Would Millennials Lie about Santa? Maybe, and that’s not the Real Question

I grew up with adults who lied to me constantly, and not even creatively. Santa, the tooth fairy, “that loud fight wasn’t about you.” It was all wrapped in this idea that kids are fragile creatures who must be protected from reality. Now that I'm a young parent, I catch myself wondering if I’m supposed to continue this little tradition. Am I meant to invent stories the way my parents did, or am I part of a generation that can’t lie even for the sake of “magic”?

The truth is, we millennials are weirdly honest with our kids. Brutally honest sometimes. We’re the parents saying things like, “Mama’s tired” or “I’m anxious today,” as if our toddlers are junior therapists.

My four-year-old is very smart, but she was scared of ghosts and I didn't want to take advantage of that by scaring her into doing things my way. So I told her, "Ghosts aren't real." One day, I also told her that unicorns aren't real.

But when she asked me last Christmas, “Is Santa real?” I froze. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I didn’t know which version of parenthood I wanted to be: the nostalgic liar or the transparency advocate.

A friend of mine, also a millennial mom, told me recently, “I don’t think I can lie to my kid. I already overshare with him. I just don’t have the skill set our parents had.” And she’s right. Our generation is terrible at lying, not because we’re morally superior, but because we grew up being gaslit by grown-ups who thought children should be shielded from everything. We were told Santa was real, that relatives we hated were “nice,” that adults were always right, and that nothing was wrong when everything was on fire.

But here’s my bold take: the Santa lie was never the problem.

The scale of lying was.

When my daughter asks a question, I’ve learned she’s not trying to break mythology. She’s trying to see whether I treat her like a human being. Kids don’t need fairy tales protected by deception. They need adults who tell the truth most of the time and admit when a story is just a story. Magic doesn't die when you admit it's pretend. Magic dies when children realize you can't be trusted.

So will millennials lie about Santa?

Maybe. Some will. Some won’t.

But the real shift is this: we’re the first generation willing to explain the lie instead of defending it. That feels like progress.

So what's your take? What would you tell (or have you told) your kid about Santa, tooth fairy and other such things?

#issantareal #parenting #children #innocence #millennials