I agree that it is important to have a sense of wonder and I understand your sense of regret. But, I don't agree that Santa and the Easter Bunny are the only way to have a sense of wonder. In fact, it would be sad if that were the case. I still have a sense of wonder about life and the universe. In some ways, it is stronger than it was when I was a child. The more I have learned about reality, the greater my curiosity and sense of wonder have grown.

@Heraclitus those rituals aren't the only way, for sure. They also aren't the only way I encouraged logic over wonder. And maybe they'll totally Benjamin Button the wonder and awe. Maybe I'm just high on cold medicine and missing my babies being babies.

Yes, I agree that stories are good for us when we know it is a story. But is deception good for us and for the relationship with have with our parents?

@Heraclitus: I guess that depends on what you mean by "deception." With most Santa stories it's pretty much tongue-in-cheek (Nudge nudge. Grin grin, wink wink, say no more, Squire).

Now Elf on the Shelf, and using Santa as a way to force kids to behave... I do think that is deceptive, and I would agree, that's harmful to kids. I've always felt the most skeevy Christmas song ever written is "He sees you when your sleeping... He knows when you're awake." That song is disturbing on so many levels.

That being said, I still love Santa. Tim Allen's Santa is one of my favorite. But you're right, it's best told as a story, not as a lie.

Yes, I agree that pretend play is good for us, but doesn't this rather miss the point? The question is whether or not deception & lies from our parents are good for us and for our relationship with our parents.

@Heraclitus
I think it depends on all the specifics. If parents use it to manipulate the child's behavior, the kid can pick up on that and might understandably have lingering resentments, especially if it was part of an overall pattern of parental behavior. But if the parents were not in the habit of lying about other things, and were doing it only because they thought it would delight and entertain the child, then that intent is also evident to the child as s/he grows up and reflects on the past.

I've never had kids, but if I did, I think I would want to participate in the seasonal holidays but do it more in the spirit of play-acting for everyone involved, rather than a grand deception perpetrated on the child by the parents.

A very interesting argument that children need to be taught not to trust anyone including their own parents. I'll have to give that some thought though I still think it can be damaging to the parent-child relationship.
It never occurred to me when I lost a tooth that my face was falling off. As soon as I got a loose tooth I was told that it was perfectly normal and that my baby teeth would be replaced with adult teeth. So, I never worried about it a bit.

@Heraclitus "I'll have to give that some thought though I still think it can be damaging to the parent-child relationship"

• Which makes this another situation where parents have to make a decision regarding what is more important; the long-term well-being of the child or the child's emotion towards them.

One of my first gradeschool teachers was a bit... unorthodox. He set up brief mind games. For example, one student who frequently arrived late was suddenly in a classroom where the wrong answers are correct, and we'd see how long it took for him to go with the herd mentality. (He cracked within five minutes.)
Or, Teach would say something we all knew to be false and assert that this was true because he was older than we were and authority is what makes a statement right or wrong.
Etc.
It was often frustrating. Most of the time we wanted him to do like the other teachers and just tell us what we were supposed to think instead of making us work for it.

No doubt some people would have harsh things to say about him, but I love that man, for trying to prepare us for some of the real dangers in reality.

@MLinoge I never minded mind games as long as I knew they were mind games. In fact, I rather enjoyed them as they made me think. I much enjoy philosophy which is full of mind games. But, if you are suggesting that parents deceive their children into believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy as a mind game to enhance their analytical skills...well, I really don't think so.

@Heraclitus I can't speak for other families. It's what I deduced from my own experience.
Once the youngest of my siblings figured it out from the abundant clues we left, we stopped talking about any of those things altogether.
With the lesson learned the games were over and no further deception followed because it was never about keeping us deceived.
It was about the learning.

Surely this can be done by simply telling the myth as a story without asking them to believe it, after all most kids understand Aladdin and the Djinni is just a story and don't go about hopefully rubbing flashlights.

@maturin1919 My point exactly, they don't believe it, they know it is just a story, as you rightly say pretend and make believe.

Yes, I suppose that I am, though I realize that that is a more complicated question than it first appears. But, I cannot argue that deliberately lying and deceiving your children is a good thing even though one might think there are justifiable reasons for it. This is not to say that one should tell them the whole truth about everything as the whole truth would just lead to confusion and misunderstandings that would be harmful. Children are not capable of understanding the whole truth in many instances. This is also not to say that one doesn't tell children stories and fairy tales as long as they understand that they are stories and fairy tales that are not completely true or real. But to lie and deceive children is to teach them that lying and deceiving is a good thing and the proper way to live just as imposing violence on children teaches them violence is a viable solution to the problems of life. Worse, parents who lie and deceive their children also teach their children that lying and deceiving are wrong. This teaches children that hypocrisy is a valid and proper way to live. This, I think, explains a lot of what is wrong with society and the world in general. We live a world of trained hypocrites.

In general, I agree with your point except that I can't agree there is never any harm. I think it depends on both how the parents handle it and how the child reacts to the deception. Some children just seem to take the deception is stride and never really think about it much. I was a pensive introspective child and the deception not only by my parents, but by all authority figures, and by society in general changed my outlook on the world forever. Now, you could argue that my learning that there was a lot of deception and BS in the world, and that one should never completely trust anything one is told was a good thing, but it certainly didn't feel like it at the time.

Maybe it is just not children who need reality in small doses. Maybe it is adults, too. How many billions of adults have lived with some sort of fantasy their whole lives? Or maybe if we learned more about honesty and reality earlier in life, we wouldn't have to spend our entire lives clinging to religious myths and fantasies.

@Mile1947

Barney, the purple dinosaur was so saccharine he made my teeth hurt. Shudder.

Do you think adults would believe in Santa Claus if his story also promised eternal life in paradise?

@Diogenes1972 Jesus is Santa Claus for adults.