Wednesday, December 24, 2008

An Old Controversy Revisited

A few years ago I wrote this post on a Dadblogger website. (The site has since been taken down so I am having to link to an archived version, but it does have the comments available and that will help you see some of the controversy it caused.)

This post was about the struggles and decisions Shelley and I have made about telling our kids that Santa is not real. It hasn't been easy to find the right balance but now that the boys are a little older I am glad we made the decision.

Just to be clear, Santa is active in our house. We have a blow up Santa in our yard and just last night Seth told Shelley he wanted a Santa costume.

But I heard a recent non-scientific secular study about what happened when kids finally realized or were told that Santa wasn't real. In a large percentage of the cases the child's next question was "Is Jesus not real either?" That is a credibility question that I'm glad I don't have to answer.

However I can imagine our approach might have caused some discussions in other households. Here is a statement Seth made to me the other day.

Seth: Suzy and Steve think Santa is real but Amy believes me [that he's not]. (The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Merry Christmas.

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