock that everybody, including their parents, were wrong and/or lying to them was enough to motivate them to pursue rationality and truth.
If those same children were never taught about God, Santa Claus, and other falsehoods, would they have become rationalists, or would they have contented themselves with playing better video games? If the child never realized there's no Santa Claus, would we have a reason to say, "You're growing up and I'm proud of you"?
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"
Of course, for something completely different regardless of what you do about Santa, you could introduce her to an alternative mythos and its culture.