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Lie To Your Kids About Santa: The Evil of Honesty
Should you lie to your kids about Santa Claus? Malcolm and Simone Collins argue YES — and not doing so robs children of the magic, wonder, and crucial life lessons that come with a mythical childhood.
In this episode, they dive into:
* Why “never lying” to kids creates toxic blind trust in authority
* How their family builds an elaborate world of Krampus, Tommy Knockers, alive toys, slide eaters, and superhero dads
* The developmental need for scary stories, monsters, and survival play
* How Santa perfectly teaches kids that sometimes the entire world (media, government, schools) can push the same “lie”
* Why stripping away fantasy leaves childhood gray and boring
Plus adorable bonus audio of their kids asking about Daddy’s battle helmet from the “future war” against Krampus’s communist demon army.
If you’re a pronatalist parent who wants richer, more magical family traditions — this one’s for you. Merry Christmas and happy Future Day planning!
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. It’s exciting to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing two things. We’re gonna be talking about why you should lie to your children about Santa Claus. Yes. It was always that parent, and I swear to God, and they act like they’re taking the moral high ground when they’re talking about this.
Oh. Which is, I don’t, I don’t believe in ever lying to my children. Right. And you’re just like,
Simone Collins: Ugh. What Bores No.
Malcolm Collins: No. But I also think that, that they haven’t thought through the disservice they do to their children.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: I think it is I’m not gonna say child abuse. But it, it certainly you know, in that sort of territory for me
Simone Collins: they’re wronging their children of a very young facet of childhood, a magical childhood.
We’ll
Malcolm Collins: talk about that. But we’re also gonna go into some studies on Santa Claus. And unfortunately I couldn’t find any. What I really wanted was a study on kids who were grown up believing and not believing in Santa Claus. Yeah.
Simone Collins: There’s nothing on that. [00:01:00]
Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. At least no one’s ever found any significant differences.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Malcolm Collins: Interesting. First sort of the, the central layout of the argument here. Right.
Simone Collins: Alright.
Malcolm Collins: The argument from the other side that I often hear is, well, and, and I think it’s important to remember whenever you’re dealing with a situation like this, you need to deal with the potential benefits. Versus drawbacks of both sides.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. I think
Malcolm Collins: that both sides can pretend like there are literally zero benefits on the other side, which I think is just false, right? It is between the benefits and drawbacks that both sides give you, which are more benefits to drawbacks, right.
Speaker 3: Yes,
Malcolm Collins: in terms of child development, in terms of cultural transference, in terms of building good values, a healthy view of the world, and getting a full and complete childhood.
So, the people who say, I would never lie to my kids about anything the perspective they’re taking is they want [00:02:00] the kid to feel as if there is. Some form of authority that will never betrayal.
General, they want the kid to have some form of like, they won’t be able to fully emotionally trust them. If the kid know that there was ever a time in that kid’s life where they systemically misrepresented first of all, first of all, this actually almost
Published on 1 week, 3 days ago