A born skeptic

When my dad was a little kid, as our family tells the story, he never believed in Santa Claus. When he was 3 or 4, and relatives tried to talk him into believing, he couldn't be convinced. Apparently the whole thing seemed absurd, and he refused to play along. I think some of his "skeptic" genes have filtered down into my daughter.

She did formerly believe-- or at least, it appeared she did-- in Santa and the Tooth Fairy and the bunny who brings pastel-foiled Hershey's kisses. But she always had many questions, and it was getting harder and harder to answer those questions. She'd reason: "The Easter Bunny can't be huge because there's no such thing as giants, but if he's little how can he carry the baskets?" Or, out of the blue: "So how does Santa really get in the house? Because no way could he fit down our chimney, and anyway, lots of people don't even have chimneys." Or: "What does the Tooth Fairy want with my teeth?"

[As an aside, the radio show This American Life, which I dearly love, once asked kids what they thought the tooth fairy did with all those teeth. One kid said she built houses out of them. The interviewer asked, "Why doesn't she just use bricks?" And the kid replied, "Because people don't grow brick teeth!"]

So, my husband and I have been having these increasingly uncomfortable conversations about various imaginary characters who come bearing gifts in the middle of the night. I've developed the theory that this was a way for parents to give gifts on special occasions without having to deal with any requests or pleading afterward. Santa only comes on the night of December 24th, so if he brings you candy canes and you eat them all in 2 days, well, that's your loss. He's not coming again until next year and it's no use nagging Mom. Quite a tidy solution, really. But I was starting to feel like I was really lying to my kid, and not in a fun way. It was starting to seem like pointless deception which she found frustrating and which required mental gymnastics on my part. I was wondering how long I was expected to keep this up. And I was remembering how, when I was a kid, I pretended to believe in Santa for at least two Christmases after I had caught on, because I was afraid my parents would be disappointed if I revealed that I was in on the joke.

Anyway, a few weeks back, under intense grilling about the Tooth Fairy, my husband finally cracked. He reluctantly admitted that no, there wasn't any Tooth Fairy. Within about 2 minutes Anya had reckoned that there wasn't any Easter Bunny or Santa Claus either. You might think she would have been disappointed or even peeved that we'd hoodwinked her all along. Instead she seemed relieved, and laughed and gave us a sly look, as in "Good joke and all, but give me a break-- a bunny who hides eggs?" Our claims about Santa and bunnies and fairies actually distressed her, I think. They were inconsistent and bizarre, not to mention that if Santa were real, then why not ghosts, dragons, and mummies?

And then, a couple of days ago, we had this conversation:

Anya: I saw this woman that had one of those necklaces on with that cross thing that means, "Believe in a god." [Scoffing noise and eye roll]
Me: So, you don't believe there's any god?
Anya: No. I mean, have any astronauts ever seen a god? No! There's nothing up there but the moon, and there's no air on the moon.

Anya thinks of "gods" in the plural, because her first exposure to the concept of deities came from learning about ancient Egypt. To her the cross means you believe in a god, any god. And so far it looks like gods fall into the same category as poltergeists, elves, and goblins.