this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
112 points (93.1% liked)
Asklemmy
43826 readers
877 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm ok with Christmas presents, but not with with Santa bullshit. Same with Tooth Fairy or anything similar. What's the point?
Also, if your kids know you're the one giving them their presents, maybe the will appreciate you a bit more.
Yeahhhh, I did not care for the "Santa toys" as much as I did the ones from my parents. I still regret that to this day. If it stopped working or I lost it I'd think it was okay because it was free.
Though, in grade ~2 i told everyone i could go work in Santa's work shop if I tried more new foods....
I prefer the idea of "santa claus" as a personification, similar to "mother nature" or "old man winter." We humans seem given to celebration around the winter solstice, gathering together somewhere warm, sharing a meal, exchanging gifts, making merriment. Illustrating this phenomenon as a jolly old man that travels the world spreading good cheer works for me. I'm fine with "holiday spirit" wearing a goofy bright red suit and having a distinctive laugh.
I'm also pretty okay with addressing presents "from Santa" for the gift giver to remain anonymous; the legend of the histoical Saint Nicholas heavily involves anonymous gift giving, so I'm okay with carrying out that reference in the modern day.
I'm not sure how useful it is to lead children to believe that there's literally a man that commits hundreds of millions of reverse burglaries every December, especially when a lot of the specific details and trappings of this were made up by retail marketing in the 20th century.
Completely agree with you. I'm definitely underqualified to speak of this, as I have no children, but I have a masters degree in pedagogy, started a PhD in pedagogy years ago that I never finished and briefly worked as a teacher, but I've never once in my life saw as little as a proper article with any proof that belief in Santa is in any way beneficial to a child's developement.
Moreover I honestly believe it's detrimental. Such belief often leaves children in poor families disappointed and resentful when they see their friends get much more impressive gifts. On top of that such belief leads to ungrateful and entitled behavior in children as they believe they are owed a present, without understanding the sacrifices their parents have to make to buy this present.
Tldr: Please don't make your kids worship capitalist mascots, if you want them to have a magical childhood just read them a book or spend quality time with them.