“May you live in uninteresting times.” – Chinese blessing

The Girl is waiting for something amazing to happen.

She hopes one day her closet door will become a doorway to an enchanted kingdom or that a mysterious stranger will knock and tell her, breathlessly, that she and her latent magical powers are the key to saving the world or that she is really a princess and her true identity has been hidden from her to protect her from an evil cult or that her parents are really superheroes and that her own powers will manifest on her next birthday.

She wants adventure. Not a vacation to a foreign country or supervised pony rides. A real, proper adventure with danger and excitement and heroes and villains and magic and saving the world.

She wants it so badly that she clings to the possibility that fairies and Santa Claus and giant beanstalks are real even though she’s beginning to doubt because—in all her seven years—she’s never seen one. So she waits. And the best I can do for her is to provide her with a safe and healthy life, to give her everything I can to make her happy, to teach her and protect her and help her grow.

But I can’t give her mermaids.

She has no way of enabling it, no way of wishing it into existence. She waits, frustrated. And the bubbly part of her filled with wonder and innocence and magic is frozen and chipped away piece by piece, replaced with cold, sharp slivers of reality and sadness every time the doorbell rings and it’s just the mailman.

This is what growing up feels like. And there’s no way to stop it. And my heart breaks a little every time I think about it.

Comments

1. Ben on 2007-12-03 13:23:58 wrote: Ahem. Cough. If we don’t lie to our kids about tooth fairies, santa, and gods, then they will not develop expectations based on these lies. Furthermore, if we show them the actual wonders of the world as in mineral crystals, the world under the microscope and that revealed by the telescope… electronics, architecture, sunsets, butterflies, ballet and martial arts, music, the dark mysteries of the deep and the bright and thin-aired aerie of the eagle, even the wonders of math, why then we don’t have to watch “the bubbly part of her filled with wonder and innocence and magic is frozen and chipped away piece by piece, replaced with cold, sharp slivers of reality and sadness.” Instead we can watch a healthy, sane child grow up with an appropriate sense of wonder. Just a tip from a 51-year old parent of three extremely healthy, fun-loving, and very smart boys. None of whom had to suffer the slings and arrows of lies turning into slush as time wore down untruths.

2. John on 2007-12-03 14:00:20 wrote: Ben, you must be fun at parties. Are you saying you never wished you could fly? I did. I still do. :-)

3. knwd on 2007-12-03 14:47:59 wrote: “her latent magical powers are the key to saving the world” Isn’t that what we’re all still hoping to hear? Even as adults, don’t we all want to think that we’re special & unique? We hold out hope that we have something to offer that will make the world a better place. We wish for the right opportunity to come up so that we can save the day for someone or something. Sometimes I think that’s why people have kids– so that they can be the hero and protector for their kids, at least for a few years…

4. Maggie on 2007-12-04 06:26:30 wrote: My 7 year old daughter is your girl’s separated-at-birth twin. In fact she adamantly maintains the existence of unicorns. Continues to ask me about them weekly. LONG LIVE CHILDHOOD, John. Enjoy the ride.

5. Chris on 2007-12-04 08:16:37 wrote: I love this post. It defines my little girl as well. Well written and greatly appreciated. -Chris

6. brandi on 2007-12-04 08:50:46 wrote: i have 2 girls-one, at 11, is struggling with pre-adolescence & the other, at 8 months, is only beginning her adventure. your post-and resulting comments-made my emotions run the gamut. now, if someone doesn’t celebrate santa or the tooth fairy or read fairy tales, that’s ok. i’m not going to judge them for it or tell them that they are wrong. probably their reasons for not doing it are as valid as are my reasons for doing it. but please don’t denigrate my choices. i’m not beating my kids, i’m not causing them undue harm. nothing in this world is as it seems & as far as i’m concerned, there is a santa claus-he just isn’t a big fatty in a red suit…“he” is a filipino man (my husband) pissy at midnight b/c he has to wrap presents that he’s been putting off for the past month. “he” is a mama (oh, yes, that would be me) stressing about whether she can get it all done in time. “he” is a child’s shining eyes at the wonder of a lit tree & the music issuing from a choir. “he” is the joy of the season wrapped up in a fairy tale. i just don’t understand what makes people so bitter that they feel they need to drain every last bit of joy from life. children need fantasy & imagination. there is time for serious exploring as they age & as fairy tales lose their magic. i was brought up on santa claus & beanstalks and i do consider myself reasonably sane & have been told i am rather intelligent to boot.

