Maybe it’s just me… but these celebrations of lying just rub me the wrong way: we didn’t lie to our kids.
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“we didn’t lie to our kids.”
Tell that the the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, Santa Claus, and the stork that brought them.
James, if you’re suggesting hypocricy because we told them about “the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the stork that brought them,” we did none of those things.
Bill: I’d have been particularly shocked if you told them that there was an Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.
Winter, nothing to do with religion: plenty of Jewish families tell their kids about Santa Claus so they’ll “fit in.”
Or say “We’re visited by the Chanukah Bear instead.”
What we did do was explain to our kids that if their friends believe in Santa, not to tell them otherwise. This led to our three-year-old humoring a department store Santa thinking HE believed himself to be the real Santa.
A three-year-old’s logic, but he meant well.
Does *anyone* tell kids about the stork anymore.
There’s a well-established psychological and ethical difference about lying about Santa Claus and other supernatural intangibles and outright lies. We can argue (whom am I kidding… we *will* argue) about the difference but on the whole one is considered healthy and the other harmful.
But then again it is quite an assumption to assume all families tell stories of Santa Claus. My parents told me from the start there was no Santa Claus. My sister wanted her daughter to believe in Santa Claus but she always did so in a way that it could clearly be interpreted as a story that makes us feel good if that daughter wanted to see it that way.
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I find this particular lie a little weird. Why not just say “I made a mistake and I burnt it. Cooking is hard and mistakes happen. But it’s still good enough and edible.”
“Burnt food makes you smart” is just weird.
‘Does *anyone* tell kids about the stork anymore.’
I shouldn’t think so . . . when’s the last time anyone saw a stork, at least in USA? Wood storks in FL, yes, but not the kind that roost on roofs (rooves??) as I’ve seen in European story books.
By the time kids start losing teeth, they”re too old to believe in tooth fairies.
The tooth ritual in our house was a hopeless struggle. Money wouldn’t do – it had to be a stuffed animal. Beanie babies at first, some really nice things by the last few teeth. Anyhow, she’d stay awake for uncharacteristic hours just to bust someone trying to slip a toy in on her. Victory was more important than reward.
Bill: Interesting. I don’t think any of my Jewish friends, growing up, were told that there was a Santa Claus. They didn’t celebrate Christmas, so it seems like it would have been weird to tell them that there was a magical being that brought presents to all the good boys and girls, but not to Jews.
(OTOH, when my wife and I took a synagogue interfaith class, much to our surprise, about half the Jews there grew up celebrating Christmas. So there is that.)
We always visited the homes of Christian friends at the holidays, and they visited ours: my kids saw (and helped decorate) Christmas trees, and their friends helped us light our menorah, yet somehow nobody ever got confused.
Granted, I have no direct perspective on this, but… when I see a 10-year-old who apparently still believes in Santa Claus, I have to think she’s conning her parents so she’ll keep getting presents from him.
(Talking about you, J)
I say this as the father of a kid who taught himself how to read and then pretended he COULDN’T read, so we’d keep reading to him.
Bill: But your kids didn’t believe in Santa Claus. It seems easy to explain that different families celebrate different holidays. It seems a little harder to explain that there really is a magic being who gives presents to kids, but only cares about Christian kids. What’s the story there? Is Christianity the one true religion, and he really is a Christian saint? Or is Santa just a bigot?
Winter, you’re asking how *I* explained it to them?
Bill: No, because you didn’t teach them that there really was a magical being. You fall into the “easy to explain that different families celebrate different holidays” category.
But you seemed to be saying that plenty of Jewish families that don’t celebrate Christmas nevertheless tell their kids that there really is a Santa Claus, to help them fit in. Maybe I’m misunderstanding, and you’re just talking about Jewish families that celebrate Christmas? But if I’m understanding correctly, what you’re describing sounds weird to me.
I don’t think my parents ever tried to convince me to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Stork, etc. Or if they did, I don’t believe it ever “took.” (On the other hand, I grew up in small-town northern Minnesota where even Catholics were considered somewhat outre, and didn’t meet a Jewish person until I went off to college, wo I might have had reason to think that Santa Claus and Jews were approximately equally mythical. I didn’t see an African-American, other than on television and such, until I was something like sixteen, either. The locals who were into superiority games mostly had to make do with being snarky about Catholics, ‘Indians,’ and a couple of local Mennonites, which I guess in retrospect must have cramped their style severely.)
These days, I consider myself a Fortean, so I’m not going to say that I’m *absolutely* sure that Santa Claus etc. doesn’t exist, in some sense. I’m willing however to go with the working hypothesis that it is really, really, really, really, really, realy, really unlikely.
I’ve been told some of these “lies” – in fact, I think all the strips other than this one got a nod of recognition from me. This one just sounds weird. Didn’t bother me, either at the time or now – or when I figured out it wasn’t true. I still “believe” in Santa Claus, because it’s more fun that way – though my dad started writing “from Sandy Claws” when I was about 10 (and my youngest sibling was 4).
” if you’re suggesting hypocricy because we told them about “the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the stork that brought them,” we did none of those things.”
Who is “we” in the quoted passage?
You missed the point. The truth is, there are some subjects that children aren’t ready for the full readout on. So the kids get simplified, or flat-out nonsensical answers when they ask about them. “Where do babies come from?” is an example. For some, “why aren’t mommy and daddy together any more?” is another. But that’s a habit that’s easy to fall into, and giving super-simplified, or flat-out nonsensical answers to questions can reach a humorous point. That point maybe farther away for some than for others.
I would take the position that I don’t like to my kid, either. But we went through a very prolonged, and challenging, custody fight. I could have answered “mommy’s flat-out nuts, and getting bad advice, too” when she asked what all the fuss was about, but I didn’t. But I also limited the discussion, usually avoiding the topic, if possible. A lot of it boiled down to “mommmy doesn’t understand”. UNLIKE my ex, I didn’t try to use my daughter as a proxy. I had to say, “no, that’s not what’s going to happen” quite a bit, because my ex would fill the kid’s head with ideas about how things were going to be once the kid went to live with mommy. Eventually, the kid figured out for herself that what her dad said was true, and what her mom said… sounded good.
