Santa doesnt love you. If teaching our children to believe in Santa Claus, and then the related idea/myth/lie (please choose the word that most closely reflects your own hard-won beliefs, not the one you think that you have to use; after all, cant it be all of the above simultaneously?) that he brings good things to good children, leads our children to think that THEY are bad if they dont get the toy every good child gets, perhaps we need to think a bit more deeply about the many, many different ways in which different human beings might experience this holiday (or holy day, but not to everyone)? For me as a child, the toy that the good kids received was a Cabbage Patch Kid -- which I personally did not receive, or even allow myself to want. Not because I thought I was bad, but because I knew we were poor, which in our culture, is really the same thing, isnt it? Some parents didnt buy the CBD because they felt it was a cohersive, commercialized act. They did not want to fuel the flames of the machine. So, heres my question: how do we, as a family of human beings, make room for the variety of legitimate ways one might address The Santa Question(s) respectfully, and while still protecting our children? I am not even taking a stand here, except in as much as it is a stand for space for each of us to more deeply consider how to make more room for each other. Thank you, Marya Cable Aslakson, (and all of your thoughtfully diverse friends) for stimulating my critical awareness. Who would have thought that Elf on a Shelf could start such an interesting (and I think really important) conversation!. Thanks for the insights. :)
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 11:40:44 +0000
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