Teaching Belief in Santa Is Equated With Lying

BUFFALO, N.Y. — An article in the fall issue of Free Inquiry, a secular humanist magazine, says that teaching young children to believe in Santa Claus is deceitful and may be blunting their imaginations.

Judith Boss, who teaches in the University of Rhode Island philosophy department, writes: “In telling children Santa Claus is a real human, we are not engaging children’s imaginations. We are simply lying to them.”