The Dilemna of Santa

When I first left faith behind me, I felt duped by religion and felt that I really had to learn to protect myself from getting duped again. One of the things I thought that I would do to prevent my future kids from "being duped" was to never lie to them. At the time I thought that might mean not creating the illusion of Santa Claus at Christmas - because I would have to lie to my child to get them to believe in something that isn't true.

Whether or not to "do" Santa during the Christmas season is a common discussion point among atheist and non-theist parents. There are plenty of arguments to go around...

Against Santa

1. Telling my kids that Santa is coming is lying
2. Santa has too many religious connotations (ie. based on a catholic saint, imaginary figure that is judging your goodness or badness, etc.)

For Santa

1. It's fun!
2. I don't want my kids to miss out on this mainly secular part of the holiday.
3. It's part of the magic of Christmas
4. It's an opportunity to see how humans are fully capable of falling for a socially-acceptable myth and figure out the truth on their own.

It's funny, but I am swayed by all these arguments - both for and against. These are all reasons I can understand and appreciate. Really, at the end of the day, I don't think it really matters in the big scheme of things how you spend the holidays - christian or not (as long as you're not encroaching on anyone's human rights).

So, as I said, when I first left faith behind me, I thought I would go the no-Santa route. In talking with my mom and others about this over the past two years, I have seen some push back, but none-the-less I thought, given my values and personal belief,s that I could make Christmas special without Santa, and I think I still could.

However...my memories of Christmases growing up are powerful!!!! My parents put on a really, really good show at Christmas and I LOVED IT! Coming out of my room early on Christmas morning, being so tickled at the sight of a filled stocking, new presents under the tree, and feeling so mystified by how it all happened was pretty magical - and then it hit me!

Magic requires a magician!!!! My parents were magicians!

People who create an illusion without giving away their secret are magicians. We know people aren't really magic, but we still enjoy the illusion. And just like learning about how to do a magic trick - whenever we want to, with some effort and a willingness to let go of the "magic" in exchange for knowledge, can we figure out the trick!

So, I decided to never actually tell my daughter there is (or is not) a Santa, but there will be a filled stocking, a special present that wasn't there on Christmas eve, some eaten cookies, and a lighted, decorated tree on Christmas morning. Society will fill in the rest about who is leaving these gifts and how it is done. Whenever I am asked "how is it done?" "Can one man really fly around the world in one night?" and "is Santa real?", I will turn the question around (as Dale McGowan says) and ask "what do you think?" and give her a chance to take the veil from her own eyes. And hopefully she won't feel tricked or wronged by the illusion - hopefully I can help her understand how fun the game is and what we can learn from it.

And hopefully, she will take those lessons out into the world for her own use.

Lessons from a Tiger Mom

A Review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chau

A few months ago the blogosphere was ablaze with criticism of Amy Chau's parenting style, which she calls being a Chinese mother. While I agree with many of the arguments that Amy is harsh, demanding, strict, and controlling; upon reading her book, I quite was taken aback by how fiercely she loves her daughters and how much she believes in their talents and abilities.

Now don't get me wrong, I totally disagree with her reasoning that shaming a child when they displease you will motivate children to improve. In fact, she justifies shouting stinging insults because

The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it. (And when Chinese kids do excel, there is plenty of ego-inflating parental praise lavished in the privacy of the home).

Amy points out the difference between a "Western" parent and a "Chinese" parent in this example

If the child comes home with a B on the test, some Western parents will still praise the child. Other Western parents will sit their child down and express disapproval, but they will be careful not to make their child feel inadequate or insecure and they will not call their child "stupid," "worthless," or "a disgrace." ...If a Chinese child gets a B ... there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion. The devastated mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A.

Now, I disagree with shaming a child, but I do believe Amy has a point here. Children are strong enough to hear the truth, I just think it can be done respectfully. If I think my child is capable of doing better, there is nothing wrong with telling her and then working with her to show her what she can really do. The part about this I really admire is the belief and willingness of a parent to devote time and energy to helping the child improve. It is not all about the child and the child's effort - the parent jumps in and makes sure the child has the resources, and more importantly, the practice to improve.

Don't get me wrong, there are many cringe-worthy moments in this book. Some of the language and tactics Amy uses to get her girls to practice their instruments, do well in school, and make the best birthday cards are way too harsh for my personality style; and I do think that that kind of speech can harm a child (and it passes on bad habits to children who often grow up and imitate their parents). I'm sure however, that we can take some lessons from a Tiger mom, who really was the most stirring example of a hard working, involved parent that believes in her kids that I've ever seen in my life. Plus, Amy is an awesome storyteller and her book is a good read - even if you will cringe at her parenting style - and you probably will.

Teaching Honesty from a Secular Point of View

For over half of my adult life I was pretty religious - a believing, practicing, faithful member of the LDS or Mormon Church. In 2004, I decided to leave the church behind me for a variety of reasons. Over the next year, I left the rest of my faith in Christianity and a personal God behind me as well. I now consider myself an atheist-leaning agnostic.