Well, to get back to the comic, the Monday strip had Tia Carmen tell the little girl if she kept pouting, a bird would build a nest on her lower lip. I asked my (Latina) wife if her mother had ever told her that and she chuckled and said “yes”. This is not so much about the lies as about cultural commonality. Different cultures, regions, etc. have their stories, but everyone can relate to the parent telling the kid a harmless lie. “Keep making that face and it’s going to freeze like that permanently.” My mother was notorious for burning supper. If we balked, she’d say, “go ahead and eat it, carbon is good for you.” We knew she wasn’t being serious, kids ain’t stoopid.
“You’re not really old enough for a complete answer, so here’s a simplified version” is way different from responding with a lie.
And sometimes all the kid wants is the simple version (I know I mentioned the adoption story a few weeks ago).
And on the other hand sometimes they want detail after detail. Ever been cross-examined by a 2 1/2-year-old about a friend’s miscarriage? Parenting only gets easier from there.
Growing up, I knew a lot of kids who believed all the “Keep making that face and it’s going to freeze like that permanently” warnings. I also had a third grade teacher who must have had an “Insane Warnings For Little Kids” calendar, because she never ran out of them.
She was, by the way, a horrid woman — and after reconnecting with elementary school friends on Facebook decades later, I discovered she was actually far worse than I’d thought. Seems she really was all about scaring kids.
James, “we” means my wife and me. Or am I misunderstanding your question?
“Eat your soup if you want to grow up”. I hated soup. I hated the scary lie.
“Eat your soup if you want to grow up”
Good lord, was that a threat?
@ WW: No, the one true religion is Islam. God just kept trying until he got it right with Monotheistic Desert Superstitions 3.0.
I remember my mother saying “eat your dinner and you’ll grow up to be big and strong” and my little brother (aged 5 or so) responding by trying another bit and then pushing the plate away, announcing “I’m big and strong enough now”.
Fraudulent tales are not just told to children. Remember “eat your carrots and you’ll see in the dark”? Maybe that is only a UK saying. This sort of thing was apparently told to the adult UK population during 1941 to account for the high success rate of night-fighter pilot Cat’s Eyes Cunningham, in order to 1) increase consumption of healthy carrots and 2) to hide the fact Cunningham was using secret airborne radar to home in on bomber streams. Info from the authoritative World Carrot Museum. http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/raf.html
I see Cunningham did more: “July 1949 made the maiden test flight in the Comet, the first passenger jet” and then helped investigate its crashes, and “1962 flew the first Trident airliner”. My father flew both those types between 1963 and 1968.
Hey guys, it’s the off-season. Leave poor Santa alone.
One a more serious note, I’m not happy with the tone of the latter half of this discussion. SingaporeBill’s post above comes across to me as particularly disrespectful.
I’d like to think this is an inclusive community.
@ Grawlix – I have to admit that my jaw dropped when I first read that comment, but when I read it again, I came to the conclusion that it might have been intended as (rather extreme) satire. The “3.0” seems to indicate that he is equating all three of the world’s monotheistic religions with “superstition”. However, even if it is an equal-opportunity slam, it’s still a little harsh for those who don’t like their personal life philosophy insulted.
“Burnt food makes you smart” apparently it doesn’t make you smart enough to not burn your food!
“‘You’re not really old enough for a complete answer, so here’s a simplified version’ is way different from responding with a lie.”
Different, sure. WAY different? Not buying it. In any case, “here’s a simplified version” is ONE OF the possible responses parents (and others) can take. Another is the flat-out nonsensinsical answer. I don’t want to talk about reproduction with a three-year-old, so I start talking about storks, or cabbage leaves. Another is just ducking the question… “You’ll understand better when you get older” or “it’s not polite to ask that”
So, looping around to this comic, the humor comes from the fact that there are all these lies that have been told to children, and parents can (mostly) appreciate the way that these stories get spread around like a shared mythology.
This guy is messing with his kid. Big whoop I say. As woozy said earlier, there is a big difference between something like this and an outright lie. Cidu Bill, it’s funny that you mentioned the horrid teacher who gave insane warnings to kids because my 6th grade teacher would make things up and he was probably the best teacher I ever had. One time he told us that you can get rid of a tapeworm by pouring a glass of milk and opening your mouth to draw it out. The proper response when finding out it’s not true is “Good one!”.
CIDU Bill: it was, in France, in the 70’s and 80’s. That and “Think about the starving Chinese children”.
Some comedian or comedy show had the response, ‘Then put it in an envelope and send it to THEM!’
It was the standard response from sulky children (about the sending, not the envelope); I was then slapped for insolence. I was also spanked (and I was not the only one in those days) to teach me not to use violence. Education is a bizarre thing: I’m glad not to have children to deal with.
Narmitaj: in our family, carrots were said to make one amiable; they were also said to make one’s thighs pink; and finally to give one good eyesight, because “one never sees rabbits wearing glasses”.
Grawlix, to be clear, I wasn’t trashing Santa (who does visit my house to give presents to my Jewish kids every year), or calling him a bigot. I was trying to demonstrate why it seems like it would be difficult for a parent to give their kids a satisfactory explanation that there really was a Santa Claus, but that he didn’t visit their house because they were Jewish. i.e. the explanations I gave were examples of unsatisfactory explanations. My apologies for setting a poor tone.
The connection between eyesight and carrots isn’t totally nonsense. And I could believe that a parent who made exaggerated claims about might have been passing on a myth that they believed, rather than just lying.
My dad used to lie to me all the time – he thought it was funny. When I was small, I saw someone take out his teeth. When I told my dad, he said that if I brushed my teeth really well, I’d be able to take mine out too. My sister could pedal her bike backward (with hand brakes), and my dad said if I polished my bike a lot, I’d be able to do it too. Lots of times like that.
