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And, finally, to answer your question: I never lie to my children. Never. And they have an exceptionally rich fantasy life. I just teach them that some things are fun make-believe, some things are true, and there is a crucial difference.

...and I have a slightly different approach. You can say yours is the more valuable or correct, and I can argue that mine is.

My point is this: we can argue. As soon as you circumvent me, I'll have a problem with you.

You can argue that by perpetuating the myth of Santa in the classroom, I'm imposing my view on your kid. The truth of the matter is this: you can easily tell your children that Santa is a myth and that it is pleasant for kids to believe the myth-- and that's why they see him in schools. You've thereby innoculated them. If they then tell my kid there is no Santa, it's no big deal-- they're just another kid.

Not so easy for me to do the opposite thing after someone has decided to dispell the myth. It's over. Done. Someone else has taken it upon themselves to be "the parent"-- someone in implicit authority.

THAT'S what this is about.

Good point. Perhaps you'll notice that I didn't really interact with that particular point. You bring it up, so I will, and I'll choose my words carefully. I agree (on the one hand) with the teacher, that she shouldn't be required to advocate religious positions she opposes, much less positions (ontologicial omnipresent omniscient Santa) that no rational adult affirms. I also agree with her that this insistence that children be taught to believe in such a being is a religious doctrine.

But on the issue of what the teacher should have done, I'm less certain. I know I flatly disagree with the "reasoning" of most of the disagreement I've seen on this thread, and 125% disagree with the personal attacks and insinuations on the thread's initiator. Your point is, I think, the most valid (and perhaps the only valid) point of opposition, and I agree with your basic insistence. I never said I was certain that the teacher was right to present her view as opposed to the parents', and I think the required curriculum put her in a genuine bind. I do say parents are wrong knowingly to deceive their children. But is it the government-school teacher's place to disabuse children of their parent's lies? That, I think, is your question, and it's the big one; and I think your answer ("No") is probably almost always right.

So here my fall-back, if-you-want-to-know-what-I-really-think position is that I don't believe in government schools, anyway -- certainly not mandatory attendance in such. So then the parents either educate their own children as far as they can (my preference), or they contract with a school with the understanding that their beliefs will be respected. So, they can ask at the outset, "Will you join me in deceiving my children about Santa?", and take their business elsewhere if they receive the wrong answer. But from what I read in this thread, they'd have no trouble finding plenty of other adults blissfully untroubled at the thought of lying to children.

Dan