Disillusionment
 

      Disillusionment, I think we've all been there. Someone or something we believe in falls apart and leaves our world view changed, and often embittered.
      On a larger scale a lot of what we are told as kids falls apart. I think the teens tend to be the age most of us go through this. Though, most do stop believing in Santa before that. I look back on that time as being good and developmental. However, I find myself working hard to not set my kids up for the pain of it. Trying to raise them without a lot of illusions to have fall apart, if you will.
      We've all been through it to some degree or another I think. What about you? Thoughts? Experiences?

I think one of the biggest illusions that needs 'dis'ing is that its a bad thing when illusions become disillusions. To state otherwise is analgous to supporting the idea that ignorance is bliss. Disillusionment is one step closer to the idea of enlightenment.

If it truly is an "illusion" then it should be a good thing when it gets "dis"ed.

But I know what you mean and when it does happen (and it has), I'm usually not in any mood to intellectualize it - I'm too busy feeling sorry for myself.

But, I'm a little wiser as a consequence (assuming that I'm not deluding myself). :)

I think what he means is that a lot of heartache and trauma could be solved by simply telling kids the truth in the first place.

Whit probably agrees that learning the truth is good. But why lie to children and put them in a fantasy world, only to crush their dreams later and cause unneccessary psychological damage?

I'm reminded of the fact that people always laugh at children's ignorance. "Ohh, it's so cute! He doesn't understand.. he's a fucking moron.. hah hah hah hah!"

Perhaps that's part of the problem.

Before Sarah was born, my wife and I actually discussed the myth of Santa Claus and whether or not to tell her about it. The idea had really never occured to me. But when Kathy asked me about it, I checked the values that I tell myself I subscribe to, and said in shock, "I can't lie to my kids!" But then she went on about how I'd ruin the fantasy of childhood, and how believing in Santa Claus was one of her (and most people's) best memories. Realizing that she knew a lot more about child-rearing than me, I figured I was probably wrong and consented not to tell. You have to pick your battles, after all, and who wants to be seen as a bitter, crotchedy old man out to ruin a kid's childhood?

Oooh! Oooh! Can I play? Can I play???? ("grouchface" is the preferred name at my house. Now that I think of it, I ought to teach the kids "curmudgeon" and get them to start using that.)

I would have been happy to forgo the whole Santa thing, but Mrs. Dallas kind of insisted. Is this another one of those male/female things??

Re: Disillusionment
 

There is a delicate balance, I think, in protecting children from disallusionment. On the one hand, we want the kids to know the truth and not have to experience the turmoil which can occur when the disillusionment is broken; but on the other hand, one who experiences little disillusionment in their life will likely become cripplingly naive.

As far as disallusionment in my own life, I used to think that thrre was this giant toad lurking under the ocean's dark surface... oh wait, that wasn't me, that was somebody else.

I had a pretty big, life-changing disallusionment many years ago, when I realized that the Mormon belief system is complete bullshit. I had been raised in the church, and had always harbored doubts, but I always gave the church the beneft of the doubt. After a while I found that things about the church came unstitched pretty quickly when you started pulling on loose threads, and my doubts quickly became certainties that the church was no more than a huge machine for the manipulation and control of it's members. And now the church is enormously wealthy, owning most of Salt Lake City, hundreds of buildings in Utah, temples around the world... but despite this huge wealth, they still demand that all memebers pay to the church 10% of every penny they make, whether that person lives in wealth or poverty.

Their flagship song is "We Thank thee O God for a Profit" for Christ's sake.

Now my poor LDS mother has to live with the thought that one of her sons "fell away," and is living it up in the Agnostic/Athiest lifestyle. What a pity. Hi mom!

Tell her about Santa, and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman ... invent a couple family-based boojums if you want.

Santa's part of the overall cultural experience. She'll be way out of step with her peers if she doesn't know about these guys. Come on ... evan Jewish kids know about Santa. They know he's not coming over, but they know who he is. You don't want Sarah to be an outcast, do you?

You will cherish the final year that the rather mild threat of the naughty list last controls your child's behavior.

You don't have to listen to any of it ... but ask your mom's advice from time to time. It will make her feel good, and you might find some nuggets of wisdom in there that you can make use of. So find out what she thinks about this, and why she told you Santa was real.

I wouldn't NOT tell her about Santa. My initial idea was to tell her about it but say that he didn't exist.

The compromise my wife came up with just the other day (without any mention from me) was some nonsense about Santa Claus being the "spirit" of the original St. Nicholas (who was real). Not sure what I think of that.

I, too, have wondered what I ought to do about the Santa thing when Britt and I have kids. I never believed in Santa as a kid, and you should have seen the fits I'd throw when they'd stick me on the red-suitted man's lap. I didn't want any part of some old, fat, long-bearded, rosy-cheeked, bespectacled, fashion-starved lunatic who smelled like an old ashtray. He and his candy cane could go to fucking H-E-double-hockey-sticks as far as I was concerned.

I just think about a kid, MY kid, asking me, outright, whether Santa was real. I couldn't lie.... at best I could avoid answering, or answer ambiguously, but I know I couldn't lie.

I guess I have a couple years to figure out such details.

You do not want your daughter to be the kid in playschool or kindergarten who ruins christmas/yule for 29 other children.

My parents raised me with no illusions.

They told me that there is no Santa but that we'd like to think that there was one and that he'd bring us gifts. But there is no Santa so they end up buying the gifts themselves....but they wish there was a Santa....

I had no problem with that.

Why not? They still get their presents... and they learn the truth!

Wait... IS this a male/female thing?

If there's no Santa ... why do the presents?

(A Calvinist Christian friend (yes, I have one of these) and I have had a number of discussions related to the upcoming holiday. Not only are the fun traditions pagan (tree, yule log, giftgiving), but strict Christian tradition does not honor the birth of Christ, because this act, God becoming flesh, debased God, and only the redemption of the Crucifixion restored God's purity. He points out that the one of the first things that Cromwell did in the Reformation was to ban Christmas celebrations, and that for a long time 12/25 was just another day in session in the US congress, with the only days off being Sundays, when church services were held in the Capitol building. Now of course it could be the case that he is just cheap and unwilling to give presents, but that's his story and he's sticking to it.)

What?!!!!! there is no santa???!!


and look at how you turned out, you freakin Vulcan :)

kids NEED fantasy.....they LOVE santa.....why deprive them of it? don't you remember the excitement of christmas eve and listening for reindeer on the roof until you finally fell asleep? cmon! you all got over the realization that there was no physical santa. it became a rite of passage, in a sense. "i'm old enough to know about the santa thing...better not tell little sis""

think, juju

I had plenty of fun on christmas. It was still a big game. See I had the tree in my bed room and I tried to stay awake as long as I possibly could so that I could catch my parents in the act of putting the presents under the tree. I admit that I never made it.

I was just as happy to recieve presnts that I knew came from my parents than the other kids who recieve them from santa. In fact I think I might have been happier because I knew that the presents were from my parents not some kind stranger on the north pole.

It made me even happier when I realized that I got a 'better' present than some other kid. He'd say that it was because he must have been bad that year and that Santa wasn't happy with that....of course I told him the cruel truth about the non existance of Santa and the sad fact that him having a crapy present was just the result of his parents not loving him.

I may not have loved Santa but I sure loved my parents...I still love my mom...my father on the other hand is an ass.

you dirty, low down, no good...........crapeater!

d'you get beat up a lot as a kid?