“To lie or not to lie to my child” A thought about raising Freethinkers.

With the Easter Bunny stories hopping about in schools currently, I started thinking…what do Scott and I do about this?  “This” being reinforcing that stories are true, that we know are not true. 

A brief story:

Before I…gave into my rational side, Scott and I did the whole Santa and Easter Bunny thing.  We wanted Mat to believe in the stories.  We did bells on the rooftop, we did Easter baskets on the floor, we ate the cookies meant for Santa, we left eggs throughout the yard…Then Mat came to us and said, ‘But Mommy, you said magic isn’t real and monsters aren’t real…so that means the tooth fairy and Santa aren’t real either because they’re magic.’  He was 3, almost 4.  We were crushed.  A 3 year old just rationalized out that those characters were not real.  Scott and I gave in and admitted that he was correct.  We had outside pressures telling us to not do that, to do MORE to keep him believing, to convince him otherwise.  We couldn’t do it.  To this day, if he asks us, we tell him the truth.  That said, to this day he wavers from time to time in what believes.  I feel the wavering is natural.  It could be peer pressure, or his little mind rationalizing everything he's been told.  Most of the time, he believes they are not real.  If he says they are real, we choose not to tell him no.  We ask him why he thinks that way, and we respect those thoughts.  We do not tell him he was wrong, but instead nod and ask him to think about it.  Sometimes he does, other times he runs off to play.

With Tempe, we will not do the bells, we will not do the cookies…this is a decision Scott and I have made.  Personally, we feel that we should not lie to our children to make them believe in a story.  People may think that our children will miss out on the joys of having an ‘Easter Bunny’ visit their house.  To that I say that those parents will miss out on the joy and love your children give YOU when you present them those gifts.  Also, why should we enhance life with false beliefs when there is so much to life as it is?  I love the story behind these fictional characters, and feel that children need to learn to give to others.  But to me, there are so many other ways for children to learn to give, than to toss them a story of an imaginary character in which you force them to believe.  Stories regarding moral principles are just stories.  Actions real people take are those that make a legacy.  So on Christmas, we will read of Santa and tell them of the Christmas beliefs around the world.  We will exchange gifts…but those gifts will be from us to each other.  We will do this with our children, and hope that when they get married they find their own way to celebrate their life with their loved ones in a way that is special to them.