Why teach kids to believe in Santa? Will Wilkinson explains his opinion (at the Sullyblog):
Now, one of the most interesting truths about the empirical world is that there are all these powerful systems of myth that are kept afloat by a sort of mass conspiracy, and humans seem disposed to pick one from the ambient culture and take it very seriously. But it can be hard to get your head around the way it all works unless you participate in it. Santa is a perfect and relatively harmless way to introduce your child the socio-psychology of a collective delusion about the supernatural. The disillusionment that comes from the exposure to the truth about Santa breeds a general skepticism about similarly ill-founded popular beliefs in physics-defying creatures.
I don't ever remember believing in Santa. I vividly remember even at age 5 or 6, as I opened up the present under the tree labeled "from Santa" thinking to myself, "this is just a sort of story people tell because it's a fun idea." If I went through the disillusionment, I was too young to remember, but I suspect, based on my parents parenting style, that they never tried to deceive me, but instead explained it in a very adult-like and objective manner even though I was only 4 or 5. I think that perhaps in the long run, Mr Wilkinson is wrong: an even better way to teach kids about skepticism is to simply model it, honestly and forthrightly.
[daily log: walking, 5.5 km]