I made a point to never lie to my kids about anything. Even white lies. When I was little, my mom would often make up answers to my questions when she felt like it didn’t matter such as “why is the sky blue?” and “what do those white lines on my finger nails mean?” (I went many years thinking ‘blueness’ bounced up from the ocean.) Even though my mom meant the best in giving me an answer, it caused a loss of trust between her and I as I grew older.

Santa Claus is a big issue for the parents of young kids. On one hand, you want your kids to know the truth. The on the other hand, you don’t want to shatter their fantasies. On the other other hand, you want them to figure it out on their own. On the other other other hand, it’s cute to let them believe in a fat man that delivers presents.

Luckily my oldest is wise  beyond his nine years and figured it out on his own without any help. One day he just said, “Mom, Santa can’t be at every kid’s house at midnight. And we don’t have a chimney. He must be fake.” Phew, that was easy. The only problem was that my smart Alec son tried to educate his siblings on how St. Nick is a fabrication, much to their resistance.

This put me in a pickle. My five year old came to me to confirm what her brother told her. My initial urge was to say that her brother was just teasing. But then an image similar to the picture above popped into my head. If I lied to her now, she would grow up to question everything I ever say about the really important stuff– all dreaded topics that come with the teenage years. So I let her face the facts. There were tears, but surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly,) she was much more upset about losing an argument to her brother than about Father Christmas existence. Now hopefully she’ll believe everything I say when she starts dating. :-/