7. Norby on 2007-12-04 13:02:01 wrote: That’s N in a nutshell, and he turned 9 this past month. First item on his list for Santa last year was an invisibility ring (can you tell who had been reading the Hobbit?). He was genuinely disappointed that nobody got him one. I don’t think fantasy and reality have to be a “one or the other” sort of choice. You can definitely weave the two together and also ask children to apply logic and problem solving to their fantasy worlds. It’s a good thing (depending on how you look at it) that he reads a lot … -//

8. s’mee on 2007-12-05 10:22:45 wrote: I, as Marie Barone, believe it is just fine to out and out lie to your kid. Yup. “You look beautiful sweety.” “You can be anything you want to be.” “I think you are magical.” As a mom of now grown children who were lied to about faeries, heroes, and the fantastic wonders of vegetables I can tell you that I now have a superhero fireman, a magical man who can make paint do incredible things, a tooth faery, a man who shoots electricity from his fingertips and another grownup who spins tales of fantasy for anyone who will read them. What’s wrong with fantasy? Who has not read a faery tale and given hope and wonderment to a child. At our home, each year we still receive letters to Santa from a (married with his own kid)29 yr old, who understands that without such he will receive only onions and potatoes in his stocking. My hope is that the Girl can keep the harsh realities far from her for as long as possible (she will have a good 80 years to be a grown up)and never lose the child-like wonders that are ALWAYS around us. Some of us cling to the sweetness and good, and this is what make the world a lovely place to be.

9. Ben on 2007-12-05 13:51:37 wrote: John, Sure I wished I could fly. I just never told my kids that anyone could fly unaided, nor did my parents inflict any such thing on me. Fantasy - as a known and by-choice act - is fine. Lies are not. Telling kids there’s a Santa Claus is a lie. Saying we’re going to go see (or tell) a made up story for you to enjoy is not. And John - I am loads of fun at parties. I’m a musician, I tell jokes, I teach and demo martial arts, do card tricks, flirt, videogame with the best of them, engage in serious and not-so-serious discussions, and I cook really well, too. I don’t drink and I don’t drug, but then again, I was already having fun, so no need for toasting any neurons. And as for flying - I have a pilot’s license, and skydiving is also a hobby of mine. I explained the idea of free fall to my kids very young, and taken them skin diving. I would take them to space if I could afford it. So in a very real sense, I can, and do, fly after putting out some effort; but I never had to lie. Brandi, They’re your kids, you can do what you think is best, of course. So can John, etc. Nonetheless, it is only sane to consider that each and every thing we choose in the upbringing of our kids has consequences. Trying for positive long term consequential outcomes is the idea. Lying to them - specifically telling them unequivocally that things like Santa are real - have consequences as well. You might want to gloss over that, or you may be well aware of it and think that the temporary illusion granted is worth the credibility lost. Again, your choice - but still one with consequences. Now, having said that, I take strong issue with your idea that “draining joy” is any goal of mine, which is what you seem to be implying. Quite the contrary. I find life enormously entertaining, joyful, and amazing, and so do my kids and partner. We just don’t have to indulge in deception to think that way. Look at the world as it is. I mean, isn’t it a fabulous place? And if so, what is this pressing need for Santa to be falsely presented as a real being? s’mee: “You look beautiful” is a social (and usually personal) opinion, and as such, irrelevant. The most beautiful person in the world looks appalling to someone, somewhere. “You can be anything you want to be” is a lie, and a sad one that will come home to roost with bloody, painful talons. You could, however, replace it with something truthful in the same spirit, such as, “you can go after any goal you set for yourself, and I will encourage you and love you for it” or any number of variations on that theme. And as for what’s wrong with fantasy? Absolutely nothing. Just as I said above. Fantasy is entered into with the known consent of the fantasizer. Lies, however, are not fantasy. They’re just lies, and lies have negative consequences in the realms of credibility, honor, and trust. Me, I choose not to go there. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you what I do. Lastly, I never lose sight of child-like wonders and my life, and the life of my kids, is filled with sweetness and good. That’s not the same thing as ignorance by virtue of deceit. –Ben

