Santa Claus and other lies we tell our kids

(No, no baby yet. I'm about to start doing jumping jacks to get this baby moving. And if one more person says to me "Oh, no baby yet, huh? What are you waiting for?" I'm going to bump them with my incredibly firm belly. Until then, I need something to take my mind off of my discomfort and pain so I'll write about other stuff. I do this for you, to save you from having to read my bitching. You can thank me later.)

There are plenty of things I have no problem telling Chicky.

Eat your vegetables. Brush your teeth. Don't hit the cat. I'll always love you. Things like that.

But there are other, more abstract concepts that I have an amazingly hard time talking with my child about.

Your grammy, my mom, is in heaven. Your grandma and grandpa go to church on Sundays to pray to God. God? He's up in heaven too. Uh, yeah. That's what we're supposed to believe, I guess.

Religion, in general, is difficult for a woman like myself who made a conscious break from it years ago to talk about with an impressionable three year old. But I believe that children need something to believe in, whether it be religion or fairy tales. Or religion based on fairy tales.

Immaculate conception? Really?

Children need something to hold on to in times of stress or turmoil. They need something to be happy about and to look forward to. That's childhood, for chrissake. So in the past year we've started using the concept of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I'm not sure if my husband has a position on this because we've never really discussed it, at least not without much eye rolling on his part, but I made a conscious effort to incorporate these made up characters into Chicky's vernacular. It's not like I bring it up all the time. You know, it wasn't some random Thursday in February when I said, Have I told you the story of the big rabbit who leaves chocolate eggs for us to find? I think I waited until two days before Easter this past year to even bring it up. I could almost see the wheels turning in Chicky's head. Especially since the only thing she's ever seen a rabbit leave is little pellets of poop. And I've made it perfectly clear those are NOT edible.

But in much the way I have difficulties discussing a higher power with Chicky I find myself tripping over the words "Easter Bunny" and choking on the stories of the fat man in red coming down the chimney to bring good little boys and girls presents. It feels like I'm lying - hell, I am lying, let's be honest - but I will continue to keep up the charade even if it doesn't come naturally to me because my children deserve the wonderment that accompanies these deceptions. And I need an excuse to lord power over my children with a simple threat of "Santa won't come if you don't clean up your toys".

The way I see it, my kids will have less than a decade in their lives to believe that benevolent bearded men bring gifts just for eating a few more peas from their plate. That's pretty cool. I wish someone could make me believe that there was a spa fairy or that, maybe, there was a giant fuzzy beast who magically left bottles of wine at my doorstep.

I say less than a decade because most kids don't really grasp the idea of Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy until they're over the age of three. After that there are few precious years before television or some bratty kid on the playground (or an older sister, maybe. Not that I'm pointing any fingers) teaches my kids their mother and father were responsible for taking baby teeth and leaving a buck under the pillow. And honestly when that happens, it was probably time anyway. At some point they need to know that life is kinda sucky and disappointment is something they need to learn to deal with.

Which leads me to the reason for this post. Finally.

Mr. C works with two people who have daughters who are well into puberty and, as far as their parents are concerned, the kids STILL BELIEVE IN SANTA. These people see no reason to start telling their eleven, twelve, fourteen year old kids (uh huh, fourteen years old) the truth about who was leaving presents under the tree. Call me cynical, but if you're old enough to have a menstrual cycle I think you're old enough to deal with this cold hard fact.

It makes me wonder who is worried about who would suffer more? Kids are resilient and they roll with changes, for the most part. But parents can live for the rest of their lives with the guilt of disappointing their kids just once. It makes me want to shake these people. Deal with it! I want to yell at them. It's just like ripping off a band-aid, we don't want to cause our kids pain but it needs to happen and sometimes the faster or sooner the better.

Is it just me? Is it my hang-ups stopping me from being happy for these kids who still get to live a bit of the fairy tale? Or is there a cut off point, an arbitrary age depending on the child, where they need to grow up a little? When do we as parents stop perpetrating the myth that magical beings exist and teach our kids that it's okay to start believing in what's real, even if what's real is kind of crummy sometimes?

And don't even get me started on the Holy Spirit. To me it's like ROUS's. I don't believe it exists.