An influencer finally found the recipe for peak rage bait by saying she’s not “doing Santa” with her kids. What she means by that is she will not be telling her children the tale of Santa Claus. She refuses to lie to them about a magic man in a red suit coming down the chimney with presents.
She has several reasons for this, but a lot of folks don’t want to hear it.
Magic vs. honesty
This week, Shannen Michaela drew condemnation by announcing to the world that she’s not going to lie to her kids this year by telling them that Santa Claus is real.
“We’re not doing Santa in our house,” she wrote on X, “It sets up a foundational and delicate relationship upon lies.”
“The Santa narrative also feeds a consumerism-driven value system, where a child’s ‘worthiness’ gets tied to performance for the year.”
She also posted videos on the subject on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. The one on YouTube goes into the greatest detail about her decision. Additional reasons for her decision include the idea that “Christmas has enough magic” without the Santa myth and that he’s not or doesn’t need to be central to the holiday.
She keeps bringing up a “mushroom myth,” but we don’t have time to go down that rabbit hole.
Michaela is far from the first parent to have qualms about the Santa thing. It can create a tricky situation down the line when, inevitably, the kids figure out that there’s no Santa Claus. The threat of nothing but coal if they’ve been bad can also cause distress when children act out or even make mistakes.
Professor of Psychology at Texas Woman’s University Dr. Christian L. Hart pointed to a study which found that when parents lie to their kids, they tend to end up with “higher levels of psychosocial maladjustment.” At the same time, he said another study found that the Santa myth was not associated with poorer parent-child relationships.
Maybe one lie, just to bring a little magic into a young one’s world, is harmless.
Social media reacts
The vast majority of parents opt to let their kids believe in Santa, and they often react badly to folks like Michaela. Certainly, those who populate the outrage machine known as X are no exception.
“Anti-Santa propaganda + You will get coal + Your parents misspelled your name,” wrote @_veleho.
“C’mon kids! We’re celebrating Mary’s freebirth in the morning!” joked @an_artfuldodger. “Stop crying.”
Some of these pro-Santa propaganda folks spoke from experience, albeit secondhand.
“I know someone who grew up in one of these bold truth-telling Santa-free homes,” claimed @ArthurBoreman. “She’s in therapy—partially—dealing with the trauma of growing up as her mother’s best friend and having her mom trauma-dump on her for 18 years.”
Others were more interested in posting rude memes.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @shannen.michaela for comment via TikTok.
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