In order for children to believe in Santa Claus, parents have to lie. Eventually kids learn the truth, which means they learn that their parents and others have been lying to them continually for years. Most probably don't give it a lot of conscious thought, but even if they don't what are the chances that this will have absolutely no impact on their ability to trust?
Grandpa writes:
As Tom Flynn put it in his book, The Trouble with Christmas, Santa Clause (Father Christmas) can just as easily be a "shared fantasy." Otherwise, you are not being honest with your child in this matter.
I cannot know if this can possibly damage the bond of trust between parent and child. I suspect that it does. And, I suspect, quite possibly it damages the trust the child will have regarding the whole of society, or humanity in general.
There is a phenomena I experienced regarding my atheism and family as well as with society as a whole. I found even in my youth that my anger towards Christianity, which adversely affected my family relations, (my being an atheist), was never expressed to those to whom I was close. My patience with Christians outside my family was far less short.
If there is anything to my "re-directing" of my anger regarding religion, could people not redirect anger in "matters of trust"?
I suspect it is possible.
[original post]
Whether lying to children about Santa does any harm is a matter of some debate. I'm not aware of any specific evidence on this specific issue and I doubt that there could be a study that would produce evidence. However, I also think that as a matter of general principle our bias should be against lying. Not every lie is immoral and sometimes a lie can be the most moral option, but those are cases where there is substantial evidence in favor of lying. Lacking that, a lie should be avoided.
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