10. Sylvia on 2007-12-05 14:46:35 wrote: My determination to see both, or however many, sides of an issue may not have anything to do with the fact that my birthdate makes me a Libra on the astrological charts. But however I came to be this way, my instinct is to assign merit to all sides of an argument and then to try to find a way to bring them all into agreement, or at least compromise. Not that I can actually do so, but it IS my instinct! ;) John spoke first, with a sweet essay that expresses the sadness he feels as he sees his daughter facing the growing awareness that there is really very little “magic” in the world. This is classic parental (or is it just paternal?) desire to give your child a fulfilled and happy life, even a magical life, or at least a life that doesn’t disillusion and disappoint her. And what he sees doing just this to her is that as she gains in knowledge, she is losing her faith in fairies. (I’m using fairies to represent all the fantasy that we encourage our children to accept as real when they are small.) Ben offers a solution which seems to say that the problem could be avoided if the parent did not teach the child to believe in fairies to begin with. He proposes that there is just as much “magic” in the natural world as there is in fantasy, at least in the sense of offering the child myriad wonders in the real universe to explore with excitement and awe. The words he uses to convince us are part of the problem, because the operative word is “lies,” a pejorative which tells us that we have done wrong, and that in so doing we have harmed our children. In other words, it’s all our own fault if our children become disillusioned and disappointed. Others who have commented have fallen more or less into a defensive position, those who have continued with their children the tradition in which they themselves were brought up, that of believing in Santa Claus and tooth fairies and other magical happenings. Since I am not the Great and Wonderful Oz (haha at the irony), I don’t have a perfect resolution for these two points of view, but I do see merit on both sides. We want our children to have magic in their lives. We read them fairy tales and encourage them to live these enchanted stories in their imaginations. Because of tradition we lead them to believe in mythical beings, knowing that at some point they will come to doubt that these beings exist, and finally to know for sure that we have deceived them. But this process is a stage of life. One could argue that the knowledge gained in such experience IS life, or at least a big part of it. We know they will not hold it against us or think that we are liars and deceivers. They will see it for what it is–a fantasy for children that gives pleasure to all, a tradition that harms no one. And in time they will carry on the same tradition with their children. Ben says that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t “lie” to our children and then be sad when they become disillusioned with the truth. Maybe we can, IF we present these fantasies and fairies, not as scientific fact, but as possibilities, once upon a times, things that have been told for generations, not necessarily verified, not necessarily NOT verified, but harmless to pretend that they are true, just in case! What about that? Is there a way to have it all?

11. Sylvia on 2007-12-05 15:00:14 wrote: Whoops! I always seem to push the wrong button! My actual point is this: LIFE is a MYSTERY! from start to finish, we never know what will happen next. We can plan, we can hypothesize, we can expect. But we never know FOR SURE. Even for scientists, life itself is still mysterious. Something new is learned everyday. So who can say what is real and what is fantasy? Jules Verne? H.G. Wells? Mother Goose? Walt Disney? Charles Darwin? Find what makes you joyful and teach it to your kids. Then just hope for the best!

