Children should be lied to

Thank you for accepting. It was not my intention to debate an actual child on this topic, but as it is, advidiun's opinions are as relevant, if not more so, as anybody else's:) Definitions accepted "when i think of santa clause i think of christmas and fun. the last thing i think of is "my parents lied to me." when i think of the easter bunny i think of eggs and chocolate. when i think of the tooth fairy i think of how happy i was when i would find that dollar under my pillow." (As an aside, is hitting the Shift key from time to time that difficult?) -First, you are one case - I am speaking about a general effect on society. Second, I am not talking about the practical temporal traditions that are associated with said lies; I am talking about the lies themselves. I do not, and do not have to, advocate the abandonment of the traditions that go along with these superstitions for my argument to work. The point: If the fun can still be there, why lie in the first place? Even after people know that Santa doesn't exist, he is still a symbol of Christmas. But the traditions do provide an opportunity, often taken, to break with the conventional morality. This is especially ironic in the cases of Christmas and Easter - the hallmarks of the Christian religion. Third, this is not about particular cases at all, but rather a question of the principles of moral virtue as opposed to vice, and above all of the preference of knowledge over ignorance. "All these things make children happy. they dont "confuse" them or cause "cynicism."" -You jump from examples of your irrelevant personal feelings to an unequivocal and unsupported statement about all children. You might not have been confused when you found out Santa wasn't real, but again, this has nothing to do with the other hundreds of millions of other children in the world. "also how could you explain the real meanings of christmas or easter to a young child?" -Quite easily. Simply tell the truth. What is so terribly difficult with this concept? I will give an example if you so desire. "they cant understand those concepts yet." -This is simply your unsubstantiated opinion. Generally, if they are old enough to ask, they are old enough to be told the truth. Why else would they ask? Granted, some mature faster than others - this is where parental discretion should come in. "and last i would liketo point out that if telling these things to your kids is lying and bad for society than i would argue that so are all childrens books such as cinderella or goldilocks. you could even argue the same with cartoons like scooby doo or looney toons" -Hardly. All the things you mentioned are presented as the fictions that they are, whereas I am speaking of intentionally misleading children. "If im getting this straight you're completely ok with telling your 5 year old how to have sex." -That's not what I have stated at all. Must you caricature my argument to attack it? I do not mean for parents to go out and do what you have said. I only mean for parents to educate their children correctly on the subject as it occurs naturally during the course of childhood and puberty. "telling them what death is is alright with me. they have to learn that to cope with certain inevitable things. but sex is atleast something they dont need to know about. i would say i probably would want to make sure my child did NOT know those things. even if i did though how would i explain that." -Here you lose any relevant perspective at all. Here is the point of my argument in action, by my telling you this: Sex is inevitable for the great majority of people. You will have to learn to "cope" with this at some point. Now, with this in mind, would it not be better to tell your children (when the time is right, which of course will vary) the truth than telling them about the stork? If you do it yourself, in a serious way, so they understand it isn't a subject to be taken lightly, it is better for them as they will no doubt be hearing things from their adolescent friends about the subject before they are ever taught about it in a biology or health class. Differently, actual sex education (how to be safe, etc.) is to be preferred to abstinence-only education, which only amounts to shrugging off parental responsibility by ignoring "the inevitable." "no child could ever understand the seriousness of something like sex. they would be tempted to start making jokes about it and shrug it off as not a big deal." -See above. "if a child doesnt understand it how woul he/ she know why theyshouldnt do it when they're only like 14?" -Your question has brought us full circle: The idea is to tell the truth so that it is understood, and thus derive from that information a course of action. I don't mean just go lay the facts of life on your child in five minutes and then walk away. I never said that these things wouldn't require nuance on the part of the teacher. Back to you. Britt