Well Mia figured out that there is no tooth fairy today cause Julie forgot to put a dollar in her pillow and take the tooth away. Mia was pretty broken hearted and pissed at her mom. So tonight she comes up to me and asks, "Daddy, if there's no Tooth Fairy, then is Santa Claus not real either?" Well, I told to go ask her Mom. Of course Julie just lied to her again.

So then Mia comes down to me and looks me dead in the eye and says, "Dad, is Santa Claus real?" I told her no, that I was Santa Claus.

Who's the better parent?

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You know if she sees this post of yours, your ass is sleeping on the couch for a month, you know this, right?? lol

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Fuck that, I pay the mortgage!

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I agree with what you did, however it's probably not a good sign that you are in a (known or unknown to your wife) competition with your wife over who is the better parent. Might want to start there.

You don't know me very well do you? Go read some of the Mia threads and find out what a parental team Julie and I are.

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We never had that problem because from the very beginning we told our kids those things were not real. We also said they could never tell their friends.

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How'd the not telling their friends part go? Any slips that you've had to deal with?

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It went well. No issues at all. All we said is that Santa Claus was a make believe character like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Other parents prefer to pretend he is real and we are fine with that. It will hurt their friend's feelings if they tell them instead of letting their parents tell them. They understood. We reinforced it every year and they listened to us. They liked being treated like they were more grown up than their friends.

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well played

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I was just thinking about it some more. Our kids got every bit as excited as other kids did when they saw Santa in the mall. We got pictures of them sitting on his lap. They liked the free candy cane. By the same token when we went to see the rat in FL they were excited seeing all the characters even though they knew they were not real.

When the kids is 1-3 they didn't have very many chances to tell someone else. By the time they are 6 a lot of other kids already know. So it is a 2 year window where we had to be careful. At 4 there are not a lot of other kids to deal with outside of preschool.

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