This morning I received a phone call from a concerned mother of one of Conrad's classmates. She told me, (very nicely) that her son said, that on the bus, during a field trip, I had told him there was no Santa Claus. WOW! I didn't expect that one, especially in February. I tried to remember if we had even spoken about Santa Claus. I seriously couldn't remember, but I did know my Santa Clause mantra, when children ask me if he is real. I generally parrot, "It's a mystery, It's a mystery..."I told Hans that I felt a little bad knowing that my oldest might have spilled to beans about ol' St. Nick. But this got Hans (who told the kids about the Tooth Fairy when Conrad lost his 1st tooth) in a tirade. He reminded me that this boy was in the 3rd grade and then he asked "When does one decide to tell a child about Santa? how old does one have to be?"
We discussed some heuristics to answer this question: "Should one be told at 8, the age of
accountablility? or 18, legal age?" Then we got thinking about other topics and appropirate ages for discussion and realized that it's been over a year since we watch the mandated Cub Scout film about sexual abuse. (Which we watched with both Conrad & Riley.)Hans' conclusion was that "If they are old enough to know about sex, they are old enough to know about Santa." In fact, we even gave Conrad the complete "2for" (Conrad had his suspicions about both topics) back in November.
What do you think?
