Nice link—thanks. My daughter’s going to be Santa Claus age soon enough. Maybe I’ll print this out for future reference. Probably unbearably saccharine to the childless, but hey, they may have some crumbgobblers of their own someday, and then it will make more sense.
Seems to me (maybe I’ll report back on this in, say, a decade) that the “Santa Claus shock” won’t be as bad as a “God shock” because people who lie to their kids about Santa Claus know they are lying and every kid finds out the truth sooner or later; whereas theists don’t think they are lying, and some people never come to believe they’re wrong. So the “God shock” is a double whammy, finding out your parents are both wrong, and well, liars. In that sense, then the Santa Claus shock is going to be less harmful, as it were. But I think it sets a good precedent with your kids to be as honest as you can with them on the Big Questions while at the same time teaching them a lesson in consideration—don’t go telling all the other kids at school that Santa Claus isn’t real. Part of teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society.
Some 4th grader did that at school when I was a believing kindergartener—that was may more painful than finding out my parents knew Santa Claus isn’t real.
teaching them a lesson in consideration—don’t go telling all the other kids at school that Santa Claus isn’t real. Part of teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society.
Telling someone not to report a fact which they know to be true has no bearing on teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society that I’m aware of...
I mean to say, “tolerance” and “freedom” have nothing to do with not telling your Christian classmate that his religion is a fairly transparent myth.
I’m talking about from the perspective of a child, MBlume. We live in a society where lots of folks teach their kids lots of silly myths. It isn’t your job to teach your kid to go around exposing them all the time. At least not unless you want to raise an intolerable pedant.
Honestly, I’m gonna have to back down from this one—I never went to elementary school as an atheist, and I have no idea what it would be like. The more I think about it, the more it sounds pretty difficult.
I did. It wasn’t especially difficult at all—but then, the subject of religion was never brought up by the teachers and rarely by the students, so no one knew.
I can easily imagine that it would be difficult in a school and a culture in which public declarations of religious affiliation were accepted and encouraged, even mandated.
I was raised atheist, and it wasn’t difficult at all. In fact, I only know the religion (or lack thereof) of one of my childhood friends, which I learned not because he made any statements of belief per se, but rather via his complaints about having to learn Hebrew. As for the rest of everyone I went elementary school with—we did have occasional critiques of Santa, but it never occurred to me to extol atheism because the topic of religion never came up. When I eventually learned of the great quantities of deluded people around, I had to infer that some of the kids that had never mentioned religion probably were religious, but it didn’t seem important enough for me to actually ask to determine which ones.
I don’t think I grew up in any great rationalist enclave, maybe my school was just really serious about separation of church and state?
I hope you’ll be willing to share with the community how that goes. We want to learn how to build rationalist societies, and societies start with their children.
Nice link—thanks. My daughter’s going to be Santa Claus age soon enough. Maybe I’ll print this out for future reference. Probably unbearably saccharine to the childless, but hey, they may have some crumbgobblers of their own someday, and then it will make more sense.
Seems to me (maybe I’ll report back on this in, say, a decade) that the “Santa Claus shock” won’t be as bad as a “God shock” because people who lie to their kids about Santa Claus know they are lying and every kid finds out the truth sooner or later; whereas theists don’t think they are lying, and some people never come to believe they’re wrong. So the “God shock” is a double whammy, finding out your parents are both wrong, and well, liars. In that sense, then the Santa Claus shock is going to be less harmful, as it were. But I think it sets a good precedent with your kids to be as honest as you can with them on the Big Questions while at the same time teaching them a lesson in consideration—don’t go telling all the other kids at school that Santa Claus isn’t real. Part of teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society.
Some 4th grader did that at school when I was a believing kindergartener—that was may more painful than finding out my parents knew Santa Claus isn’t real.
Telling someone not to report a fact which they know to be true has no bearing on teaching them to be members of a tolerant free society that I’m aware of...
I mean to say, “tolerance” and “freedom” have nothing to do with not telling your Christian classmate that his religion is a fairly transparent myth.
I’m talking about from the perspective of a child, MBlume. We live in a society where lots of folks teach their kids lots of silly myths. It isn’t your job to teach your kid to go around exposing them all the time. At least not unless you want to raise an intolerable pedant.
Honestly, I’m gonna have to back down from this one—I never went to elementary school as an atheist, and I have no idea what it would be like. The more I think about it, the more it sounds pretty difficult.
I did. It wasn’t especially difficult at all—but then, the subject of religion was never brought up by the teachers and rarely by the students, so no one knew.
I can easily imagine that it would be difficult in a school and a culture in which public declarations of religious affiliation were accepted and encouraged, even mandated.
I was raised atheist, and it wasn’t difficult at all. In fact, I only know the religion (or lack thereof) of one of my childhood friends, which I learned not because he made any statements of belief per se, but rather via his complaints about having to learn Hebrew. As for the rest of everyone I went elementary school with—we did have occasional critiques of Santa, but it never occurred to me to extol atheism because the topic of religion never came up. When I eventually learned of the great quantities of deluded people around, I had to infer that some of the kids that had never mentioned religion probably were religious, but it didn’t seem important enough for me to actually ask to determine which ones.
I don’t think I grew up in any great rationalist enclave, maybe my school was just really serious about separation of church and state?
I share your experience.
Me neither. My daughter’s going to be a test case, though.
Then I wish you luck.
I hope you’ll be willing to share with the community how that goes. We want to learn how to build rationalist societies, and societies start with their children.
Thanks.
I certainly will. She’s only 18 months, though, so it’s going to be a while before the reports start flowing.