Bizarre Research Finds That Lying About Santa is Potentially Dangerous

According to a new study out of Lancet Psychiatry, lying is bad.

Yep.

Well, actually there’s more to it than that. The study done by psychologist Christopher Boyle of the University of Exeter and Kathy McKay of New England, Australia are suggesting that lying to kids about Santa can completely shatter the parent-child trust.

“If they are capable of lying about something so special and magical, can they be relied upon to continue as the guardians of wisdom and truth? All children will eventually find out they’ve been consistently lied to for years, and this might make them wonder what other lies they’ve been told.” They wrote in their study.

Channeling their inner Werner Herzog, they go on to question the morality of making children believe a omniscience man cloaked in red pajamas has their eye on them every single second of their lives.

“The morality of making children believe in such myths has to be questioned.”

Finally, backtracking a bit to make sure parents don’t go all in on not lying to kids, they do recommend an occasional “white lie” to help a kid understand death a bit better.

“An adult comforting a child and telling them that their recently deceased pet will go to a special place (animal heaven) is arguably nicer than telling graphic truths about its imminent re-entry into the carbon cycle,” they write.

So what say you? Do you lie to your kids like immoral scoundrels or have you already laid the foundation for mistrust.

As an aside, I was raised to believe Santa was real and while I can’t point to me discovering he was a total hoax, — I do have a general mistrust of people and tend to be more skeptical than others. So who knows. Maybe there’s something here (or I’m just an ass.)

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