You were much kinder to Santa than we were -- he only got cookies and *milk* from us. Julie Krueger (who wants to teach their children that Santa is a lush?) ========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Is there a Sanity Clause? Date: 3/12/2007 3:40:49 P.M. Central Daylight Time From: _ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on: On Mar 12, 2007, at 10:58 AM, Paul Stone wrote: >> David Ritchie wrote: >> > What a sad tale, made more so by the "of course." > > Reading this reminds me of something I've been grappling with for > about 8 months now. > > As well as the fact that Freelists keeps arbitrarily kicking me off > the list, another reason that I've been relatively "quiet" in the past > little while is that next month, I'm going to become a father [for the > first time] and, despite what women will report, men also have a > harder time during pregnancy -- something which is HARDLY ever > mentioned, and if it is, it's just a laugh between women. I don't see the need for competition here. That fathers have an adjustment to go through doesn't have to mean we have a "harder" time than women. But I take your point that the adjustment is not much acknowledged by the world that surrounds us. You are in a liminal state, about to come out the other side as a new being, a father. I wish you the best of luck. > > So I guess my question to the group is: is it deprivation to let a kid > grow up without this childish nonsense? If it is... what exactly am I > depriving him of? > I'm not a softie like Geary. I believe in discipline and much of the stuff that he says you don't need. Further, I believe in honesty, as well as the value of magic and mystery. So how to deal with the Santa Claus issue? My, somewhat Jesuitical, solution was to tell the girls that the best thing to do would be to consider the evidence before them. If presents arrived in the middle of the night and if cookies and brandy were gone, we all had a duty to figure out the best explanation we could. I told them the truth--that I had gone to bed and that I hadn't heard anything after I fell asleep--but not the whole truth. I have found that honesty is generally best, and that children are very good at letting you know what level of truth they are ready for. David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com.