This Mom Encourages Parents To Lie About Santa Claus For As Long As They Can
She said she wishes she hadn't told her daughter the truth.
When do you break the news to your kids that Santa isn’t real? Do you let them realize on their own? Leave it up to other kids to fill them in? How do you approach the topic? Some parents don’t do “Santa” at all, while some do but then sit their kids down to break the bad news (which seems like overkill). At some point, kids do need to learn the truth about Santa (unless you’re Buddy the Elf), but how do you do it?
One mom on TikTok thought she was doing the right thing, but quickly learned that she had ruined her kid’s imagination about Santa way too early. Now, she’s encouraging other parents to keep the lie about Santa going for as long as possible with her “cautionary tale” for parents of what she calls “cuspy kids” aka kids who are kind of starting to question the validity of Santa’s magic.
TikTok mom (@read_between_the_whines) noted that she used to be a person who swore she would never lie to her kids, but now, she wants to guide people to do differently based on her own experience.
“Last year, the whole season, my oldest was saying things to me that's making me go, Okay, she's questioning the validity of this. Tread lightly. I would try not to lie,” she explained.
When her daughter would straight up ask her if Santa was real, at first, the OP would just reply, “A lot of people believe he is.”
On Christmas morning, after her younger brother received some bigger gifts, the young girl was again questioning the existence of Santa.
She said to her mom, “I don't think Santa came for me.”
That’s when the OP saw what she thought was her opening for an honest conversation about Santa.
“I went, ‘You know how Anna and Elsa are very fun ideas to imagine? ... Well, similarly, Santa is an idea. He's a really, really fun magical thing to imagine...Santa did come for you. Daddy and I are Santa. ”
And that’s when s**t hit the fan. Her daughter is crying and then begins to put all the pieces together about Santa, his elves, the cookies, and everything else that comes along with all that
“Watching the innocence and magic leave your child’s body is one of the most devastating things I've ever experienced,” she warned.
“So, if you can take anything from my cautionary tale, it would be to lie on this one. Because there's nothing else in life that we lie to our children about. And if this is going to bring them a little bit of magic, and then they naturally come to the conclusion that this just actually doesn't make that much sense, let them get there on their own.”
The comments on the video shared a variety of sentiments when it comes to the magic of Santa Claus with some users encouraging the OP’s POV while others said that the lie of Santa has gone way too far.
“I'm 34 and my mom has still never said Santa isn't real,” one user wrote.
Another wrote, “This is why we never did Santa. I don't ever want my kid to look at me and say, "you lied to me? My whole life?"“
Another said, “I got to watch both my kids hear their aunt say that he isn’t real, but our family is allowed to believe if we want to. My son was on the cusp as well, but my daughter still fully believed. Heart wrenching for me. I had to leave the house for a bit so I could cry and collect myself.”
Another mom shared, “We daughter asked me to pinky promise swear on my life that I wasn’t Santa so I told her the truth and she bawled her eyes out, as did I. It was horrific.”
One commentator shared the sweetest story and said, ‘When I was probably 6, I saw my dad assembling a Barbie Dreamhouse on Christmas Eve. I was stunned so I was telling a friend about it. Her teenage brother overheard me and said “you’re right. You figured it out. It’s ridiculous to think Santa visits all of the kids on earth in one night. There’s no way. Santa actually sends your gifts to your parents by UPS and your parents have to put them together for you.” That made sooooo much sense and actually had a lot of explanatory power. It allowed me to continue to believe for several more years. Now as an adult I think of the kindness of a teenage boy saving Christmas for me and for his sister. That was so sweet and I know he’s probably an amazing dad now.”
