Thread: dragons and fat men on raindeer

from "Should we lie to our kids about Santa?"

I was wondering if you grew a child without "Any!" supernatural, or magical references, would that child grow to be socially inept?

The magical world is a large part of life in early childhood, most of the children 3-8 and sometimes all the way to 11-13 believe in magic, Santa, or the Easter bunny.

So does this not play a key role in our social development?
without it would you lack certain social skills?

In Sanity, Madness, and the Family R.D. Laing analyzed communications within families of schizophrenics. He found that parents and older siblings of schizophrenics gave mixed messages (lies) and really perversely discounted the child's reality, at every turn, whatever that was. For example, "Did I ever say Ted isn't your real father? No you must have imagined it." They affirmed irreconcilable truths AKA double-binds. They set the child up to distrust her own mind.

On the other hand, society and the sanity it defines does hold contradictions. And I think that finally some contradictions (lies) are inseparable from the human condition.

I dunno which is worse: all lies or all truths. Some rational atheists... you know, the Ayn Rand types... despise lies. Yet morals aren't based on truths. They're based on nothing firmer than the wind beneath Santa's sleigh.

It remind me of this movie, "Dennis the Menace" in the scene where Mickey was reading a story book of "Huffy the train" to 5-year-old Dennis

Mickey: [reading Dennis a story] How can a train grow?
Dennis: He eats all his coal and gets plenty of sleep.
Mickey: But what's the point of reading lies?
Dennis: It teaches kids to eat all their food and go to bed when they're supposed to.

Maybe all the fairytales is just to teach morals and good manners in a way that is fun and easy to understand by the kids..