I do not believe in a god or gods mostly because I do not believe there is an objective way prove the existance of such a being. I can not prove that God does not exist, which is why I use an agnostic label, but I claim the athiest qualifier because I can no more prove that God doesn't exist than I can prove that invisible unicorns roam the earth - and I don't think it matters. Richard Feynman, a famous physicist, sums of my feelings on the subject best:

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know the answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me."

It's a funny experience going from a religious worldview to a nonreligious worldview. It really seems to freak people out. Some people feel sorry for me, some people decided pull away from me - even though I support a person`s right to believe whatever they want as long as those beliefs do not turn into actions that harm others. Even my mother, who is not religious, but does believe in a higher power, has asked me how I plan to teach my children right from wrong without instilling a belief in God. Well, I simply believe "being good" has it's own rewards and "being bad" has it's own consequences - ones that play out in a very real way right here in this world.

For example, when I was a kid, my mom sent me to Sunday School and at Easter we would always watch the movie The Ten Commandments. As a christian child, I knew that one of the commandments was "Thou shall not tell lies." I was also vaguely aware that god was happy if I followed the commandments but would be angry if I didn't. While I cared about "being good" as a small believing child, in the moment that a lie would seemingly save my butt from getting grounded or a light spanking, I didn't remember those commandments too well - I just wanted to avoid earthly consequences - and sometimes lying worked!

However, whenever my mom did catch me in a lie, she turned it into a teachable moment - and this experience taught me more about why it is important to be honest than anything I ever learned in Sunday School. One of my earliest memories is from a time when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I had chipped away some paint on my bedroom wall and discovered that underneath the boring eggshell color was bright pink....oooo pretty!

So I started picking away at the eggshell to reveal the bright pink underneath, by the time my mom came to my room, there was a bright pink smilely face on my wall by my bed. She was mad and I could tell! The first words out of her mouth were "Did you do that?"

I could tell she was mad and that I would get in trouble so I said, "No, mommy." My mom rolled her eyes and said, "Deanna, I know you're lying, you were the only one in here." Oops! Ever notice what terrible liars kids are? So she told me to stay in my room until I told her the truth.

I cried for a bit, alone in my room, and then my mom, all calmed down, came in to talk to me.

She said, "Do you know why you shouldn't tell lies to people?"

Sniffling, I said, "why?"

"Because, Deanna, when you don't tell people the truth, they will not trust you. When trust is broken, it is very hard for someone to believe anything you say even if what you say is true, and trust is very hard to rebuild."

That always stuck with me. And even when I forgot this lesson and tried lying as child to get what I wanted or to get out of trouble, my mom would always send me to the person I lied to and make me tell the truth - and you know what - I could always tell that that person did lose their trust in me, it's something you can see in their eyes.

As an adult honesty is very important to me - not because it is a rule in an old book - but because I find my relationships are richer with people who trust me and whom I trust in return. This is one of the reasons I do not believe I will need to instill a belief in God to teach my kids right from wrong.

Thoughts on Expressing my Views

Dale McGowan recently posted a glowing review of The Humanist Approach to Happiness by Jennifer Hancock - a book that I have now placed on my own "to-read" list. A couple of the things that Dale said in this post really resonated with me. The first statement that hit me is one I have often felt myself:

For many years, virtually all of the books for nontheists had a kind of superhuman quality to them — stratospheric works of science or philosophy that blow your hair back with articulate rigor. I couldn’t read The End of Faith or pretty much anything by Russell or Hitchens without feeling both amazed and a little bit cowed by the intellectual horsepower.

I have definitely felt this way when reading Dawkins, Hitchens, Sagan, and Shermer - to mention a few. There are many topics I would like to write about - but whenever I begin to draft a post on a topic that is somewhat controversial like my interest in atheism, science, medicine, secularism, politics, education, etc., I begin to fear that I do not have the expertise to truly address the issue. I am not a hard-hitting scientist (or a scientist at all for that matter), I am not in staunch opposition to anyone who has any kind of religious belief, although I have left my own religious beliefs behind me. I`m just an ordinary person, who having once found myself to be completely accepting and believing of something I later found to be demonstrably false, has made a decision to live my life in a way that honours the values I hold dear without religion and who trys to apply critical thinking, logic, and sound knowledge when faced with decisions that affect my family`s well-being and happiness.

When I came across Dale McGown and his book "Parenting Beyond Belief", I was introduced to a sample of people who seem to be just like me: individuals who think deeply about their place in the world, how to be happy, and how to make the world we share a better place through their own unique contributions - all without religion. It was sooooooooo refreshing. I never doubted that I couldn't be happy without religion - the last 6 years have been great so far! - or that I could raise ethical caring kids without religion, but it was really, really nice to read about parents who are already doing this. Of the author of The Humanist Approach to Happiness, Dale says:

Jen never tries to speak universally. She speaks for herself, clearly and informally, thinking out loud about decision making, simplicity, honesty, body ethics, sex, vibrators, relationships, addiction, self-image, pooping, death, and more. ... The net effect is a conversation about everything with an intelligent, unpretentious friend.

This is how I want to express myself on this blog and I hope I find both the courage and grace to do so without worrying too much about how others may receive my thoughts and opinions. I want to express my gratitude for those who are part of the ongoing conversation and online community who are setting the example for me - many of whom you can find on my blog list.