12. John on 2007-12-05 15:08:43 wrote: Ben, you keep throwing the word “lie” around and implying that I and others are liars when you know nothing of the sort. I realize you’re making a generalization and I appreciate your points but it’s not endearing you to anyone. And to everyone, please, let’s keep this as civil as it has been so far. Thanks. Ben, I think you may have missed my point because I was being poetic rather than direct (but maybe not… blog comments aren’t the best way to communicate complicated ideas). In my experience, whether a child knows the truth or not about mermaids (for example) doesn’t make them wish any less that mermaids existed. Children are natural dreamers and childhood is characterized by the ability to believe in these things, something that most adults can no longer do. It’s the loss of that ability that I believe is unavoidable and maybe necessary yet extremely tragic. Plus, if you really are being scientifically honest about it, you must allow for the slim possibility that mermaids do exist. ;-) Plus, what Sylvia said while I was writing this. Wow. And I think that’s all I have to say about that. This post has been more thought-provoking than intended. :-)

13. Laura on 2007-12-05 16:43:33 wrote: Thanks, John - once again, one of your posts makes my heart squeeze from its poignancy & dead-on accuracy. As for the on-going discussion - wasn’t it Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds of the last 100 years, who said “Imagination is more important than knowledge” ? I believe that the fantasies of our childhood are what motivate us as adults - do you think the Wright brothers didn’t dream of flying as children ? And George Lucas didn’t imagine a distant planetary battles as a boy ? Similarly, grownup children who are able to maintain the joy of Santa @ Christmas ( or mermaids, fairies, gnomes, what-have-you) want to create what they fantasized & pass that joy on to others. My Girl, at 9, is still somewhat firm in her belief of Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and growing up to be whatever she wants to be. My Boy also believes that he is raising a tiny green T-Rex in his bedroom. I think when they finally realize that the TF is Mom, we all try to be Santa, & Greenasaurus is never going to grow bigger than he is, they’ll not be disappointed but heartened that magic may be somewhat different than we all wished, but it’s still inside us.

14. christine on 2007-12-07 17:55:59 wrote: Kids will always believe in fairy tales, whether we tell them or not. I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, those Christmas eves, Covers pulled up over my head, but with a little peep-hole so I could see Santa when he came… ears straining for the sleigh bells certain to betray his arrival at any minute now… and I always fell asleep before he came and filled my stocking which was hung at the bottom of the bed, except one night, eyes fixed unblinking on the sky, I was sure I saw that dark shape. The bulky shape of a sleigh shooting across the sky, pulled by reindeers, faster than anything it went past… but I was sure.. Oh it was beautiful and I sit here and smile and am so grateful for those memories! And I still believe in things that are unproven, things that don’t even make sense. I’m still a dreamer. And maybe because of that I get disappointed more than someone who is more of a cold hard facts kinda person, I’m naive and I know I am. But I love it, So Much! ’m even thinking that I may be more thankful for the fantasies of my childhood than the realities of my childhood, I grew up in a crappy, skint mining village, everyone was out of work, the house was too cold… but those fantasies!! actually, I don’t have a single recollection of when I found out that those things were not true… Yes, life is big, and wonderful and so much more amazing than we can comprehend but it doesn’t mean that it makes all those fantasies pointless, does it? John, that may have ben the most poignant thing I’ve read this year. I love it. It’s going into my inspiration file this minute.

15. Aurora on 2007-12-09 13:09:42 wrote: “Telling kids there’s a Santa Claus is a lie.” That maybe true but usually harmless. The truth is that there are LOTS of Santas. Anonymously being Santa for someone who has no one, and isn’t expecting anything is one of the most satisfying experiences for me. As is discovering Santa in others. I learned this at around 7 years of age when I learned the “truth” about Santa. I’m 47 now and this truth rejuvenates me for the coming year when I find people failing to meet my expectations. Yes, I’ve “inflicted” the “lie” on little kids. Santa is a powerful, joyous and yes magical experience that I continue to learn from each year. There are equally beneficial lessons to be learned from super heroes, fairies, mermaids, unicorns and their assorted colleagues.

16. mc on 2007-12-10 10:57:00 wrote: i’m with ben, anyone who thinks the world is less interesting and magical as an adult must be confused. i think the real problem is teaching kids how to turn that sense of wonder and adventure into valid, practical motivations to explore the true magic of the world. to me, your girl sounds like an ideal candidate for being a future pioneer, and the only lie i would worry about her believing is that her adventure will never come or truly great mysteries don’t continue to exist all around us.