The upshot was, once I found out he lied all the time, I never believed whatever he told me. It wasn’t so funny then.
Is spanking a child to teach him not to use violence any different from imprisoning kidnappers?
Grawlix, I’m sorry, I’m confused: If a Jewish family isn’t going to be “visited by” Santa, why tell the kids he’s real at all?
I really can’t remember ever believing Santa was literally a flesh-and-blood person, though I’m sure my parents told me he was. I just figured he was part of the make-believe of the holiday, like the Easter Bunny. Or the Great Pumpkin.
Wait, The Great Pumpkin ISN’T real? Geez, “spoiler alert” next time!
(Of course, I DID know The Great Pumpkin isn’t “flesh and blood.” That would be a case of pulp fiction.)
“The upshot was, once I found out he lied all the time, I never believed whatever he told me. It wasn’t so funny then.”
When done correctly, you end up with a kid who is actively skeptical, rather than one that simply doesn’t trust anyone. (Sometimes the right answer to a child asking “why is (x)?” is “what do you think?”)
The human-brain is a powerful pattern-matching computer… the brain will look for the missing piece of the puzzle, and fill it in. Children don’t have the full range of patterns loaded in yet, so their results are less reliable than are adults’.
One of my parents once tried to encourage my brother to finish his food by saying: “Yum, yum, eat it up!“, to which he instantly replied: “Yuck, yuck, spit it out!“
Little Rascals reference?
@ Bill – That is entirely possible, but I was not aware of it (neither then nor now).
@ Grawlix: “Superstition” IS me being respectful in my definition of religion. Inclusive =/= homogeneous.
@ Kilby: You are correct. It was a jape based on WW’s “one true religion” comment. Lest anyone feel singled out, I consider all religion superstition. Why is that any more insulting than CIDU Bill mentioning his adherence to the tenets of Judaism or anyone else mentioning they’re a Christian or a Buddhist? Adhering to one religion means rejecting the others.
I lost all the standard childhood lies in one go, when I was about four. Some older kid at school told me that Santa Claus wasn’t real. So I asked my father if Santa was real and he told me “no”. This was followed immediately by the unravelling of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. This did not represent an actual change in operations, though. Christmas presents still had “From Santa” tags, there were still candy eggs hidden away, and I still got money for missing teeth. It was still a bit of fun we could have.
SBill, you can have a set of beliefs, religious or otherwise, and still respect other people and their beliefs.
(Within reason, of course: I don’t feel compelled to respect somebody’s belief that slavery is acceptable or that Pineapple pizza is food)
There was a short — probably banned for the past 50-odd years — where the kids were being chased by a cannibal (or somebody they believe was a cannibal) who kept shouting “Yum, yum, eat’em up!” I remember this because my brother loved that short and ran around shouting “Yum, yum, eat’em up!”
I could definitely see him saying that to kid while feeding him.
…or, of course, this could just be coincidence.
@ CIDU Bill: I don’t have to respect the beliefs (or I would be an adherent of the religion) but I very much respect someone’s right to both hold them and to express them. I’m even happy to participate in their celebration of them. I’ll gladly go to a Christmas party, attend a Bar Mitzvah (and wear the kippah), or partake in an Eid feast at the end of Ramadan. If I’m preparing a meal, I’ll ensure it is compliant with any dietary restrictions my guests have. I won’t pray or take part in the sacraments of someone else’s religion as I consider it an insult for me to do so as a non-believer.
Eating just pineapple on a pizza is crazy. You have to have to have ham on there as well. So if you keep kosher, I can understand your distaste for pineapple on a pizza.
@ CIDU Bill: “Is spanking a child to teach him not to use violence any different from imprisoning kidnappers?”
Did you intend that to go on the domestic violence comic? Regardless, I’ll answer.
Imprisoning kidnappers is the adult equivalent of being sent to your room, not spanking. The adult equivalent of spanking is any of the many forms of corporal punishment.
I think the problem here is semantical: I don’t use “respect one’s beliefs” in the sense of necessarily agreeing with them, and I agree with every specific you mentioned.
For the record, very few Jews in America keep Kosher: pineapple pizza offends me because of my respect for pizza.
The first time I was offered pineapple pizza — back in 1994 — I thought it was a joke.
I was raised Atheist, but converted to Agnosticism. It’s all mythology; can’t be proven either way, and would it make any difference in my life, either way? No.
CIDU Bill: as an adult, I can see why imprisoning kidnappers could lead to satori and make the punishment worthwhile; but as a child, I just saw the inconsistency of using violence to teach non-violence.
For the record, the standard German name for “pizza topped with ham and pineapple” is (no joke) “Pizza Hawaii“. It can be found in the frozen food section of most supermarkets, and most pizza places offer it as a standard menu item. There’s also a snackbar item called “Toast Hawaii” (a slice of toasted bread topped with slices of pineapple, ham, and cheese, in that order). I would never order either one.
“Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of mitosis, one molecule of the Krebs Cycle; and yet… and yet you act as if there is some life in the world, as if there is some… some biology in the universe by which it may be understood.”
I got two words for ya Pratchett: Emergent Phenomena.
Kilby, “Pizza Hawaii” should have pineapple and spam, not ham.
Okay, now I don’t want to finish my breakfast.
In “Sapiens”, Yuval Harari argues that the ability to “believe it what’s not there” is a very human thing, something no other humanoids (Neanderthals, etc) had. And the belief in justice, community, altruism, etc has certainly served us well.
Certain other beliefs — not so well. My own view is that organized religion is about half of each.
Still, there is no reason to believe we actually need to “practice” on the small lies to take in the big lies.
I can still enjoy Terry Pratchett, though.
@Chak: Since I like Spam, a pineapple and Spam pizza actually sounds pretty good to me. But I think the usual ham and Spam is probably still better. Could use some black olives as well on either combination, though.
I should point out that when I was in Berlin, I was given pizza with corn as a topping — so I don’t really trust the Germans with the whole concept of pizza.
Bill: I had corn as a topping on a pizza last week, here in the good old U. S. of A.
