NOTE TO ALL: THIS THREAD HAS MERGED WITH THE “SPEAKING OF SANTA” THREAD. PLEASE GO TO THAT THREAD TO SEE THE RESPONSES TO THE FOLLOWING POSTS AND TO MAKE YOUR OWN COMMENTS. THANKS.
All of the discussion on the “Speaking of Santa” thread got me to wondering how nonSanta people handle the issue of other fictional characters with their children. I posted some questions on that thread that the discussion there seemed to present (to me anyway). I guess maybe I should have started a new thread. So, anyway, following is the post I left on the other thread. The discussion has really raised my curiosity on the subject of parents with children and their exposure to fictional characters in our society. So, here are my questions:
Is Santa really so different from the Sesame Street myth? What do people who don’t want children believing in fictional characters such as Santa tell their 2 or 3 year old when she is watching Grover on television? What do they do to curb her innocence and imagination so that she doesn’t believe that the cute characters are real? What do they say to the child when they see one of the characters in the mall? Do they tell the child that it’s just someone wearing a costume who is trying to fool her and that the character on the tube is only a stuffed animal puppet with a person hiding off camera pretending to be the character’s voice? Do they tell them that it’s silly and a waste of the adult’s time to stand in line to hug the character in the mall because the character is fictional? I don’t believe I could do that for any child, even one I didn’t like. But that’s just me. I suppose, though, that can be seen as a good thing to do for a child. At least, she can never resent the adult for letting her believe a lie when she was little. (Although a cynical few may consider this last reason to be more for the adult’s benefit than the child’s. )
I’m not trying to be confontational either. But this myth that adults perpetuate on children is far bigger than the big guy in the red suit. And these characters are nondenominational. (Except for one of the teletubbies who, I’ve heard, is gay - but that’s different.) Truthfully, it never occurred to me that children should never be allowed to believe in such things. I always thought that was part of the beauty of childhood.
Anyway, I’m curious too. How do the “non-santa” people handle these issues? Thanks.
Good points. My counter would be that if my child asked me whether Grover was real I’d tell the truth right away. I’d say that Grover is a puppet that is worked by people you can’t see, and they are creating a character for you to enjoy. I’m not even sure we’re spoiling anything by teaching them the fundamentals of fictional charcters.
With Santa, we work so hard to turn a fictional character into a real one, and that is what I rally hated. I loved the Santa thing as a child but I really pained me to keep woking the deception year after year. Disclaimer: my wife is Jewish and the kids are raised Jewish but we celebrate both and have a tree and everything. I even took them see santa at the mall once. Half their gifts are Christmas and half are Hanukkah. So I was working alone in the Santa department.
The result of that is that my kids both tried to believe in santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy etc long after they really did becasue they thought the gifts would dry up. And my son actually believed in the Easter Bunny longer than anything else. I said, “Are you nuts? The Easter Bunny is the most unbelieveable of them all.”
Thanks for responding. I totally see your point and agree with it. But it sounds like you are telling the child when the child is old enough to question what is “real”. I don’t know, but I would think most people probably do this with Santa when the child starts asking. But maybe not. Anyway, it sounded like some people go out of their way to quash the Santa myth before the child even knows who he is. Therefore, not giving the ciild a chance to believe. So, what I was really asking, I guess, is do those people do the same thing with Grover, tooth fairy, Mickey Mouse, etc.? If not, why not? Just curious.
Also, I also know Jewish people who believed in Santa and celebrated the holiday strictly as a secular thing. Which I don’t think is hard to do. But let me reiterate what I said in the other thread, I totally respect anyone’s attitudes on this subject either way.
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