Do our children need to grow up that fast?
Long gone are the days of childlike innocence well into the late childhood/early teen years. In today's enlightened society, make believe characters like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are more and more pushed to the background or down right banished.
In this time of political and social correctness, in which we worry about filling our Children with fanciful ideas, sadly we have lost the subtle Art of teaching our young Ones basic life lessons and the joys of rewards for doing well and the agony of discipline and punished for wrongful or harmful behavior towards ourselves and others. We, the Adults, don't want to harm our children by misguiding or misleading them by telling them about “Characters or Creatures” that are not real. After all what could happen to those little minds if they would actually believe in being accountable for what they did.
As a Mother, I have to question today's obsession with removing everything fun and imaginative from our Children. Our Ancestors knew what they were doing in my opinion in giving loving and stern examples in creating those legendary characters. Not only did they teach lessons of right and wrong, but allowed themselves the joy in indulging their offspring in little ways they could not afford on a daily basis.
Let us take the various legends of Santa Claus. No matter which country of region the core figure of Santa Claus came from, it had one thing in common. He loved to reward and indulge the good Children. He also punished the bad Children. In order to receive a Toy or reward you had to uphold the Rules of the Household, be courteous to your elders, behave well, do your chores without problems, do well in school etc. If you were mean, lazy or otherwise undesirable in your behavior or character you would be without the rewards of good doing.
Most of us as Parents already know that kids always seem to listen more to other adults then us, besides it is much harder to talk your way out of punishment or discipline with an all knowing, unseen force. For the Parents too, it had its joys. Most of us love to spoil our children; we also like to be sneaky at times. How much fun did our Parents have when they could secretly create a toy for us * in the old days* or now purchase a toy that we normally would not try to afford. By taking those Characters away, we have taken away a good part of Childhood.
What have our children replaced those characters with?
Children will have a natural imagination until it is driven out of them. Now, instead of Books read at first to them and later to them-selves or the practice of telling Stories in a family setting at night, our kids watch TV, play or surf on the Computer or listen to the much more harmful Stories their older Peers tell. Santa Claus has been replaced by the Gang Banger Boss down the Street. Children as young as four years old can recite to you cuss words that would turn a Sailors Ears red and tell you all about the anatomy of the older Girls.
Ask them however about Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel or other fairy tales you will get either a snicker or a blank Stare. If they do know those stories they are the Ghetto Versions or Horror Versions displayed on TV. They have been overly sexualized or glorified. The basic lesson contained in the original Story is lost. Most of those Stories had lessons hidden in them. We now see the wolf as the pervert and little Red Riding Hood as the over sexualized hottie who had it coming to her.
What happened to: "Don't stray from the right path and listen to what your parents tell you?"
Back to Santa Claus.
Religion plays a big role in telling Children that Santa Claus is not real. After all isn't Christmas all about the Birth of Christ? We don't want to have them think that it isn't the proper Time to go to Church and praise the holly name of God. Be generous, but only to specific people. Or the other side it the materialistic side of it. The overspending with nothing ever being good enough, expensive enough etc.
Santa Claus wasn't about that. He was a celebration of life, a bringer of joy. His gifts were handmade and could not have been worth much more then the labor of love. His gifts were: gifts of our Time and the loving creation of something we could make with much thought going into it. It was love in its core meaning. It was the simple getting together of friends and family. Gratefulness for what we had. Sharing with others of the sometimes more or less meager provisions available to our families.
Return to innocence and childlike pleasures.
Think back to your own youth for a second. Unless of course it was only moments past. Do we really need to rush nature along that strongly that we now have to have even the smallest of the small without any hope of imagination and innocence? Do our children need to know the ins and outs of sexuality, drugs etc at such a young age? Is believing in a fun character with good morals really such a horrible thing that we have to take it away from them everything that once made them children.
Personally, I don't mind believing in Santa Claus. I still color Easter Eggs with my kid and she is a teenager. We still dress up and go trick or treating together. I refuse, to have all the joy and simple pleasures taken from me and if that means I have to play make believe to keep them, so be it. You would be surprised, how much fun you can have with it.
