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Santa and Right Speech
thickpaper
Veteran
I have for a long time felt that we shouldn't lie to kids about Santa, we shouldn't lie to them about anything, IMHO.
Child:Is Santa real?
Adult: Yes
So my question is, as Buddhists, what do you think about this?
namaste
Child:Is Santa real?
Adult: Yes
So my question is, as Buddhists, what do you think about this?
namaste
0
Comments
- Spoken at the right time;
- Spoken with affection;
- Spoken honestly;
- Spoken for the good of others; and
- Spoken with the intent of doing good.
And 'course this:http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.058.than.html
Sure sure, but I wasn't asking for an explanation of right speech:) Rather peoples thoughts on if it applies to telling "fun" lies to kids, eg Santa.
Thanks
As I am not a native of a "buddhist" country I do not know if they have their own sort of equivelent things,though I have never seen some character paraded around on buddhist holidays.
Here's how I see it... a child's head is going to be filled with fantasies whether you put them there or not. You don't have to tell them Santa is real... though storytelling (perhaps including Santa) is perfectly fine. If you're asked whether Santa is real, it's not helpful or 'the right time' to say "no", so you just don't do it. You can say things like "Well, what do you think?" and listen to their answer. Buddha was known to answer with silence as well, so that's an option too.
It calls for a diplomatic answer.
Perhaps we 'shouldn't lie to' children. And then what are you going to do about teaching them the stories we grew up with: Washington and the Founding Fathers, Alfred and the cakes, whether Major Andre was a spy or a hero? We spend our time telling stories to children - and to ourselves because the truth is such a slippery subject.
This, if for no other reason, is why the principles of Right Speech can guide us.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.057.nymo.html
I think I'd borrow the Buddha's method and first say "don't ask me that" and only tell him "no, Santa isn't real" if he persists. I would not go around telling people's children that Santa isn't real, but if a kid approached me and pressed me for an answer I'd have to tell him the truth.
From a kid's POV, I think the fact that presents are left during the night is the main thing. No matter who leaves them.
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.
They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not
comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's,
are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as
compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable
of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity
and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.
He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times
ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
I really don't know why children can't just be told that people exchange presents at Xmas - rather than be told they come from a fat guy with a white beard dressed in a weird red outfit !
.
Agreed, in fact I was quite disappointed when I found out my parents lied to me. I forgive them though...what with all the presents they gave me.
Will you tell them that their parents were children who disobeyed their parents, wet the bed, committed disgraceful acts, were terrified by nightmares? Or will you - as is psychologically healthy - let them introject benign parental images?
As Bonzai Doug says, we should be teaching them the old stories about Saint Nicholas (omitting, perhaps, the boiling of the children) and help them towards generosity rather than the commercial grasping that the Coca Cola 'Santa' encourages.
Do you also refuse to let them decorate the house, send cards or get presents for their friends, all in the name of some 'truth' that makes the world a flat and dull place?
It is not a matter of whether we tell them or not, it is a matter of how we tell them.
Santa is paralleled by Hotei - both mythological fat jolly treat toting characters bringing gifts for children.....not even the remotest connection to to an unskillful application of right speech .... what myth, at its core, is not a fabrication?
Christmas is big at our place ... lots of baking and friends and family - and community activities .... my daughter enjoys the animal shelter work the most followed by mum's fruit mince pies she has just told me ( over my shoulder - lol )
:thumbsup:
Although I could be biased as I was raised in a non-religious household. I imagine that if a child is told Father Christmas is unreal because they can't see him and it's all a story, but at the same time told that Jesus is real despite not being able to see him and only read about him in stories, that might screw up their thinking.
Now that I am agnostic I don't entertain such musings... If my children ask me if Santa is real, I will state that I do not know the answer. It is a lie, but a lesser lie and does not squash their fantasy which is perpetuated by society... Telling your child Santa does not exist would be tantamount to child abuse, instantly labeling you as a despicable parent and child services might be knocking on your door at any time (well,maybe not that bad) but you would be looked down on by all the other parents who gleefully lie to their children all year round...
I'm not planning on having children. But if I were, I'd like to think that I would find other things about Christmas to give them magic and fantasy. The way the holiday is celebrated is annoying to me anyways, but that's probably because I'm a Christmas baby and I'm really tired of sharing my bday with Jesus.
Blame your parents for sexual intercourse on the Feast of the Annunciation!
"Suffering?" Really? I somehow doubt that, but it does depend on how the child was raised.
