Lie To Your Kids About Santa: The Evil of Honesty

Should you lie to your kids about Santa Claus? Malcolm and Simone Collins argue YES — and not doing so robs children of the magic, wonder, and crucial life lessons that come with a mythical childhood.

In this episode, they dive into:

* Why “never lying” to kids creates toxic blind trust in authority

* How their family builds an elaborate world of Krampus, Tommy Knockers, alive toys, slide eaters, and superhero dads

* The developmental need for scary stories, monsters, and survival play

* How Santa perfectly teaches kids that sometimes the entire world (media, government, schools) can push the same “lie”

* Why stripping away fantasy leaves childhood gray and boring

Plus adorable bonus audio of their kids asking about Daddy’s battle helmet from the “future war” against Krampus’s communist demon army.

If you’re a pronatalist parent who wants richer, more magical family traditions — this one’s for you. Merry Christmas and happy Future Day planning!

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. It’s exciting to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing two things. We’re gonna be talking about why you should lie to your children about Santa Claus. Yes. It was always that parent, and I swear to God, and they act like they’re taking the moral high ground when they’re talking about this.

Oh. Which is, I don’t, I don’t believe in ever lying to my children. Right. And you’re just like,

Simone Collins: Ugh. What Bores No.

Malcolm Collins: No. But I also think that, that they haven’t thought through the disservice they do to their children.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I think it is I’m not gonna say child abuse. But it, it certainly you know, in that sort of territory for me

Simone Collins: they’re wronging their children of a very young facet of childhood, a magical childhood.

We’ll

Malcolm Collins: talk about that. But we’re also gonna go into some studies on Santa Claus. And unfortunately I couldn’t find any. What I really wanted was a study on kids who were grown up believing and not believing in Santa Claus. Yeah.

Simone Collins: There’s nothing on that. [00:01:00]

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. At least no one’s ever found any significant differences.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting. First sort of the, the central layout of the argument here. Right.

Simone Collins: Alright.

Malcolm Collins: The argument from the other side that I often hear is, well, and, and I think it’s important to remember whenever you’re dealing with a situation like this, you need to deal with the potential benefits. Versus drawbacks of both sides.

Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. I think

Malcolm Collins: that both sides can pretend like there are literally zero benefits on the other side, which I think is just false, right? It is between the benefits and drawbacks that both sides give you, which are more benefits to drawbacks, right.

Speaker 3: Yes,

Malcolm Collins: in terms of child development, in terms of cultural transference, in terms of building good values, a healthy view of the world, and getting a full and complete childhood.

So, the people who say, I would never lie to my kids about anything the perspective they’re taking is they want [00:02:00] the kid to feel as if there is. Some form of authority that will never betrayal.

General, they want the kid to have some form of like, they won’t be able to fully emotionally trust them. If the kid know that there was ever a time in that kid’s life where they systemically misrepresented first of all, first of all, this actually almost feels kind of psychotic to me.

So I’ll explain it why in, in a few steps here. Okay. Where I don’t even see this as a, as a positive. So first, when your kid leaves you and the home and goes out into the world, the, the blindly trusting authority is a very, very negative trait to have.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. It’s not

Malcolm Collins: a good thing to teach your kid.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, because we’re constantly being lied to as adults. How can you not teach that to children? That’s bad.

Malcolm Collins: But worse than that it, it’s doing it in [00:03:00] favor because the parent will say, well, I want them to be able to trust me at least, right? Like me, the caregiver, me, the person who is, is there for them.

Oh, please. The problem with this mindset is. You are trying to make it, which, which, and I’ll explain where this becomes like really twisted and almost sort of brainwashy so that everything you say to your kid is true, but that is not the case. A lot of what you say is going to be based on your opinions and your perceptions.

Mm-hmm. And you never know how crazy you actually are.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like you may believe that processed food is poison. But to other people, that’s an overt lie. And the, the kids may see that as a lie and see you as someone who lied to them. And if you, if you believe or convince yourself that you’ve told them nothing but the truth, you’re going to look like a liar eventually.

You’re not gonna look like a

Malcolm Collins: liar. You’re gonna look like you are somebody who attempted to brainwash your kids into believing anything you told them. Mm. And that’s a really weird relationship [00:04:00] to have with your children. Like your children should doubt the things you say because you are not going to always be right.

And this relationship where at least with me, they know that they can always trust me to be right. I don’t like that at all. I think that’s really toxic.

It’s like these people are actively attempting to raise the delightful children from down the lane.

Malcolm Collins: But then let’s talk about , the positives, like why you want to lie to your kids about Santa Claus. And this actually comes to a. Larger relationship we have with our kids because we don’t just have Santa Claus in our family.

For example, my kids. And in my son’s world. So my son is at school today and in my kid’s world yesterday, Krampus came down and was scratching at their door because they had tried to hide some of their not iPad like tablets that they were watching in their bed to watch at night. And so then they got scared and then daddy came downstairs with the, the sword behind me here that they, they believe is.

A magical [00:05:00] sword that I used to fight off Krampus. And when I come downstairs this morning my oldest son is like, huh, Krampus got what was coming to him, right? He goes, he should have known better than to mess with the Collins family. And then he gives me like a high five for like a high five and he just loves it.

And then toast. You wanted to come up and give me a high five. Because Krampus was destroyed. And then after that they went to go check on a toter row that they had in a little glass jar to see if he had moved. It was a little toy, but they wanted to see if the toy had tried to escape, and then they got worried that the toy would try to escape.

So then daddy had to walk over and cast a magic spell of protection on the jar. Yeah. To keep the toy inate. And then the middle kid became upset because I cast a spell, but I didn’t have a cape on. And so we had to explain how capes worked and whether daddy was a superhero or not. And I explained to them, I go, that’s why the reporters [00:06:00] always come to our house is because I’m a superhero.