Shrug, not black olives, green ones. much better
@CIDU Bill: You would not survive Japan.
They have no qualms about putting just anything on pizza. They have no limits. Including mayonnaise.
One of my favourites was the NTT from Pizza Willy (which does not have a website). NTT is Nippon Telephone and Telegraph. For decades it was the monopoly phone company. The Pizza Willy NTT was, then a little joke they were having. It was topped with Nasu (roasted eggplant), Tomato (tomato) and Tsuna (tuna). Considering the Japanese have actual Japanese word for tuna (maguro), you might think this little joke on their leans too heavily on English. However, tsuna (a localized pronunciation of tuna) is usually used to mean canned tuna. The NTT was a pretty odd combination of toppings (no mayonnaise though!) but it was actually pretty tasty.
SBill, I’d survive Japan: I just wouldn’t order pizza there.
I already know never to order it in Chicago, after all.
I need to ask my son whether he tried pizza when he was in Japan: unlike me, he’ll try anything, the weirder the better. Tuna and eggplant on pizza? Bring it on.
‘I already know never to order it in Chicago, after all.’
@Chak: I agree that I generally prefer green olives over black olives on my pizza, but I don’t think I’d like them on my ham and pineapple pizzas. (The one “choose your own ingredients” speciality pizza we frequently order is Geona salami, feta cheese, and green olives.)
On the other hand, I do have limits, and find the idea of allowing chicken on a pizza to be fairly disgusting (though as I recall the one or two times I tried, it wasn’t too bad).
///Maybe it would help if the chicken were dead, instead of just standing on it? (Rimshot)
There is One True Pizza, and all others are abominations before God.
Growing up (through my 4th birthday as we moved after same) I would go to see Santa in NYC. My dad would take me to his office on Dec 24 due to the logic of no one will be upset as no is working anyway (this part continued at least a decade after my 4th birthday) – downtown Manhattan. When dad and my uncle (mom’s brother shared an office with dad) had coffee, instant made with a coil that boiled the water, I would have cocoa. The two of us would have lunch out at a luncheonette with low stools (I could climb on them myself) and I would have macaroni and cheese – the waitress would insist on taking it out of the baking dish and putting it on plate so it would cool off faster. We would walk around in and out of shops and I would visit Santa. (It might have been Macys, but I don’t remember taking the subway to go to Santa.) When I was older (and my sisters were joining us for this tradition) dad moved to a fancier office with shared spaces lwith other attorneys (he was the only attorney/accountant on the floor) he asked if anyone would mind or be upset if he brought us in. Next thing he knew the secretaries (for the other attorneys – he never had one – I used to pretend I was his) were collecting for a Christmas Eve day party for everyone’s children – and attorneys can get good free toys from clients to hand out to the kids.
We did not have a tree. The only Christmas decorations we had were a Styrofoam Santa and a Styrofoam Rudolph Reindeer that I had somehow acquired. They were placed on the top of the console TV – why there? Well, when I asked how I would get gifts from Santa when we did not have a fireplace, I was told (talk about lies) that when there is fireplace, Santa comes out of the TV. And sure enough Christmas morning there would be Christmas gifts in front of the TV for me. Of course as I aged I knew the gifts were from my parents – but found out sometime in my 20s or 30s that they were not. It seems that some clients would give my dad a Christmas gift “for his little girl” and the fellow who worked as the foreman at my grandfather’s factory would give him a Christmas gift for me also.
When I was in elementary school we had a Christmas tree in the classroom and we all made decorations and put them on the tree – my parents told me that was okay. We had a “Christmas gift exchange” in the class. (Even Robert cannot understand the crucifix corsage someone gave me as a gift in third grade in the exchange.)
Robert still believes in Santa. Christmas Eve he goes up to bed and I have to sneak out his (now meager and purchased by him for him) gifts and put them under the tree. His nieces – aged 17 and 9 still supposedly believe in Santa – we figure they just say that so their crazy mom doesn’t stop giving them gifts (excessively) for Christmas.
There is a family story – when my mom was a little girl her parents – Jewish immigrants (separately – they met in NYC) trying to be American took mom to see Santa. She was seated on his lap. He asked the big Santa question “What do you want for Christmas?” My mom looked up at him and said “I’m not a goy.” Santa (in those long ago times not knowing the word) said to her “I know you are a girl, not a boy?” My grandparents grabbed her and ran.
We were not allowed to buy Valentines or Valentine gifts for either set of grandparents as it is a Christian holiday. It is after all St. Valentine’s Day. We made a big deal of it in at our house – straight through to when we all had husbands, but we were not allowed to include our grandparents.
Now I decorate the house for Robert – in excess as my reference for the decorating is not what my family did when I was young – but every Christmas movie I have ever seen. My family still has no Christmas decorations at any of their homes.
I learned in adult life there were other lies – but ones I agree should have been told to a child – such as about extended family in Europe World War II.
“. . . such as about extended family in Europe World War II.”
That is a loaded, thought- and curiosity-provoking statement . . . care to elucidate on it?
Andréa – They died in the Holocaust. I did not know this until I grown.
Until the last year of his life (he died in 2014 at 90), my father refused to speak about his times in the Nazi slave labor camps. To me, at least; he did speak about it to my two husbands. By the time he did talk about it, I no longer knew whether to believe everything he said, and there was no longer anyone alive to ask for verification. And I then thought to myself, ‘Does it matter anymore? I know it affected his life, and those of his wife and daughter. Do I really need to know about all this sadness now?’
Andréa – In my case I was under the impression that all of my grandparents’ families were here in the US before anything happened. My maternal grandfather was the oldest of around 17 children and he came here when he was 17. (The last children he never met as they were born after he left.) I did not know that most of them were killed along with his parents. I knew one of his sisters and one of his brothers. I also knew a nephew of his that lived through the war and went to Israel and then immigrated here. I just presumed the other family members were elsewhere, they were not. I can understand not being told about the rest of his family when I was a child.
Comics I Don't Understand 
“we didn’t lie to our kids.”