If you just tell them straight up that he's not real before they entertain thoughts about Santa existing , I doubt there would be any suffering. They'd just be like "oh okay."
But what about when all the other children are having Santa-related fun at Christmas time and they have to know it's all fake? I say let kids be kids and have some fun and fantasy before they have to grow up and get slapped with harsh reality.
Both are mythical entities designed to perpetuate the notion of giving freely, no strings attached, and of being kind and loving.
Santa - or Ho Tei - exists in all of us.
THAT'S the emphasis and basis of teaching kids about the fat guy with the big grin, and the sack....
Also, though I don't think it's an issue that really needs deep analysis from the Buddhist perspective, you could (as has already been noted) use it as expedient means by which to teach giving. When I was growing up, not all the presents were said to come from Father Christmas. Some came from him, and others came from family members who gave to one another. It was a wonderful thing to witness every year and the presence of the fat man in red just helped imprint it deeper in the mind.
And what about all those mince pies left out along with carrots for the reindeer? I'd better still get my karmic recompense for that giving.
Are you actually saying there is no Santa?
I could easily be wrong about all of this, confused and delusional, so I'll just note as a disclaimer that I enjoyed Christmas growing up, still do as far as it goes as an adult, and have nothing against either the overlaying pagan aspects or the true religious aspects of these holidays, only the way in which we carry some of these traditions down through the generations in such a way that would seem to pose greater potential for harm than is worth the artificially-generated joy (authentic love and joy are not extinct...). Oh yeah almost forgot.... all from an American perspective and traditional Christian upbringing, as background.
So then:
Why must it be, with all of the fantasies/games/recreation we can create for enjoyment without posing them as realities, that we can't bring love, joy and contentment to our children without indoctrinating them in multiple traditional fantasies that involve lying repeatedly and misrepresenting known impossibilities/falsehoods as truths with hardly a second thought (and in such repetition, the child having no reason to distrust its parent, these are hammered in good!)… to our own innocent, implicitly trusting, highly impressionable and emotionally vulnerable children, whose core beliefs are conditioned predominantly by what we teach them, how we represent ourselves in relation to them, and the worldview we depict for them? I mean really.
It comes down to giving up the death-grip we hold as our place in the scheme of things; that self-centered perspective from which we begrudge any future-state its due potential unless we get to be a part of it. When we finally do let go of our selves and act out of right view (as a selfless force of nature), we would hold nothing back in helping prepare the future and its population ('specially our kids, who we can bless enormously with unconditional love and guidance in the cultivation of loving-kindness etc.), the best conditions to radiate outward in the hope of bringing some meaningful measure of peace and wisdom to all life, where perhaps suffering would have come to be had we not cared; not considered.
Yeaaaahh, well that's just about all I've got to say about that. If anyone does get through that whole thing, sorry again for the length!
Namaste
I agree..I've heard of children raised from the beginning to know that there is no Santa, and they are simply cautioned by their parents not to "spill the beans" to the other kids. I imagine it's not unlike raising a child to be part of a minority religion, or especially to be a nontheist. Personally, I've often thought that if I had kids, I'd rather they knew that presents came from a finite source of money (e.g., the parents) rather than a source that has no real reason not to supply them with every toy they could imagine (e.g., Santa).
This isn't to say that there is anything "wrong" with telling kids about Santa..just that I don't see it as particularly harmful to a child's sense of imagination, etc, to be told otherwise if it's done carefully and early on. Knowing the difference between reality and fantasy didn't stop me as a child from reading and enjoying fairy tales, writing stories, playing role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, etc.
I might add, that there's nothing "magical" about being a kid and believing everything adults enjoy themselves with stuffing into your tiny, naive head - it's a despicable rape of young minds..
The sooner you learn that one thing is fantasy, fun and games and another is reality the sooner you'll learn to cope with the real world, the real, boring old world..
Chances are your kid won't go nuts fearing the wrath of demons for thinking this or that, fear mutilating themselves by picking nose, fear not having presents at Christmas because they ate one cookie more than they were allowed, fearing god will kill their parents because they're divorced and all the other useless, crippling s*** adults are responsible for..
We should protect our children, not induce them with fear of the supernatural..
One thing more: If Santas real, why shouldn't evil witches, trolls, devils be? Kinda weird that only the good fantasy-creatures like Santa, faeries, god etc. are told to be real, when the very same sources tell about the evil creatures, which for some reason adults say aren't real.....