Posted by: Cathy Arnst on December 23
I just discovered yet another controversy in the modern parent’s world. Should we allow our children to believe in Santa Claus? I thought Santa was a given in households that celebrate Christmas, but a recent blog posting on the Chicago Tribune website by health writer Julie Deardorff, titled Mommy, Is There a Santa Claus?, raises questions about the whole St. Nick rigamarole:
As Christmas has grown more commercial over the last century, so has Santa. Now he’s also an symbol of material excess; a Christmas flak who never passes up a promotional opportunity. Well before Thanksgiving, he was soliciting visitors to the John Hancock Observatory while perched on a float along Michigan Avenue. Then there’s the ethical debate over whether it’s OK to systematically deceive your children. It’s not just one fantastic premise; it’s multiple lies that cover everything from how Santa enters homes without chimneys (“He finds an open window”) to how he manages his workload. (“He travels at 3,000 times the speed of light.”) And once you eat the cookies your child has set out for Santa, the message is uncomfortably clear: It is never OK for children to lie to parents. But it is OK for parents to trick children. This double standard is unacceptable, says River Forest’s Laura Maychruk. “I refuse to lie to my kids,” said Maychruk, 39, whose four children have never received a gift from Santa. “It’s my policy for every single topic. I don’t want to give up my morals.”
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