Folks, Christmas is one thing but Santa, Santa is a different one. It is something that this millennia should phase out of childhood.
When I’ll have the chance of raising a kid, I will not tell them santa is real. I think this is a horrible experience on any child, and that parents worldwide should think twice before hosing the lie of lies on their child’s fresh consciousness.
I am not joking.
There are parents who go to incredible great lengths to create the perfect make believe: adding snow footprints around the house, eating industrial quantities of milk and cookies and possibly Rudolph’s carrots too, all done while hiding in complete secrecy all that preparation required for the imaginary santa’s arrival through the chimney.
Why?
We’re introducing kids to this huge amazing awesome and great thing which has no connection to reality whatsoever and we laugh and amuse ourselves at the pain and disappointment that the child experiences when the mirage falls apart.
Santa is the hazing of children for acceptance in the big frathouse of man.
I imagine the billions and billions of neuronal connections that suddenly are weakened and have to be reconfigured. So many assumptions and wrong predictions made from a foundational set of information, presented wrongfully on purpose.
You see, Santa is not just story or play. Santa doesn’t happen in a kingdom far far away, but right here in my living room. The whole Santa story, for your child’s brain, is not a product of imagination, but a real person who lives forever, travels at amazing speeds, effectively lives at the north pole in a magic castle and visits every year in one night the entire planet.
This is a real experience that is presented to the kid by the people they trust completely: mother and father. I am astonished of how little thought is given to the emotional carrousel that we’re willingly submitting our children into. What for?
The more you try to create the perfect santa experience the worse it’s gonna be when the lie is revealed.
Then there is also the stupidity of the “trade”, an exchange where the child gives up their naughtiness for material gain. WTF! I am definitely not the first one to stand back amazed of how such a wrong educational approach is universal and uncontested. But this is old news.
I am talking about the fake existence of Santa and the immense effort to pretend it exists as a fun way to sprinkle fun on the experience of your child’d childhood, and the wrong behind it.
When my child raising time will come, to add some “Santa pizzaz” in my child’s life I’ll simply tell them the world plays this Christmas game and here is the story, and the game’s rules are such and such and maybe it will be fun if we play it too. And warn them that some people actually believe it is real.
And before the child is grown up enough to grasp the idea of game, I’ll simply decorate and cook, buy presents and have fun: who needs this Santa story when reality is so awesome?
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to understand what is real.
The actual word means: splitting of the mind.
I don’t know, maybe it is not as important as I see it. For me, it is. Maybe my future child will be angry they missed being lied to with love. But I’ll take my chance.
Santa is on the same level of wrong as introducing religious myth, which functions as revelatory metaphor, to children who understand it as fact.
The entire personality and future existence of the human you raise is embedded on how their brain is primed up to grasp reality. Just remember that before you lie innocent lies to innocent souls.