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The 'Gutfeld!' panelists react to reports Americans plan to buy fewer Christmas gifts this holiday season despite President Biden's efforts to combat inflation.
In a sign of how screwed we are as a society, some Gen Z parents are refusing to allow their children to believe in Santa Claus, because they will be "traumatized" when they find out he’s not real.
Get out the charcuterie board, we need all of the cheese for this wine.
The hashtag "SantaIsntReal" has been trending with tens of millions of views on TikTok as Gen Z thinks they are better than everyone else and wants to screw up Christmas of all things. Never fear, Gen Z parents are here and have ALL the answers!
Some of the TikTok comments are pretty absurd.
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Santa Claus waves to the crowd during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City on Nov. 27, 2014. The annual tradition marks the start of the holiday season. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
One person made a video with tens of thousands of views letting everyone know that she told her 3-year-old that Santa wasn’t real. "Telling kids that Santa is real is a lie, and I don’t believe in building my kids up on a lie," Sierra McKenzie told the New York Post.
Another mother commented, "I don’t want to scare my children into thinking that they have to behave a certain way or that they were more ‘naughty or nice,' than another child based on Christmas gifts."
Gen Z parents are arguing that when children eventually find out that Santa isn’t real, that it is very traumatic.
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Uhm, Santa Claus has been around for CENTURIES and I think people have done just fine. We’ve survived. I don’t see an overwhelming majority of Baby Boomers or Millennials in therapy based simply because they found out that Santa wasn’t real when they were 9 years old.
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Other parents said that they don’t want to instill the fear of a Santa as an all-knowing, judging figure that will punish you if you’re naughty and not nice. They would rather choose what’s becoming more popular and known as "gentle parenting." This is when parents try to raise kids by promoting kindness and respect rather than by threats. Essentially, they want to have their children be good people simply for the sake of being good.
A man portraying Santa Claus sits in a mall in South Portland, Maine. (AP2013)
The "let’s all just be nice to each other" argument has also been used for centuries. And do you know what has come from it? A whole lot of people doing terrible atrocities throughout world history.
I expect these parents that are preaching about not wanting to lie to their children about Santa to NEVER lie to them about ANYTHING then their whole life then. If they are going to take their moral high road then they have to do it across the board. Let us know how that works out for you.
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One of my favorite quotes in the Post article was by childcare expert and author Sarah Ockwell-Smith.
She told the outlet that it’s important not to use Santa in a threatening way. "The idea of an all-seeing, judgmental mythical being spying on children is quite trauma inducing," Smith said. "There’s no surprise that so many kids cry when they meet Santa."
Uhm, no. They cry because they are in an unfamiliar situation and that’s what children do — they cry.
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Kids absolutely lose their mind when they visit the Easter Bunny as well. The Easter Bunny isn't the same "watchful, all knowing" being that Santa Claus apparently is. So what's the argument for why kids cry when they see him? Exactly. It’s because they don’t know what the heck is going on because they are kids!
Santa Claus attends an evening hosted by Brooks Brothers to celebrate the holidays with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital at Brooks Brothers in New York City. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Brooks Brothers)
I specifically remember a moment from this past summer when my 6-year-old niece was being a brat. Nothing my sister or brother-in-law would do was going to calm her down and she was just on a rampage. So what did I do? I said that she better be nice and stop acting up or she won’t get any gifts from Santa at Christmas.
Do you know what happened?
She IMMEDIATELY started behaving.
Is it wrong to use a mythical person as a punishment? What about parents that buy their children everything and refuse to tell them "No." I find that much more troubling than believing in Santa for a couple years.
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The bottom line is this participation-trophy, everybody gets a "congratulations!" mindset is doing irreparable harm to our future generations.
Parents aren’t doing any favors by trying to shield their children and paint the world as some sort of utopian "everything is fine!" place. If you don’t stand for anything, then you stand for nothing and that only allows chaos. We are seeing it in the breakdown of law and order in many cities across America. Criminals — especially younger ones — are seeing that their actions have no consequences. It starts with robbing a CVS or an Apple store and only escalates until they commit something much worse.
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To take the #SantaIsntReal counterargument even further…
I would argue that you have now scarred your child from being a part of what many other children are participating in. Maybe by not allowing your child the opportunity to BE A CHILD and experience Christmas and Santa Claus, you are the one that is screwing up your kid.
When the other children are talking about Santa and doing their Christmas lists, your kid is either going to hate themselves because they’re left out. Or they’re going to be an absolute a--hole and tell the other kids that Santa’s not real. Then those parents are going to hate YOU.
You now have a pain in the a--, know-it-all child that no kids want to hang out with, and you are hated on by all the parents in the group chats.
Congratulations. Hope it was worth it. Over Santa Claus of all things.
More articles by Mike Gunzelman at OutKick.com.