Tell that the the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, Santa Claus, and the stork that brought them.
James, if you’re suggesting hypocricy because we told them about “the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the stork that brought them,” we did none of those things.
Bill: I’d have been particularly shocked if you told them that there was an Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.
Winter, nothing to do with religion: plenty of Jewish families tell their kids about Santa Claus so they’ll “fit in.”
Or say “We’re visited by the Chanukah Bear instead.”
What we did do was explain to our kids that if their friends believe in Santa, not to tell them otherwise. This led to our three-year-old humoring a department store Santa thinking HE believed himself to be the real Santa.
A three-year-old’s logic, but he meant well.
Does *anyone* tell kids about the stork anymore.
There’s a well-established psychological and ethical difference about lying about Santa Claus and other supernatural intangibles and outright lies. We can argue (whom am I kidding… we *will* argue) about the difference but on the whole one is considered healthy and the other harmful.
But then again it is quite an assumption to assume all families tell stories of Santa Claus. My parents told me from the start there was no Santa Claus. My sister wanted her daughter to believe in Santa Claus but she always did so in a way that it could clearly be interpreted as a story that makes us feel good if that daughter wanted to see it that way.
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I find this particular lie a little weird. Why not just say “I made a mistake and I burnt it. Cooking is hard and mistakes happen. But it’s still good enough and edible.”
“Burnt food makes you smart” is just weird.
‘Does *anyone* tell kids about the stork anymore.’
I shouldn’t think so . . . when’s the last time anyone saw a stork, at least in USA? Wood storks in FL, yes, but not the kind that roost on roofs (rooves??) as I’ve seen in European story books.
By the time kids start losing teeth, they”re too old to believe in tooth fairies.
The tooth ritual in our house was a hopeless struggle. Money wouldn’t do – it had to be a stuffed animal. Beanie babies at first, some really nice things by the last few teeth. Anyhow, she’d stay awake for uncharacteristic hours just to bust someone trying to slip a toy in on her. Victory was more important than reward.
Bill: Interesting. I don’t think any of my Jewish friends, growing up, were told that there was a Santa Claus. They didn’t celebrate Christmas, so it seems like it would have been weird to tell them that there was a magical being that brought presents to all the good boys and girls, but not to Jews.
(OTOH, when my wife and I took a synagogue interfaith class, much to our surprise, about half the Jews there grew up celebrating Christmas. So there is that.)
We always visited the homes of Christian friends at the holidays, and they visited ours: my kids saw (and helped decorate) Christmas trees, and their friends helped us light our menorah, yet somehow nobody ever got confused.
Granted, I have no direct perspective on this, but… when I see a 10-year-old who apparently still believes in Santa Claus, I have to think she’s conning her parents so she’ll keep getting presents from him.
(Talking about you, J)
I say this as the father of a kid who taught himself how to read and then pretended he COULDN’T read, so we’d keep reading to him.
Bill: But your kids didn’t believe in Santa Claus. It seems easy to explain that different families celebrate different holidays. It seems a little harder to explain that there really is a magic being who gives presents to kids, but only cares about Christian kids. What’s the story there? Is Christianity the one true religion, and he really is a Christian saint? Or is Santa just a bigot?
Winter, you’re asking how *I* explained it to them?
Bill: No, because you didn’t teach them that there really was a magical being. You fall into the “easy to explain that different families celebrate different holidays” category.
But you seemed to be saying that plenty of Jewish families that don’t celebrate Christmas nevertheless tell their kids that there really is a Santa Claus, to help them fit in. Maybe I’m misunderstanding, and you’re just talking about Jewish families that celebrate Christmas? But if I’m understanding correctly, what you’re describing sounds weird to me.
I don’t think my parents ever tried to convince me to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Stork, etc. Or if they did, I don’t believe it ever “took.” (On the other hand, I grew up in small-town northern Minnesota where even Catholics were considered somewhat outre, and didn’t meet a Jewish person until I went off to college, wo I might have had reason to think that Santa Claus and Jews were approximately equally mythical. I didn’t see an African-American, other than on television and such, until I was something like sixteen, either. The locals who were into superiority games mostly had to make do with being snarky about Catholics, ‘Indians,’ and a couple of local Mennonites, which I guess in retrospect must have cramped their style severely.)
These days, I consider myself a Fortean, so I’m not going to say that I’m *absolutely* sure that Santa Claus etc. doesn’t exist, in some sense. I’m willing however to go with the working hypothesis that it is really, really, really, really, really, realy, really unlikely.
I’ve been told some of these “lies” – in fact, I think all the strips other than this one got a nod of recognition from me. This one just sounds weird. Didn’t bother me, either at the time or now – or when I figured out it wasn’t true. I still “believe” in Santa Claus, because it’s more fun that way – though my dad started writing “from Sandy Claws” when I was about 10 (and my youngest sibling was 4).
” if you’re suggesting hypocricy because we told them about “the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the stork that brought them,” we did none of those things.”
Who is “we” in the quoted passage?
You missed the point. The truth is, there are some subjects that children aren’t ready for the full readout on. So the kids get simplified, or flat-out nonsensical answers when they ask about them. “Where do babies come from?” is an example. For some, “why aren’t mommy and daddy together any more?” is another. But that’s a habit that’s easy to fall into, and giving super-simplified, or flat-out nonsensical answers to questions can reach a humorous point. That point maybe farther away for some than for others.
I would take the position that I don’t like to my kid, either. But we went through a very prolonged, and challenging, custody fight. I could have answered “mommy’s flat-out nuts, and getting bad advice, too” when she asked what all the fuss was about, but I didn’t. But I also limited the discussion, usually avoiding the topic, if possible. A lot of it boiled down to “mommmy doesn’t understand”. UNLIKE my ex, I didn’t try to use my daughter as a proxy. I had to say, “no, that’s not what’s going to happen” quite a bit, because my ex would fill the kid’s head with ideas about how things were going to be once the kid went to live with mommy. Eventually, the kid figured out for herself that what her dad said was true, and what her mom said… sounded good.
