By Gregory Keer
“Actually, there is no Santa Claus.”
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“It’s really just your parents putting presents under a tree.”
With this simple exchange, all my efforts to preserve a sense of wonder for my children seemed to disappear like a certain red-suited man into the night sky.
No, my son was not the one who had his bubble burst. My son was the self-designated debunker of myths.
“Jacob really didn’t do that, did he?” I said to my wife when she reported the crime against imagination.
“Freddy’s father won’t let him play with Jacob ever again,” Wendy revealed.
We both sat there feeling vaguely sick. We had never even hinted that there might not be a Santa Claus. In fact we had raised all of our sons to believe in everything from the spirit of Elijah coming to our Passover celebration to the Tooth Fairy’s punctual visits with the loss of each baby chomper.
Wendy and I always wanted our sons’ world soaring with flights of fancy that could open their minds. From the time they were born, we sprinkled their dreams with countless fantastical books about dragons that made easy pets and Greek gods who could summon the elements at will. We even made up our own stories which put our boys at the center of magical tales involving red pirates, black robots, and a lonely imaginary friend called “Gigglemonster.”
Not a month after the Santa Claus incident, Jacob the Literalist struck again — at the aforementioned Tooth Fairy.
“Ari, that’s not really fairy dust on the floor,” he explained to our five-year-old about the baby powder we employed to make it look like the real “Captain Incisor” had dropped by.
“Mommy and Daddy left you the money under your pillow,” he continued in his assault on our littlest one’s rightful illusions. “By the way, they should have left you more than two dollars.”
Nice. Not only was our kid stealing years of blissful ignorance from his younger brother, he was nitpicking our generosity. And he was taking away our God-given right to conjure and manipulate figments of imagination. Heck, for years, my dad was able to act like a magician who could say “poof” and the traffic light would turn green (I was about driving age before I figured out how he did it). As a Dad, I wanted to have that power, too.
So what do we do with a child, now nine years old going on 50, who shoots down pretend creatures as if they were a line of rubber ducks in an arcade shooting gallery?
The deeper truth is that Jacob is wrestling with the world, trying to make sense of it, to control it. He wants to be the one with the most information. He worries he will forget to bring his homework on time and frets about his parents coming late to pick him up from soccer practice.
It all stems from Jacob’s hyper-observational tendencies that pick up on the anxiety my wife and I have about meeting deadlines, earning enough money, and making sure everyone has on the right clothes for the day.
We certainly don’t invite our kids into our adult cyclone and our other two carry on with few cares in the world. However, Jacob seems to think he has to act middle aged. This is why he is the first one to do his chores and offer to return his modest allowance to help pay bills.
To alleviate his concerns, we have assured him that we’ve got everything under control. Food, shelter, and clothing are guaranteed, even if exotic vacations and Daddy’s hoped-for 350 Z are not. We want Jacob to be a little kid, to believe in magical creatures and dreams that come true.
So we continue to read to Jacob, tell him stories, show him whimsical paintings, and screen inventive movies. And, thankfully, he loves it all – which doesn’t mean he’ll be converted all the way back into a wide-eyed innocent. It’s OK, though, because it’s our job as his parents to balance the really true with the really amazing.
While magic seems particularly absent in a world of economic fear and mortal danger, this holiday time is more important than ever to boost our children’s sense of wonder, to shower them with all the stories of flying reindeer and miracles of light and whatever your cultural, religious, or family traditions offer. This is not to pull the wool over their eyes. This is to fill them with the power of possibility.
