The Easter Bunny – and other tales we tell our children

SPOILER ALERT: In the unlikely event that your adoring child gets hold of this particular page of the SM, don’t let them read on.

This week, all around the world, many parents began preparing for Easter. This probably involved thinking of ways to buy eggs without the kids seeing, how they will be hidden and bracing themselves for those challenging questions about how the Easter Bunny got into the garden without sounding off the alarm.

But as parents prepare for their annual delivery of fiction, they most probably have some questions of their own creeping up on them. Their children are starting to get older and begin asking questions, and very soon the inevitable will happen. At some point, someone is going to burst their bubble. The magic will stop and your children will begin to figure out it’s not the Easter Bunny behind their surprises, it’s you.

In my household it was my adoring aunt and godmother who delivered the news in one foul swoop, informing me and my two younger brothers about the real truth about the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy. My mother had been agonising over her delivery and the appropriate time for coming clean, so much so that we were probably going to go on to have kids of our own without ever hearing the truth.

So, with this in mind, I looked back on that time of my life and began to wonder what day gets to be D-day when delivering the cold, hard, truth to your children. The Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy are part and parcel of growing up for most kids.

We begin the tale of deceit with the Easter Bunny fib about the rabbit who works one day a year delivering chocolate eggs to every home. This is followed by the tale of Father Christmas – a jolly old man who navigates the entire globe in one night in an old sleigh pulled by flying magical reindeer. Swiftly followed by the Tooth Fairy, who flies around with loose change in her tutu and in some countries is sometimes substituted with a Tooth Mouse.

It’s safe to say you need to keep these lies going in order to avoid suspicion. Almost like one big political conspiracy, you see, because without the Easter Bunny and Santa, they’d start questioning the Tooth Fairy’s motives. And then, like a house of cards, the whole kidfriendly system would collapse.

Perhaps it’s true what they say and that one lie leads to another. Remember the story we were all told by our parents about the cheerful storks delivering newborns? In their defence it must be one awkward conversation to have with a toddler when explaining the real origins of conception and the onslaught of questions to follow. Hence a night featuring your friendly neighbourhood stork carrying the infant to expectant parents seems like the best way to go.

Some parents believe it is better to draw the line in the sand for their children when it comes to the difference between truth and make-believe. They say that by being keepers of the truth, their children can use them as trustworthy guides for distinguishing fact from fantasy. It’s important to be honest but sometimes lying is the most honest thing you can do as a parent. It would be easier to believe in unicorns and fairy dust than accept the reality that we are living in a world where war exists, Cape Town is running out of water and VAT is now 15%.

Fantasy and imaginative play are building blocks of children’s intellectual and creative growth. Hopefully it is this sense of wonder that they will carry into their adulthood. Besides, the ability to use our imaginations and suspend reality is what feeds into our enjoyment of books and films and makes us feel creative and inspired.

Children deserve all the wonder and happiness they can get in childhood. Life would be a cruel and harsh reality were it not for the imagined pleasures that we give as gifts to our children. They fill their little minds with joy, excitement and laughter, and what a wonderful gift that is...

@thesocialitesa