Well, to get back to the comic, the Monday strip had Tia Carmen tell the little girl if she kept pouting, a bird would build a nest on her lower lip. I asked my (Latina) wife if her mother had ever told her that and she chuckled and said “yes”. This is not so much about the lies as about cultural commonality. Different cultures, regions, etc. have their stories, but everyone can relate to the parent telling the kid a harmless lie. “Keep making that face and it’s going to freeze like that permanently.” My mother was notorious for burning supper. If we balked, she’d say, “go ahead and eat it, carbon is good for you.” We knew she wasn’t being serious, kids ain’t stoopid.
“You’re not really old enough for a complete answer, so here’s a simplified version” is way different from responding with a lie.
And sometimes all the kid wants is the simple version (I know I mentioned the adoption story a few weeks ago).
And on the other hand sometimes they want detail after detail. Ever been cross-examined by a 2 1/2-year-old about a friend’s miscarriage? Parenting only gets easier from there.
Growing up, I knew a lot of kids who believed all the “Keep making that face and it’s going to freeze like that permanently” warnings. I also had a third grade teacher who must have had an “Insane Warnings For Little Kids” calendar, because she never ran out of them.
She was, by the way, a horrid woman — and after reconnecting with elementary school friends on Facebook decades later, I discovered she was actually far worse than I’d thought. Seems she really was all about scaring kids.
James, “we” means my wife and me. Or am I misunderstanding your question?
“Eat your soup if you want to grow up”. I hated soup. I hated the scary lie.
“Eat your soup if you want to grow up”
Good lord, was that a threat?
@ WW: No, the one true religion is Islam. God just kept trying until he got it right with Monotheistic Desert Superstitions 3.0.
I remember my mother saying “eat your dinner and you’ll grow up to be big and strong” and my little brother (aged 5 or so) responding by trying another bit and then pushing the plate away, announcing “I’m big and strong enough now”.
Fraudulent tales are not just told to children. Remember “eat your carrots and you’ll see in the dark”? Maybe that is only a UK saying. This sort of thing was apparently told to the adult UK population during 1941 to account for the high success rate of night-fighter pilot Cat’s Eyes Cunningham, in order to 1) increase consumption of healthy carrots and 2) to hide the fact Cunningham was using secret airborne radar to home in on bomber streams. Info from the authoritative World Carrot Museum. http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/raf.html
I see Cunningham did more: “July 1949 made the maiden test flight in the Comet, the first passenger jet” and then helped investigate its crashes, and “1962 flew the first Trident airliner”. My father flew both those types between 1963 and 1968.
Hey guys, it’s the off-season. Leave poor Santa alone.
One a more serious note, I’m not happy with the tone of the latter half of this discussion. SingaporeBill’s post above comes across to me as particularly disrespectful.
I’d like to think this is an inclusive community.
@ Grawlix – I have to admit that my jaw dropped when I first read that comment, but when I read it again, I came to the conclusion that it might have been intended as (rather extreme) satire. The “3.0” seems to indicate that he is equating all three of the world’s monotheistic religions with “superstition”. However, even if it is an equal-opportunity slam, it’s still a little harsh for those who don’t like their personal life philosophy insulted.
“Burnt food makes you smart” apparently it doesn’t make you smart enough to not burn your food!
“‘You’re not really old enough for a complete answer, so here’s a simplified version’ is way different from responding with a lie.”
Different, sure. WAY different? Not buying it. In any case, “here’s a simplified version” is ONE OF the possible responses parents (and others) can take. Another is the flat-out nonsensinsical answer. I don’t want to talk about reproduction with a three-year-old, so I start talking about storks, or cabbage leaves. Another is just ducking the question… “You’ll understand better when you get older” or “it’s not polite to ask that”
So, looping around to this comic, the humor comes from the fact that there are all these lies that have been told to children, and parents can (mostly) appreciate the way that these stories get spread around like a shared mythology.
This guy is messing with his kid. Big whoop I say. As woozy said earlier, there is a big difference between something like this and an outright lie. Cidu Bill, it’s funny that you mentioned the horrid teacher who gave insane warnings to kids because my 6th grade teacher would make things up and he was probably the best teacher I ever had. One time he told us that you can get rid of a tapeworm by pouring a glass of milk and opening your mouth to draw it out. The proper response when finding out it’s not true is “Good one!”.
CIDU Bill: it was, in France, in the 70’s and 80’s. That and “Think about the starving Chinese children”.
Some comedian or comedy show had the response, ‘Then put it in an envelope and send it to THEM!’
It was the standard response from sulky children (about the sending, not the envelope); I was then slapped for insolence. I was also spanked (and I was not the only one in those days) to teach me not to use violence. Education is a bizarre thing: I’m glad not to have children to deal with.
Narmitaj: in our family, carrots were said to make one amiable; they were also said to make one’s thighs pink; and finally to give one good eyesight, because “one never sees rabbits wearing glasses”.
Grawlix, to be clear, I wasn’t trashing Santa (who does visit my house to give presents to my Jewish kids every year), or calling him a bigot. I was trying to demonstrate why it seems like it would be difficult for a parent to give their kids a satisfactory explanation that there really was a Santa Claus, but that he didn’t visit their house because they were Jewish. i.e. the explanations I gave were examples of unsatisfactory explanations. My apologies for setting a poor tone.
The connection between eyesight and carrots isn’t totally nonsense. And I could believe that a parent who made exaggerated claims about might have been passing on a myth that they believed, rather than just lying.
https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/fact-fiction-myths-about-eyes#1
My dad used to lie to me all the time – he thought it was funny. When I was small, I saw someone take out his teeth. When I told my dad, he said that if I brushed my teeth really well, I’d be able to take mine out too. My sister could pedal her bike backward (with hand brakes), and my dad said if I polished my bike a lot, I’d be able to do it too. Lots of times like that.
The upshot was, once I found out he lied all the time, I never believed whatever he told me. It wasn’t so funny then.
