[SeanDav]

> "That or he will feel tricked and betrayed and wonder what other things in his reality were crafted for him by his parents."

Don't agree at all. Do you feel betrayed that Santa is not real or there is no such thing as a tooth fairy?

[prepend]

A little, yeah. I wrestled with this as a parent as my kids got older and older. At some point my seven year old asked me is Santa was real and why we would tell her he’s real. Explained the fun and magic of Christmas, etc and I don’t think it was traumatic or anything, but definitely made me feel a little down.

[shkkmo]

I did when I caught my parents being the tooth fairy which I quickly extrapolated into realizing my parents were similarly lying about santa clause.

I really don't understand the urge to lie to your children because your parents lied to you.

[SeanDav]

Parents "lie" to their kids about things like Santa because they remember the magical world that was created for them from their own childhoods, before the reality of a world with no Santa, murder, disease, death etc intruded on their reality.

Which is better, telling your child:

"yeah you will lose all your baby teeth and each one will hurt and bleed and make you look silly with big gaps in your mouth"

or

"oooh you lost a tooth, now let's put it under your pillow and the tooth fairy will exchange it for a little gift while you sleep"

[shkkmo]

I don't understand why you put "lie" in quotes. Even if you believe it is done for a good reason, it is most certainly lieing.

You have a wide variety of choices as to what to tell your child that doesn't include lieing. You can celebrate the loss of a tooth as a positive step of growing up without telling a lie about a creepy fairy that sneeks into houses and collects teeth.

Adults may rationalize to themselves that they lie to children to protect the children, but I think it is often more motivated by the adults' desire to avoid having an uncomfortable and difficult conversation.