Momnesia

The Santa Clause: Why Lying To Your Children is the Best Option

AUGUSTA, GA. - When a headline makes you cringe, it’s either so heinous that it inspires international tribunals, or it hits so close to home that that it borders on Universal Truth. Before readers convene the tribunal, consider my defense of my belief that lying to children is a good thing: the ongoing “mystery” of an elderly magical elf who creeps into even the most well secured homes across the world – hello, the White House? – to deliver trinkets wrapped in quasi-religious overtones. In other words, consider this a pact among adults that I call “The Santa Claus.” What?! Hey, Tim Allen stole it from me!

First, the lying that adults do to children is mostly harmless. Playful and light-heated protective lying doesn’t scar children, or else teenagers would be running like mad from cabbage patches and storks. No, the lies of omission and substitution that we tell our children are like Saran Wrap over their brains. It keeps them new and safe from corruptive outside influences.

Our little innocents are not the proposed “tabula rasa” waiting to be filled with humanity’s infinite wisdom, and anyone who has raised a child from infancy knows this. Each child has his or her own personality from birth. And all children know how to lie. When my nephew was four, he told me that his teacher put snakes in his stomach. My own daughter tells me that "my daddee says I can eat all da cannee right now" just about every day. They are both adorably full of crap. And so am I.

That's because lying is fun! When I was younger, I flipped through an art book of my mother’s and paused on “Christina’s World,” by painter Andrew Wyeth. My father strolled by: “Do you know why she’s sitting in the field?” he pointed to the prairie girl in the foreground. “She’s been run over by a tractor and is waiting for someone from the house to come and help her.” My 7-year-old self was horrified. My adult self clings to that exchange as one of my favorite “dad stories.” Note to readers: Don’t play cards with that man.

Lying is fantasy, and fantasy is the stuff of legend. Far be it from me to tell my child that she cannot pull a sword from a stone, or that Elvis is dead. I refuse to be some good-natured rationalist who drains all of the magic from her childhood. Yes, Emerson, there is a Santa Claus. And Mommy has his telephone number and e-mail address. So you’d better watch out.

Anyway, life is already difficult. We owe it to our offspring to give them a joyous childhood. If that means that we feed them crap about how a fat guy in a red suit breaks-and-enters your home every winter, then fine. It they believe that an egg-laying rabbit does the same in Spring, great. I mean, it’s really all about Jesus, right? As the Lord transformed, so doth the bunny? Or something?

The truth is that we already lie to our children. A study of 3,000 parents found every day each mum or dad will tell at least one fib to get their offspring to comply with their wishes. So we’re only lying to ourselves if we don’t acknowledge and embrace it. The stance I take simply asks you to use that skill to your strategic advantage. That’s why they’re so well behaved in December.

To speak the unabridged, unmitigated truth in all things to our children is to deny the storytelling history of humanity. Metaphor and myth have a right to exist without open analysis. Because believing in magic, or legend, or fairy tales is to inspire a child to be more than he or she ever dreamed was humanly possible. And that elevates us all.