Is spanking a child to teach him not to use violence any different from imprisoning kidnappers?
Grawlix, I’m sorry, I’m confused: If a Jewish family isn’t going to be “visited by” Santa, why tell the kids he’s real at all?
I really can’t remember ever believing Santa was literally a flesh-and-blood person, though I’m sure my parents told me he was. I just figured he was part of the make-believe of the holiday, like the Easter Bunny. Or the Great Pumpkin.
Wait, The Great Pumpkin ISN’T real? Geez, “spoiler alert” next time!
(Of course, I DID know The Great Pumpkin isn’t “flesh and blood.” That would be a case of pulp fiction.)
“The upshot was, once I found out he lied all the time, I never believed whatever he told me. It wasn’t so funny then.”
When done correctly, you end up with a kid who is actively skeptical, rather than one that simply doesn’t trust anyone. (Sometimes the right answer to a child asking “why is (x)?” is “what do you think?”)
The human-brain is a powerful pattern-matching computer… the brain will look for the missing piece of the puzzle, and fill it in. Children don’t have the full range of patterns loaded in yet, so their results are less reliable than are adults’.
One of my parents once tried to encourage my brother to finish his food by saying: “Yum, yum, eat it up!“, to which he instantly replied: “Yuck, yuck, spit it out!“
Little Rascals reference?
@ Bill – That is entirely possible, but I was not aware of it (neither then nor now).
@ Grawlix: “Superstition” IS me being respectful in my definition of religion. Inclusive =/= homogeneous.
@ Kilby: You are correct. It was a jape based on WW’s “one true religion” comment. Lest anyone feel singled out, I consider all religion superstition. Why is that any more insulting than CIDU Bill mentioning his adherence to the tenets of Judaism or anyone else mentioning they’re a Christian or a Buddhist? Adhering to one religion means rejecting the others.
I lost all the standard childhood lies in one go, when I was about four. Some older kid at school told me that Santa Claus wasn’t real. So I asked my father if Santa was real and he told me “no”. This was followed immediately by the unravelling of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. This did not represent an actual change in operations, though. Christmas presents still had “From Santa” tags, there were still candy eggs hidden away, and I still got money for missing teeth. It was still a bit of fun we could have.
SBill, you can have a set of beliefs, religious or otherwise, and still respect other people and their beliefs.
(Within reason, of course: I don’t feel compelled to respect somebody’s belief that slavery is acceptable or that Pineapple pizza is food)
There was a short — probably banned for the past 50-odd years — where the kids were being chased by a cannibal (or somebody they believe was a cannibal) who kept shouting “Yum, yum, eat’em up!” I remember this because my brother loved that short and ran around shouting “Yum, yum, eat’em up!”
I could definitely see him saying that to kid while feeding him.
…or, of course, this could just be coincidence.
@ CIDU Bill: I don’t have to respect the beliefs (or I would be an adherent of the religion) but I very much respect someone’s right to both hold them and to express them. I’m even happy to participate in their celebration of them. I’ll gladly go to a Christmas party, attend a Bar Mitzvah (and wear the kippah), or partake in an Eid feast at the end of Ramadan. If I’m preparing a meal, I’ll ensure it is compliant with any dietary restrictions my guests have. I won’t pray or take part in the sacraments of someone else’s religion as I consider it an insult for me to do so as a non-believer.
Eating just pineapple on a pizza is crazy. You have to have to have ham on there as well. So if you keep kosher, I can understand your distaste for pineapple on a pizza.
@ CIDU Bill: “Is spanking a child to teach him not to use violence any different from imprisoning kidnappers?”
Did you intend that to go on the domestic violence comic? Regardless, I’ll answer.
Imprisoning kidnappers is the adult equivalent of being sent to your room, not spanking. The adult equivalent of spanking is any of the many forms of corporal punishment.
I think the problem here is semantical: I don’t use “respect one’s beliefs” in the sense of necessarily agreeing with them, and I agree with every specific you mentioned.
For the record, very few Jews in America keep Kosher: pineapple pizza offends me because of my respect for pizza.
The first time I was offered pineapple pizza — back in 1994 — I thought it was a joke.
I was raised Atheist, but converted to Agnosticism. It’s all mythology; can’t be proven either way, and would it make any difference in my life, either way? No.
CIDU Bill: as an adult, I can see why imprisoning kidnappers could lead to satori and make the punishment worthwhile; but as a child, I just saw the inconsistency of using violence to teach non-violence.
For the record, the standard German name for “pizza topped with ham and pineapple” is (no joke) “Pizza Hawaii“. It can be found in the frozen food section of most supermarkets, and most pizza places offer it as a standard menu item. There’s also a snackbar item called “Toast Hawaii” (a slice of toasted bread topped with slices of pineapple, ham, and cheese, in that order). I would never order either one.
“Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of mitosis, one molecule of the Krebs Cycle; and yet… and yet you act as if there is some life in the world, as if there is some… some biology in the universe by which it may be understood.”
I got two words for ya Pratchett: Emergent Phenomena.
Kilby, “Pizza Hawaii” should have pineapple and spam, not ham.
Okay, now I don’t want to finish my breakfast.
In “Sapiens”, Yuval Harari argues that the ability to “believe it what’s not there” is a very human thing, something no other humanoids (Neanderthals, etc) had. And the belief in justice, community, altruism, etc has certainly served us well.
Certain other beliefs — not so well. My own view is that organized religion is about half of each.
Still, there is no reason to believe we actually need to “practice” on the small lies to take in the big lies.
I can still enjoy Terry Pratchett, though.
@Chak: Since I like Spam, a pineapple and Spam pizza actually sounds pretty good to me. But I think the usual ham and Spam is probably still better. Could use some black olives as well on either combination, though.
I should point out that when I was in Berlin, I was given pizza with corn as a topping — so I don’t really trust the Germans with the whole concept of pizza.
Bill: I had corn as a topping on a pizza last week, here in the good old U. S. of A.
Shrug, not black olives, green ones. much better
@CIDU Bill: You would not survive Japan.
