mum
March 28, 2024

Santa Claus is a bit of the tenderness of parents

Side Moms: As a psychoanalyst, can you tell us what represents Santa Claus for a child?

Claude Halmos: The Santa Claus is part of the magic of childhood. He is a magical character because he brings gifts and we do not see him. This is the domain of the marvelous. But that assumes that thechild have a happy life. A life with parents you can rely on, with whom you feel safe. Who give us an education and also tenderness. The Santa Claus is part of this tenderness.

C.M: Would Santa be a little dad, an "ideal" grandfather for a child?

C.H: I do not think we should go into that. The Santa Clausit's a kind of artistic creation for a child. Once again magic. It is also a universal cultural element ... And I do not think we should put the marvelous thing!


C.M: The day children discover that Santa Claus does not exist, does it question their confidence in adults?

C.H: We can not say "the children It depends on how things are done, parents who are sufficiently connected with their child to realize that he is growing up, who have a life plan for him, who, precisely, support him in his desire to grow up, realize very naturally that he has moved on to something else, that he is not more in this early childhood with this wonderful there. So, they will explain to him. And as otherwisechild trust in his parents, believe in them, he will understand very well that it is part of a normal stage and that it is very good, moreover, that his little brother continues to believe in it. On the other hand, if it is a child to whom we lie all the time, to whom we hide our identity, to whom we do not say for example that his grandmother is dead, to whom we do not say who is his Father and that moreover he learns brutally in the playground by a friend that the Santa Claus does not exist, it can be very confusing for him. Everything is a question of context.

C.M: Does Santa Claus, like the little mouse or Easter bells, satisfy a childish need for "magical" interpretation of the world?

C.H: Do not associate the Santa Claus to the magic thought. Magical thinking is a stage through which all children (and we all have some leftovers) which is to believe that thinking and doing is the same. That is to say that if one thinks something, it can happen in real life. The classic example is "I'm in Oedipus, I want Dad to give me his place with Mom, and then Daddy has a car accident and dies, I'll think all my life that I'm guilty of it. since I wanted it. " Ca, It's the magic thought, it's the power of thought. Even adults, we are sometimes victims of this magical thought, we are sometimes guilty of things that we really did not do. The Santa Claus, it's part of the wonderful, it's part of the fantasies. If we take up the Freudian theory, thechild must pass from the pleasure principle where it is the center of the world and where everything is just magic, to the reality principle. But there remains a part of him which is not, besides, fortunately, totally colonized by the principle of reality, so there is a possibility to fantasize. But also to create, that is, to invent worlds that do not exist for real. And for a child which has solid bases, the "not for real" is quite identifiable and does not collide with reality. Well balanced, a child can choose to believe in Santa Claus and an adult too, why not, in this setting!



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