Source: Cectic
Besides the obvious child abuse shown in the comic — and yes, telling a child about hell is child abuse, no matter how you put it –, I find the mother in the comic morally repugnant for another reason: cowardice. She is unwilling to take responsibility for her actions, and doesn’t come out and say “obey me, or I’ll punish you.” Instead, she has to invoke an external, supernatural entity who will punish the child for disobedience — and when one fails, she comes up with another… one which, sadly, most people don’t outgrow before they’re 5 years old, unlike the former. She’s such a coward that she lies just so that the child doesn’t see her as a source of discipline and therefore never resents her. Never mind that parents should be a source of discipline; it’s their responsibility, after all, what with being parents and everything.
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I agree with your points. I would further add that I don’t believe children should be taught that Santa Claus is a ‘real’ person. It’s fine to tell them the story but to intentionally trick them that Santa is real has some consequences.
First, as you write above, it is cowardly to pass off discipline.
However, it also sets the child up to believe in supernatural beings. I don’t believe in god, spirits or ghosts so I didn’t tell my kids that they were real. I refuted it when required. My wife thought that a belief in Santa was harmless and actively convinced the kids that Santa was real. In her experience, Santa-belief was “fun” for both kids and adults.
I disagreed but reluctantly went along with it since I, too, believed the Santa myth as a child. The problem though is that my son, even up to 12-years-old struggled with whether Santa existed. Even when I told him Santa was not, he was not convinced! Friends of his had told him about god and he believed that god was real so why not Santa? It became very difficult to convince my son that neither god nor Santa was real! I would have much preferred that he never had an honest belief is supernatural being and I regret perpetuating that belief. After all, are our children not supposed to assume what their parents tell them is true?
As a public school counselor, I once had a first grade boy on my roster who kept wetting himself because he was reluctant to use the boy’s room. In talking with him, I learned he was convinced “the devil” was in there.
After a few sessions, I told him I knew the devil wasn’t in the bathroom. I told him I could prove it - did he want to come with me? He did. We went to the boy’s room and I knocked open all the stall doors calling out things like “OK Mr. Devil, so if you’re in here, where are you?” And “Hey, Mr. Devil - I’m not seeing you anywhere…”
By the time we left, the boy really looked like he felt better about the place being devil-free.
The next day the classroom teacher had to take me aside and tell me she’d received a complaint from the boy’s mother, annoyed that I was challenging their belief in the devil and telling me to stop talking with him about that subject.
Hard to figure…
I agree with the points of cowardess on the mother’s part, but at the same time… she probably believed the same.
I’m one of VERY many to be able to say that a belief in Santa as a youth is basically (probably NOT entirely) harmless. I don’t know of many people who were scarred as the result in the adolescent belief in Santa.
Actually to my knowlege, nobody was.
But yes, diving into the devil was a huge mistake on the mothers part. A simple solution would be to tell the kid that he’s going to be without some privelage until he learns.
This is a case of a slippery slope.
Threatening a child of “Santa’s BAD list” and then threatening them of SATANS GOOD LIST, are basically one in the same. Therefore the whole Santa thing should be handled carefully.