They have no qualms about putting just anything on pizza. They have no limits. Including mayonnaise.
One of my favourites was the NTT from Pizza Willy (which does not have a website). NTT is Nippon Telephone and Telegraph. For decades it was the monopoly phone company. The Pizza Willy NTT was, then a little joke they were having. It was topped with Nasu (roasted eggplant), Tomato (tomato) and Tsuna (tuna). Considering the Japanese have actual Japanese word for tuna (maguro), you might think this little joke on their leans too heavily on English. However, tsuna (a localized pronunciation of tuna) is usually used to mean canned tuna. The NTT was a pretty odd combination of toppings (no mayonnaise though!) but it was actually pretty tasty.
SBill, I’d survive Japan: I just wouldn’t order pizza there.
I already know never to order it in Chicago, after all.
I need to ask my son whether he tried pizza when he was in Japan: unlike me, he’ll try anything, the weirder the better. Tuna and eggplant on pizza? Bring it on.
‘I already know never to order it in Chicago, after all.’
Them’s fightin’ words, mister!! (Pizzeria Uno, Pizzeria Due . . . ah, fond memories . . . )
@Chak: I agree that I generally prefer green olives over black olives on my pizza, but I don’t think I’d like them on my ham and pineapple pizzas. (The one “choose your own ingredients” speciality pizza we frequently order is Geona salami, feta cheese, and green olives.)
On the other hand, I do have limits, and find the idea of allowing chicken on a pizza to be fairly disgusting (though as I recall the one or two times I tried, it wasn’t too bad).
///Maybe it would help if the chicken were dead, instead of just standing on it? (Rimshot)
There is One True Pizza, and all others are abominations before God.
Growing up (through my 4th birthday as we moved after same) I would go to see Santa in NYC. My dad would take me to his office on Dec 24 due to the logic of no one will be upset as no is working anyway (this part continued at least a decade after my 4th birthday) – downtown Manhattan. When dad and my uncle (mom’s brother shared an office with dad) had coffee, instant made with a coil that boiled the water, I would have cocoa. The two of us would have lunch out at a luncheonette with low stools (I could climb on them myself) and I would have macaroni and cheese – the waitress would insist on taking it out of the baking dish and putting it on plate so it would cool off faster. We would walk around in and out of shops and I would visit Santa. (It might have been Macys, but I don’t remember taking the subway to go to Santa.) When I was older (and my sisters were joining us for this tradition) dad moved to a fancier office with shared spaces lwith other attorneys (he was the only attorney/accountant on the floor) he asked if anyone would mind or be upset if he brought us in. Next thing he knew the secretaries (for the other attorneys – he never had one – I used to pretend I was his) were collecting for a Christmas Eve day party for everyone’s children – and attorneys can get good free toys from clients to hand out to the kids.
We did not have a tree. The only Christmas decorations we had were a Styrofoam Santa and a Styrofoam Rudolph Reindeer that I had somehow acquired. They were placed on the top of the console TV – why there? Well, when I asked how I would get gifts from Santa when we did not have a fireplace, I was told (talk about lies) that when there is fireplace, Santa comes out of the TV. And sure enough Christmas morning there would be Christmas gifts in front of the TV for me. Of course as I aged I knew the gifts were from my parents – but found out sometime in my 20s or 30s that they were not. It seems that some clients would give my dad a Christmas gift “for his little girl” and the fellow who worked as the foreman at my grandfather’s factory would give him a Christmas gift for me also.
When I was in elementary school we had a Christmas tree in the classroom and we all made decorations and put them on the tree – my parents told me that was okay. We had a “Christmas gift exchange” in the class. (Even Robert cannot understand the crucifix corsage someone gave me as a gift in third grade in the exchange.)
Robert still believes in Santa. Christmas Eve he goes up to bed and I have to sneak out his (now meager and purchased by him for him) gifts and put them under the tree. His nieces – aged 17 and 9 still supposedly believe in Santa – we figure they just say that so their crazy mom doesn’t stop giving them gifts (excessively) for Christmas.
There is a family story – when my mom was a little girl her parents – Jewish immigrants (separately – they met in NYC) trying to be American took mom to see Santa. She was seated on his lap. He asked the big Santa question “What do you want for Christmas?” My mom looked up at him and said “I’m not a goy.” Santa (in those long ago times not knowing the word) said to her “I know you are a girl, not a boy?” My grandparents grabbed her and ran.
We were not allowed to buy Valentines or Valentine gifts for either set of grandparents as it is a Christian holiday. It is after all St. Valentine’s Day. We made a big deal of it in at our house – straight through to when we all had husbands, but we were not allowed to include our grandparents.
Now I decorate the house for Robert – in excess as my reference for the decorating is not what my family did when I was young – but every Christmas movie I have ever seen. My family still has no Christmas decorations at any of their homes.
I learned in adult life there were other lies – but ones I agree should have been told to a child – such as about extended family in Europe World War II.
“. . . such as about extended family in Europe World War II.”
That is a loaded, thought- and curiosity-provoking statement . . . care to elucidate on it?
Andréa – They died in the Holocaust. I did not know this until I grown.
Until the last year of his life (he died in 2014 at 90), my father refused to speak about his times in the Nazi slave labor camps. To me, at least; he did speak about it to my two husbands. By the time he did talk about it, I no longer knew whether to believe everything he said, and there was no longer anyone alive to ask for verification. And I then thought to myself, ‘Does it matter anymore? I know it affected his life, and those of his wife and daughter. Do I really need to know about all this sadness now?’
Andréa – In my case I was under the impression that all of my grandparents’ families were here in the US before anything happened. My maternal grandfather was the oldest of around 17 children and he came here when he was 17. (The last children he never met as they were born after he left.) I did not know that most of them were killed along with his parents. I knew one of his sisters and one of his brothers. I also knew a nephew of his that lived through the war and went to Israel and then immigrated here. I just presumed the other family members were elsewhere, they were not. I can understand not being told about the rest of his family when I was a child.