A teacher has told kids that Santa ain’t real and she got fired. And one of the parents bemoans on Facebook:
“Many of us parents have been doing damage control since the kids get home from school,” parent Lisa Simek posted to Facebook on Thursday.
I disrespectfully disagree with this nonsense and consider the parent to be a whiny fuckwit. The damage is not being done by the teacher, but by the parent. Anyway, lying to children about the existence of Santa gives you a guarantee that one day, one place, they will find out that you have lied to them. What has happened here is that it merely was perhaps a year early.
There are many, many things that I hate about this vapid holiday as it is currently celebrated – the incessant playing of absolutely awful music everywhere, the fact that for two months I cannot order anything over the internet without the delivery being delayed, the overcrowding, the religious garbage that is associated with it – but what I perhaps hate the most is how the holiday makes a virtue out of lying to children.
Some of my friends do this and I do not go out of my way to debunk Santa (or Jesus child, which is more traditional here) to their children, but I still disagree with them on this issue. I do not think it adds anything valuable to childhood being lied to. I know from personal experience that children can enjoy Christmas trees and presents immensely even when they do not believe in magic and/or religious mumbo-jumbo.
I really wish this nonsense went away. Nobody should be fired for telling children truth. Believing in known and obvious lies should never be encouraged and promulgated, ever.
OK wordup. Baby Jesus freaks me out. My dude studied German in high school and learned a creepy christmas song about how there’s a Baby Jesus outside your window in the cold winter and wants to be let in, like the vampires in Salem’s Lot.
But the thing that trips me out here is this: how does this work in the imaginations of German kids? Does Jesus basically have an avatar of himself that stayed baby? What kind of properties and powers does this entity possess? What does that feel like for German child, assuming they believe this scenario?
I absolutely agree with the lying to children (we never did that), and I don’t agree with the firing of the teacher, but I still think she’s an asshole. She obviously made the children miserable and unhappy for what reason? Was there any danger to their health or well being for believing in Santa? Was anything gained by the children from her “teaching”?
I don’t think so,and that’s why this was a bad thing to do. The kids will learn that Santa isn’t real. If they feel betrayed by their parents then that will happen, there’s nothing the did here to prevent that. In most cases though the children understand it as a make believe and no harm was done. I cannot remember believing in Santa or the Easter bunny, but I happily remember the fun.
She could simply have told them that she doesn’t celebrate christmas. That would have taught the kids that not all people believe in Santa and baby Jesus. I mean, I don’t go around telling my muslim students that Islam is just as fake as Christianity and that the headscarves are a symbol of patriarchal control of women’s bodies. It would still be the truth but create a hostile atmosphere.
Great American Satan
Klingglöckchen, klingelingeling
Your overanalysing.
For one thing, the child is the Christkind, for the other, most people and most kids don’t think any more deeply about the song than they think about Puff the Magic Dragon. Germany isn’t very religious and most nominal christians don’t believe much in their own religion but in their traditions. They will absolutely insist on having christenings, church weddings and funerals, they will send their kids to the Communion/Confirmation rituals at church but basically never show up outside of those occasions or maybe Christmas.
@Giliell, I agree that the teacher should not have done it and she is an asshole too. But the whole situation should not exist in the first place. If the parents were not lying to their children, then the teacher would not be able to distress them by telling them truth.
When I was at school, one girl got mercilessly mocked by the whole class for believing in baby Jesus giving presents on Christmass. She was the only one (that I know of) to whom the parents still lied about it at that age, and she was clearly distraught by being mocked. As long as some parents lie to their children thus, some children will be distressed about it at some point.
Teachers should not mention this issue at all, appart from perhaps tearing apart children who fight about the reality of *insert mythical nonsense here*.
@Giliell & Great American Satan, in CZ the name of the entity is “Ježíšek” or “Jezulátko” both of which literally mean baby Jesus.
Some years ago a friend was telling me how sad he was that his children no longer believed in god. I asked if they believed in Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy. To each he answered “No, of course not”.
I then asked him who had taught his children about Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and God, to which he replied “I did”.
I said “so, do you see a pattern here?”
Guess that’s when he stopped being my friend.
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I own a small retail business and I will play Xmas music in the week before Xmas, not a moment sooner. I must be mindful that I operate in an area with a high proportion of Catholics and older people (I am a youthful 66). But my shop, my rules, and most of the Xmas music will be the less religious style with the exception of everything Trans Siberia Orchestra will be played daily.
DavidinOz #4
Sort of OT but
Why do you play music at all, ever?
chigau (違う), if you were to visit, you would hear why. It is a soulless shopping centre. The music I play is generally a very soft jazz at a low volume. I would never have the music at a volume that impairs hearing customers speak. I only break the low volume rule on AFL Grand Final day when I play the team songs for the two competitors along with the unofficial Grand Final Anthem. But you probably need to be an Aussie to understand. :-)
chigau @5: If stores didn’t play music at all, ever, I wouldn’t have been stopped in my tracks at the mall, about 27 years ago. Easily worth the years of banal nonsense.
Thanks for the cultural information. I love it. <3
DavidinOz #6
That does not answer the question of “why play music at all”.
I go to the soulless shopping hell to buy stuff and get the fuck out.
I don’t enjoy the experience more with good music over shit music. Silence would be nice.
..
Rob Grigjanis #7
My adoration of Loreena started from hanging with a bunch of Folkies, not muzak.
(which mall was playing Loreena 27 years ago???)
(shirley not TheMall ???)
That does not answer the question of “why play music at all”.
I like it, my customers seem to like it, and I run a friendly business where buying stuff and getting the fuck out isn’t the goal.
Guess you live in the wrong country and probably don’t even talk to the shop staff, just throw your shit on the counter and ask them to hurry up and get it over with. I enjoy human interaction. Must be a weirdo.
chigau @9: Nah, I left Edmonton in ’87. This was music from a CD shop in a smallish Scarborough mall.
Your mileage might vary of course, but my mother worked as a saleswoman her whole life and she absolutely loathed music playing nonstop the whole day without being able to avoid it or turn it off. I am with her on this issue -- when I go to the shopping mall, the music gets on my nerves like 99% of the time as a customer, and from occasional brief exchanges with the staff, it gets on their nerves even more so, just like it used to get on my mother’s nerves.
Before christmass the music gets exceptionally annoying, because I hate carols and romantic flics along the lines “Last Christmass…” GRRR. They do not want to make me spend more, or choose my purchases more carefully or something like that. They make me want to puke and leave the shop as quickly as humanly possible.
I plug my ears with headphones whenever I expect to spend longer time with shopping just to avoid it. But a quick google search shows that ambient music is allegedly good for the retailers and most people like it. Go figure.
I think there’s a big difference between “ambient music” and “ambient annoying christmas music”. I’m not a big fan of malls, but I know I’m especially annoyed this time of year because of the oppressive “be happy it’s so exciiitiing and luverly!” music, though other times of the year I can tune out the ambient stuff and concentrate on what I need to get done.
Interestingly, stores who play ambient music here (even if it’s just radio) must pay a copyright tax -- is this a thing?
Hm. I do not mind ambient ambient music consisting of gentle unobtrusive sound patterns played at an acceptable volume. I do mind “ambient” pop music played loudly -- I will do what I need to do and get out as soon as I can, unless I have headphones and can block the sound with them. I do not tolerate “ambient” EDM played at an obnoxious volume as is becoming increasingly common -- I will not enter such shops. Whether the songs are Christmas-themed or not honestly doesn’t make much of a difference to me.
Oh, and silence is fine by me. Silence is perfectly fine.