'Christmas is ruined by children'

flashnazia

I don't celebrate christmas so I wouldn't know. Is it really this bad? Does it really fill most children with a sense of entitlement?

Christmas is conflated with a lot of things these days, but perhaps the most fallacious of all the Christmas myths we blindly buy into is the one that proclaims that it's all about the children.

No, it isn't. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Children ruin Christmas. I know this because I've done it myself. As a small boy growing up in the early 1970s I had my heart set on an astronaut outfit. On Christmas morning the garish wrapping paper failed its raison d'etre and I recognised the space helmet among the modest pile of gifts under the tree immediately. Shredding the wrap I tore through the rest, frantically racing to get to the silver foil outfit and the pretend oxygen backpack. Where were they? A wooden toolbox and a Spirograph set would be useless on my imaginary voyage to Mars. Turns out my mother had left it too late and all she could find in the toy shop, spaceman-wise, was the helmet.

The fury of a disappointed petulant child knows no bounds and I screamed, then cried, then threw the helmet across the room and made my family's Christmas utterly miserable. My parents were on eggshells for the rest of the day. My sisters opened their presents in embarrassed silence. Even the dog looked depressed.

The traditional and, let's face it, slightly sickening, Christmas image of the whole family joyously opening presents around a real tree, grateful for the gifts they receive is woefully outdated, if it ever existed in the first place. The reality of the modern Christmas nightmare is more like this; you bought the wrong Xbox game for your 10-year-old son and the trainers you bought for your daughter, the apple of your eye, were fashionable last year (that's why they were so heavily discounted but you do like a bargain). As for the mobile phones you thoughtfully got for them despite their tender years because everyone else in their class has got one, don't even go there. Your delightful progeny are now weeping with rage at your ineptitude and hate you for ruining their day. You don't know anything about anything. You are an idiot.

As you reach for the sherry you wonder to yourself why you even bothered, and reflect that your kids have got it wrong; you haven't ruined their Christmas, they've ruined yours. The only possible consolation is that this sorry farrago of consumer tat and infant psychopathy is being repeated up and down the country.

The idea that parents these days are time-poor and over-compensate for this by indulging their offspring is so familiar as to have become a cliche, but it's true. We seem to be hell-bent on creating our own versions of China's "little emperors", and all this over-pampering and over-indulgence means that children are unable to cope with not getting what they want. When they grow up these traits grow up with them leading to an inability to deal with disappointment compounded by an unshakeable sense of self-entitlement. We aren't doing children or ourselves any favours with the craven inability to utter the word "no" to the selfish little monsters we've created.

The merits or otherwise of deliberately not having children have been debated endlessly. Suffice to say that my partner and I do not have children, do not want them, and are looking forward to Christmas immensely. For those who desperately want children but can't have them, Christmas must be intolerably sad, given the emphasis that society places on putting children at the centre of the festival. They have my deepest sympathy.

For the rest, the great mass who have offspring and have almost bankrupted themselves to keep their greedy-eyed child-emperors happy whatever the cost, well, I hope you have the Christmas you think you deserve. But I can't help thinking you'll be disappointed.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/21/children-ruin-christmas

pukkamum

Well I do not recognise any of my children in this article, quite frankly the writer must have had parents that hadn't taught him basic manners.

my children are taught you don't get everything you ask for and I know for a fact there have been Christmas's they haven't got things they really wanted but you would never have known.

Pollycat

I think you need to realise that the article is slightly tongue-in-cheek.

sooty&sweep

Just because the person in the article was brought up to behave like a spoilt brat doesn't mean that everyone else brings their children up that way.

Jen

time2deal

I know this is tongue in cheek but it remind me of last year. We had a comedy incident like this - One child had a complete meltdown over a gift. Suffice to say there was no 'walking on eggshells' for the rest of the day! We all just laughed about it and the child was told to apologise after an hour or so. Got a nice cuddle and moved on.

Kids gets over excited and any disappointment can be blown out of proportion, but adults need to guide them on how to respond.

Now it's a funny story, for all involved, and not a life changing blight on enjoying Christmas forever!

Toto

Even tongue in cheek I think it's a silly article. I know no one who behaves anything like this so I can't see the humour really. Might as well say the average adult hurls the turkey out of the window because the wrong brand of cranberry sauce in on the table.

PasturesNew

Toto wrote: »

...Might as well say the average adult hurls the turkey out of the window because the wrong brand of cranberry sauce in on the table.

I know a controlling adult that would do this type of thing ... if only they hadn't threatened to walk out in the first instance if things weren't exactly as they wanted.... even if a solution of their brand and the brand of others were BOTH on the table, that wouldn't have made them happy. It had to be their brand, only their brand, or they're going home.... and letting them do that doesn't work if that means they've ruined the elderly parents' Xmas.... and it might be their last.

Spendless

No, mine are told to give me ideas but not that they will get everything on it. Neither knows about a 'main' present this year. DD almost 11 asked for a cheap payg phone, she's actually getting a better one partly in anticipation of Secondary school in Sept and partly because I am working more hours and she's more likely to keep in touch that way than her older brother who never knows where his phone is and has no interest in them!

Son is getting a tablet, a complete surprise as we would like him to have something along those lines for somewhere we are going next year.

Plenty of adults 'spoil' Christmas. Look at how many threads we have about on here - they usually involve grown up family members!

I've had 2 xmas' where I think wouldn't want to go through that again, one was just before I married when MIL invited us to Xmas dinner and my Mum to tea and then we discovered after accepting that one started at 3pm and the other at 4pm and neither Mums were happy with us.
The other was 2 years ago when my Nan said she was going home, literally just as dinner was being put on plates, claiming 'we were playing music in order to hypnotise her'. She was sectioned 3 weeks later!

Son who had his xbox break last year on xmas day - after his main present was a game and his pc break a few days later - doesn't even come close!

Pollycat

Toto wrote: »

Even tongue in cheek I think it's a silly article. I know no one who behaves anything like this so I can't see the humour really. Might as well say the average adult hurls the turkey out of the window because the wrong brand of cranberry sauce in on the table.

A lot of them are.

I was reading an article in Metro by Richard Herring yesterday about it being Christmas every day (a la Roy wood song).
http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/20/richard-herring-ponders-what-life-would-be-like-if-roy-wood-got-his-wish-and-it-really-was-christmas-every-day-4236927/

He lists lots of 'issues' about the prospect and ends by suggesting Christmas should be every 2 years, or, even better, every 4 years like the Olympics.

I read it and didn't think he was serious at all.

I doubt very much if the author of the Guardian article even wanted an astronaut outfit when he was a child.
It's just page-filling dross.

Carl31

Is there any adults that are that bothered by Christmas? Sure, its fun, few beers and some good food, but surely its all about the kids and family?

What a stupid article, looks like someone feels like they're missing out on something

Norma_Desmond

You know, I've never understood the 'Christmas is for children' thing.

Why?

This time of year celebrates the birth of Christ, or a pagan midwinter festival, or a good old family feast day......


Exchanging small gifts and all of the above, yes, lovely - but when did it become the 'Little Johnnie's presents are taking up a third of the sitting room' lunacy it can be today?

Happy Christmas