Agreeing on what lies to tell your children

The month of December poses an important question to all new parents: what lies should we tell our child? Husbands and wives debate over whether or not they should begin telling the tale of Santa Claus, explaining that an overweight old man in a red suit will be coming down the chimney at night time, but don't worry about it, he's not going to rob us or kidnap you, he's here to leave you presents. Unless of course, you've been a bad kid, in which case Santa WILL kidnap you, fly you to the North Pole, give you a pair of plastic elf ears to wear, and force you to assemble toys for the good little boys and girls. That'll teach you not to flip off your 4th grade teacher when she is trying to teach you earth science.

Don't get me wrong. I adore Santa. My mother fully had to sit me down at age 11 and a half and explain how everything really worked. We had this talk during the summer, because she wanted to give me six months to get over it. But like Britney from Glee, I still believe in Santa (a theory of mine which I have researched and written about). So yes, when I have kids, they will fully be told the story of Santa Claus. But the real story, the one about how other countries have gnomes who live under the floor boards and kind babushkas who bring them presents.

But then you think, how far will you take this? Are you going to push the Easter Bunny? Explain that a rabbit lays plastic eggs for you to find? That they are filled with jelly beans? Because I mean, a large portion of American teens already don't understand that milk comes from cows, not from a carton, and that cows have to have babies first in order to give milk, they don't just splurt it out because you're about to eat an Oreo. Why don't we go ahead and tell children that rabbits bring easter eggs, so that way when the kids hit 5th grade and are learning about the animal kingdom, they can keep thinking that a rabbit belongs to class aves or class reptilia because it lays eggs.

Or maybe your beef is with the tooth fairy. Nothing says whimsical magic like a little creature breaking into your house while you're asleep to collect your teeth for a necklace or some other tribal-like piece of jewelry. Why don't we just leave vials of blood as well, so the fairy can have complete DNA and identification records of us? Is that little pixie working for the Human Genome Project? Or maybe the FBI?

 The problem with choosing lies to tell your offspring is that you have to count on teachers, other parents, and teenagers to endorse your lie. Because you should fight tooth and nail for what you believe in, and if some kid with a grinchy dad tells your seven year old son that Santa doesn't exist, you need to be able to pull out the maps and star charts and cultural traditions to back up the probability that Santa can indeed hit all the houses in one night.

Personally, I am thinking of developing my own little fantasy character or yearly tradition. Like maybe I'll invent a birthday stork named Saint Ork (abbreviated of course to St. Ork), who brings you an extra present on your birthday. Each kid has their own birthday stork, and it's the same one that delivered the child to the mother in the hospital. So once a year the stork returns to see how the child is doing, and to see if the parents are still fit to have custody of the child. If the kid has really crappy parents, then Saint Ork will let you crawl into a fuzzy blanket and he will carry you off to a different mommy and daddy. All of the workers at DHS work for St. Ork. Every year your extra present will be wrapped in a blanket and be sitting outside on your doorstep. This bird is not here to sneak into your house or steal your molars. He understands the laws about breaking and entering and robbery. And if you want to special request a certain gift, what you do is write a letter and put it outside in the bird feeder for pick up. This makes total sense. I am going to write a children's book on this. Anyone want be my illustrator? Who's with me? What parents are going to agree on telling this lie?