Comments on: Santa Claus: the ultimate Reagan-Thatcherite

By: The Other Anne

The Other Anne — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:05:36 +0000

Agreed–I never liked the story. My parents were also kind of put off when I told them that when I found out Santa wasn’t real at a young age it made me automatically questioning of everything (which is good) and led to my very-soon-after disbelief in Jesus and God (I was Catholic, never confirmed, yay!) and that made my mom kind of sad since she still believes but my dad is pretty agnostic and he just thought that was funny!

But, yeah, you do not inspire trust from your children if you lie to them.

Plus santa creeps me out. Sure, he looks like a large, jolly old white man in typical representations, and that’s not particularly threatening, but I always found something very terrifying about a man who can magically come into your house, eat your cookies, and gets to decide whether or not you’re a good person–and that as a child in the US you’re supposed to love this because he gives you presents… I never liked going anywhere near the santas in malls, either.

By: Tina Russell

Tina Russell — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:17:25 +0000

I always resented the Santa Claus story because it’s telling kids to be good for the wrong reasons, and because I think telling tales like that, ones which you don’t believe yourself, doesn’t show much respect for your children. (And, when I have kids, I’d rather they not go through the anguish of finding out he doesn’t exist—_I’d_ never trust me again after that, certainly.) But, I never thought of the class angle; that is difficult, and important.

(Also, I have to imagine Santa’s non-existence is a tough secret to keep these days. One Wikipedia search and the jig is up.)

By: Saiyne

Saiyne — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:19:31 +0000

Oddly enough, I never thought that. I never wanted all the “shinny, new stuff”.

I thought “Yay! A bucket of chalk!” And thought rich kids were impractical twats for wanting a new t.v. in their room when they could have CHALK!!!

Yes, I was a bit slow as a kid.

By: Jacqueline

Jacqueline — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:13:09 +0000

To Dunvi: When you did realize that some kids had more and others had so much less, did you ever wonder why? If you did and you asked your parents, did they respond with the usual canard, “That’s just life and life’s not fair” and if so, did you wonder why life had to be unfair? Just curious…

By: Dunvi

Dunvi — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:09:02 +0000

Actually, to directly address your question – I think (at least what happened in my family when I was young and stupid) was that my parents would go through plenty of trouble (and money) to get me stuff just as good as the rich kids – but only for a few things.

By: Dunvi

Dunvi — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:05:58 +0000

Hmm. Um. I grew out of Santa right around the same time I started to even recognize that I didn’t have the same types or amounts of stuff that all my classmates did. I was very much an oblivious kid for quite some time.

Now, though, I admittedly get pissed off pretty fast when they all talk normally about the super-expensive things they get (not necessarily for Christmas). I could easily see my parents getting me an iPod for Christmas, but that would be the only really expensive present, and the rest of the stuff would probably be DVDs, books, and clothes, and stuff like that. And it would be my first and only iPod.

By: Jacqueline

Jacqueline — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:47:13 +0000

Being that I am Jewish, the Santa thing didn’t affect me as much as it did for others. It would, however, stand to reason that poor children DO internalize unfairness. But regardless of the occasion where it is the custom to get goodies or showered with favors, children do suffer psychologically (I was good, why am I left out?)

From the Jewish perspective, it is very, very hard for a child who is lucky to get a cake and maybe a card for their bar/bat mitzvah when other kids from the same congregation are able to have lavish parties where they are showered with expensive gifts or money. Since Jewish life tends to be a bit more communal (synagogue dinners, etc), the poor kid’s family in the synagogue is constantly seeing what the other congregants have, how they live, etc.

I am sure that for the Christian children, for whom Christmas IS a very big deal, they have alot of questions and very real emotional pain. Especially since kids are taught that if they’re good, Santa will be good to them. When the child who has endeavored to be as good as the other kids gets the short end of the stick and they ask the adults why, the adults get uncomfortable and often answer: well, that’s becuase life isn’t fair. But even for the kids who get cast-off toys from some local charity, or through the Toys For Tots program, they rarely get anything they might have asked Santa for – and they wonder why they are so out of favor, what they did wrong. Furthermore, they often KNOW that the toys etc that they got were other people’s cast-offs. Kids aren’t stupid.

But the “life isn’t fair” answer doesn’t jive with most kids’ logic. They want to know WHY life is not fair, and why life should be unfair when it does not have to be, and why adults don’t make it fair.