I won't make my kids sit on Santa's lap. Why we should all stop this outdated trend.
When my first (of soon-to-be five) kids met Santa, the bearded man reached out expectantly, nodding for me to hand him the toddler. I hesitated a bit, wondering if my kid would freak out as the few children in front of us in line had. But I did it. Why? Because that’s what you do when you have a kid, and they meet Santa. But as that toddler grew, and got more opinionated and voicey, he let me know he definitely would not be touching Santa in any way. So, with the next kid and the next, I sort of hovered beside Santa unless a kid reached for him or climbed up on him themselves. This was just one of many ways my kids have taught me where their boundaries are through the years, and I’ve learned to listen.
Where did this bizarre tradition come from, anyway? We teach our kids to run from strangers, screaming at the top of their lungs, unless they are dressed up as Santa. We teach them physical boundaries about touching and limits, unless we are paying $25 to get a picture taken with them sitting on said stranger. I reached out to my mom tribe to see how other parents were navigating balancing decades of tradition with boundaries, since most of us have that picture from the '80s or '90s of ourselves screaming on Santa’s lap while parents laugh and wave in the background. We were brought up thinking this was a normal rite of passage, but our kids are leading the charge at pushing back and communicating their own comfort levels. We are seeing them and supporting them a bit better than some of our parents.
That was considered 'funny' back in the '90s, less so nowadays.
Toronto-based mom Laurie Ulster remembers a classic family story about her own mom taking her little brother to the mall as a young child. “Santa was trying to drum up business and called out to my brother to ask if he wanted to sit in Santa’s lap,” she says. “My brother started screaming, ‘F*** off! You f*** off!’ in terror .... [it's] one of my mom’s favorite stories.”
Montana-based mom of five Kate Wehr can relate, as she remembers her own brother screaming “bloody murder” on Santa’s lap. “That was considered ‘funny’ back in the ’90s, less so nowadays. Our kids are given the option to sit or stand with Santa for photos ... if they don’t want to go up or sit on a lap, they don’t have to,” she says, noting kids are great at communicating their comfort levels and boundaries if we listen. As a photographer, she adds that you can take creative shots in many other places if Santa pictures cause a fight or discomfort.
Liz Bolton, a mom of two kids in Connecticut, noticed a “cool” alternative when she saw a Santa sitting on a couch, giving kids the natural opportunity to sit beside him rather than on his lap. She suggests high fives or fist bumps to her kids. In addition to being against the naughty-or-nice rhetoric regarding Santa, she says, “Obviously I don’t generally support sitting in the laps of strangers.”
This year, I was surprised when my sociable almost-2-year-old reached for Santa, and the others sort of just stood around him. In fact, one kid comically stood right in front of him, staring for the majority of the time, until an elf conveniently helped shuffle him more to the side so as to not block the photo. As with most things, giving them the option to do whatever they are most comfortable with takes the pressure off, and makes Santa more about Christmas magic and less about awkwardness and tear-filled photos. Some traditions should just stay in the last century.
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