it was a big kerfuffle. the torn beliefs all at once.
respecting others nonsense (but harmless) beliefs is how the world should operate.
they hated the kid bc he was a dick about it. like berating all the kids with his knowledge. he was being a dick and using this info as the stick to hit everyone with.
I can remember someone telling me in 2nd grade.
It’s probably the only thing I can remember from 2nd grade.
when i was in kindergarten, i told another kid that jesus wasn’t god. she didn’t believe me either. we went and asked the teacher who said it depends on your religion (so a non-answer basically).
is this better, worse, or the same as telling the kid in 2nd grade that santa is fake?
That depends on your religion.
Anyway, it’s not unusual. Plenty of people hate Richard Dawkins style atheists that beat people over the head with their “knowledge”.
Since when is it the goal for a parent to always be “nice” when it comes to raising their kids?
FWIW, at this stage of the kids life, the nature of the presents starts to change as well. Total costs for presents is about the same (adjusted for inflation), but the kid is now getting more expensive gifts.
nor does it make sense to say, oh you don’t believe in this fictitious character anymore, so you get less stuff.
your next paragraph you basically negated what you said before about the kids getting less anyway.
I’m a little surprised there were a lot of first graders who still believed in Santa. But not at all surprised that the kids resented the Santa truther.
Some do, some don’t. Aggressively evangelical Christians are often despised as much as aggressively evangelical atheists.
lol christian parents afraid that their kids have critical thinking skills.
Reminds me of a friend (PhD in nuclear science) whose Christian mom told him that he’s too smart for his own good (probably also blamed that on him turning out gay). His mom fully believes he’s going to hell, so the “too smart” comment was more from sadness.
First grade is age 6-7. It’s the norm at that age to believe in Santa.
Here’s a YouGov poll on average age that kids find out-
| Age stopped believing | percent | cumulative percent of believers that identified an age |
|---|---|---|
| 4 or younger | 5 | 6.3% |
| 5 | 6 | 13.9% |
| 6 | 8 | 24.1% |
| 7 | 10 | 36.7% |
| 8 | 13 | 53.2% |
| 9 | 7 | 62.0% |
| 10 | 12 | 77.2% |
| 11 | 6 | 84.8% |
| 12 | 6 | 92.4% |
| 13 | 2 | 94.9% |
| 14 or older | 4 | 100.0% |
| unknown | 14 | |
| never | 7 |
Re: Elf on the Shelf
Kids are too old to GAF now but even if they weren’t the Elf would mostly be staring out the window wondering when the kids were coming back.
Re: Santa
My mum only put out one gift that was “from Santa” every year and the rest were from her so I was pretty skeptical of the whole Santa story from the get-go. Also I didn’t have a chimney… so how was that supposed to work?! I did have high hopes for the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny.
one day (probably soon) my daughter will come to me and say “santa is not real. He’s just make believe”. And i’ll congratulate her for being a critical thinker
there was a kid in my elementary class, shortly after the empire strikes back, came to class and blurted out to everyone “darth vader is lukes father!”
this was before i got to see it, of course
i hate that kid. Hate him forever
Huh. Those numbers shock me. I would have expected most 3 year olds to believe in Santa, and most kids to find out what’s up around 5 or 6, when they interact with a lot of other kids at kindergarten. And honestly, I’d expect daycare kids to mostly find out around 4. I would have thought 7 would be an outlier.
A place I stopped at today was playing “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus”. It’s supposed to be a funny and pleasant holiday song, but if that happened in reality I imagine it could be pretty traumatic for some kids.
i’d imagine most kids aren’t idiots and if their father was dressed as santa claus they would recognize the person as their father. what would be traumatic about this?
isn’t the entire basis for christianity about spreading the word of jesus and that’s why there are so many christians while judaism is a dying religion because we don’t evangelize?
I hate that song.