Disillusionment

The other day, I was lying on my stomach in bed, and my little daughter came into the room. She lay down on my back (parents make good furniture) and started talking to me about Santa Claus. She said that some kids at her school don’t believe in Santa Claus because (as she put it) “they believe in God instead”. She said that she believed in Santa, but it was weird how he could do all those things, like fly around the world and give kids presents. She asked me what I thought about it.

I hesitated for a few seconds, and then I told her the truth. Santa Claus isn’t real. It’s just something parents made up. Parents fill the stockings on Christmas Eve, not Santa. The Santa at the mall is just a man in a red suit. He doesn’t live at the North Pole.

I felt her body tense up. For a few long seconds, she was quiet. Then she started to sob. I got her off my back, snuggled up with her, and tried to comfort her.

I have never liked the idea of Santa Claus, for the simple reason that it is a lie. I never told her that there was a Santa Claus, but after she had gotten the idea from others, I went along with it, until that day when she asked me, and I told her the truth.

When she stopped crying, she asked me why parents trick kids like that. I told her it is because they want kids to have the experience of believing in magic. Magic is something you can only believe in when you are a kid. The parents believed in Santa Claus when they were kids, they remember how fun it was, and they want their children to have the same experience. I promised her that I would never trick her again, and she made me pinkie-promise. Eventually she stopped crying, but she was sad for the next couple of days.

That experience really affected me. I felt bad for having deceived her, and I felt sad for her sadness. She really wanted to believe in Santa. I wish I could have told her that it is true.

Later that day, I went for a walk by the sea. As I was walking, I started thinking about how angry adults get when you simply tell them a truth that they don’t want to hear. Many adults have equally magical beliefs about the world, but unlike my daughter, they are not actively seeking the truth. And when they are told the truth, they do not accept it and feel sad, as she did. Instead, they reject it and feel angry.

The truth is a tough sell. Disillusionment is painful, so people avoid it. There is a huge demand for comforting delusions. People weave complex webs of self-deception. They huddle together and lie to each other, to deceive themselves together.

In some ways, children are smarter than adults. They don’t know as much, but they are more willing to learn, more willing to admit their mistakes, and more willing to accept the truth when they hear it. They cry and move on.