Vanderburgh is a professor of philosophy. He lives in 4S Ranch.
Before you call me the Grinch, hear me out: I think we should stop teaching kids about Santa Claus.
Santa, despite his reputation for lighthearted fun, is bad for children, bad for parents, bad for the environment and bad for the wider culture. It is time for the old man to retire.
The “miracles” we tell children Santa performs — knowing if you’ve been bad or good, making reindeer fly, traveling to every house in a single night and squeezing his not-insignificant bulk down chimneys that are clearly too small for him, not to mention consuming incredible quantities of milk and cookies without ever stopping for a bathroom break — these are all hidden ways of making children susceptible to superstitious thinking.
The “magic” of Christmas is literally a lie. We shouldn’t want to indoctrinate children this way.
The idea that you should be good because some powerful all-seeing being is watching and you might get in trouble is appropriate for a brief period in a young child’s development. Really, we should be teaching them to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not for external reward and punishment. Some guy in a beard watching your every move is creepy.
The clearest indication that Santa is bad for kids is how upset they get when they learn he is fake. I suppose there is some value in the life lesson that even the people closest to you will lie and manipulate your feelings. But at 7 years old?
The Santa myth is bad for parents, too. It makes us do things we should not do, like lying to our kids, sneaking around trying to fool them and spending far too much money on gifts — money that could have done more for our families if spent in wiser ways. Any of those things would get us on Santa’s naughty list!
That plastic toy your kid might play with for a month, or maybe just an hour, has a lifespan of hundreds of years. Every toy we buy is future garbage; every Amazon truck is half-filled with soon-to-be trash, and the other half is a-bit-later-to-be trash.
I’m not saying kids should have no toys. But so many? Do the toys have to be plastic? And all that packaging? Ruining the future world our children will live in, merely for a few moments of trivial fun they are probably going to forget, is not in anyone’s best interests.
Everything else aside, it would be easier for kids to keep their rooms clean if we didn’t give them mountains of junk!
Besides the environmental harm, the Santa myth promotes consumerism. Owning just to own, buying just to buy. This sets kids up for a lifetime of striving for superficial things that prevent deeper happiness.
Think of all those enslaved elves, toiling away with primitive tools in freezing conditions while being forced to wear demeaning costumes.
That’s a joke, of course. But who is making those toys? If their working conditions were excellent and the toys were still so inexpensive, that really would be a Christmas miracle.
Plus, Santa as portrayed in American culture is a creation of corporations, propaganda to get you to buy stuff. We shouldn’t play along with powerful groups trying to manipulate us into doing things for their good rather than ours.
Santa-culture running rampant also has the effect of making non-Christians — about 36 percent of the U.S. population, according to a recent Pew Research — feel like outsiders in their own country. This cultural dominance is also bad for Christians, who can accidentally slide into the belief that Christianity should dominate just because it does.
For parents who want to keep Santa in their Christmas repertoire, the easy solution is to say that Santa is pretend, just for fun. Treat Santa like Rey Skywalker, Spider-Man and Elsa of Arendelle. Kids won’t love Santa less for being fictional.
Some will accuse me of being a soldier in the war on Christmas, and, yes, I guess I am. Not because I’m offended by well-intentioned greetings, and certainly not because I don’t want you to celebrate your religious holidays. That’s totally your business. My worry is that the way Americans celebrate Christmas — besides being a corruption of the Christmas message — has far-reaching negative effects.
Santa isn’t part of Christian doctrine, so being anti-Santa isn’t being anti-Christian. Go ahead and celebrate Christmas, if that’s your thing. But think about doing it better.
Now don’t get me started about the Elf on the Shelf.
