Children are taught from a very early age that lying is wrong—just before they learn that adults lie to them all the time.
**SPOILER ALERT**
Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy... all lies.
Except for the Great Pumpkin. The Great Pumpkin is totally real.
For small children, fictional characters often become real without the adults in their lives explicitly telling them they're real. Barney the dinosaur, the Teletubbies, and Bluey have been real to some child somewhere at one time.
So real that live shows have been developed and toured for some of these fictional characters.
If a child goes to see Sesame Street on Ice, Big Bird is real to them.
So who should tell them he isn't?
A sibling who broke the news to their niece turned to the "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) subReddit for feedback after catching flak from their sister.
Miggovortensens asked:
"AITA for explaining to my niece that Paddington the bear is not real?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"My sister and I took my 5-year-old niece to watch the new 'Paddington' musical at the West End, and during the curtain call both actors that play Paddington—the offstage performer who provides the voice and the little person who wears the bear costume on stage—come to take their bows."
"There are filmed versions of the curtain call on YouTube where you can check out both actors entering the stage."
"As we were leaving the theater, my niece asked me who the actress was—she of course didn’t recognize her out of costume—and I told her it was the woman playing Paddington on stage."
"Her mother was in the line for the bathroom and wasn’t around us then. Anyway, I didn’t think much of it."
"And then we went to grab something to eat, and my niece was a bit quiet and in her head, and my sister asked her what was wrong, and she started crying because Paddington wasn’t real. And my sister looked at me like I had done something wrong, like breaking the illusion of Santa or telling a kid it’s a person in a Mickey Mouse costume at Disneyland."
"And I don’t get how I have done something wrong because a stage musical is not the same thing, and I was just answering her question without predicting she believed we were watching the 'real Paddington'. Yet my sister was still upset about it."
"AITA in this situation?"
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
"I explained to my niece, without her mother being present, that the actress she saw on stage was playing Paddington the bear. I didn’t anticipate this would be breaking the illusion and that she thought we were before a real talking bear, or that it was something that I had to first validate with my sister (her mother)."
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was
"I think if someone is old enough to go to the theatre they're old enough to know that the people on stage are actors and that the real Paddington is busy and isn't going to re-enact his life story every night on stage." ~ BreqsCousin
"I had to break it to my six year old niece/cousin (my same age cousin's child, so calls me her aunt) that the Santa she saw smoking a cigarette outside the mall was not the 'real' Santa. She was a bit gloomy, but perked up with the 'Santa can't be at every mall, so he lets some of his helpers dress as him and the elves, wanna see a picture of Auntie Egg when Santa let me be one of his helpers?'."
"She was especially pleased that said picture had her in it. xD (Her first Santa pic my cousin brought her to the Santa I was working with and of course asked that I be in the pic too because honestly wouldn't you if your child's aunt was Santa's elf?)"
"She's now 14 and has learned that we can ALL be Santa's helpers or Santa ourselves, we just have to want to be, so she writes Santa letters to all her younger cousins and little brother and wraps her brother's gifts in her room since he doesn't come into her room without permission, so less chance of him finding them in there." ~ CenturyEggsAndRice
"My local mall is so big they had a Santa at either end. I had to have the same conversation with my daughter because they didn't even look the same so I couldn't say he used magic to transport himself." ~ Safe_Sand1981
"This is the same logic I use with my daughter about Santa: helper Santas make movies and visit kids for him so he can help the elves and get ready for Christmas. Preserves the illusion and makes it so she's nonplussed by the actors we see." ~ KaraofRowanFarm
"I think that, unlike Santa, who lives in the collective imagination and Mickey Mouse, who exists in a land that’s designed to create and maintain the illusion that little kids are meeting the real characters, a play is a different animal."
"I watched the video of the curtain call and I can totally understand why a 5 year old would think she was seeing the real Paddington, but when the actress returns (around the 3 minute mark) we can tell that the play is over and the performer is returning to be appreciated for the work they performed, so without a heads up, I can’t see how OP would anticipate that the niece would need to be told an excuse to keep the magic intact such as 'the real Paddington was busy'." ~ homtulce
"I'm sure there are people who bring babies and toddlers to plays. I'm not saying they should, but they absolutely do." ~ StormCloudRaineeDay
"NTA, what a silly situation! If it's important to your niece, watch the 'Paddington' movies with her and just say 'see, there's the REAL Paddington! Because everyone loves Paddington, people dress up like him, like a costume for Halloween!. That's what the musical was, a lady acting like Paddington, but there's the *real* Paddington...he lives in Peru, so we can't see him in person, unfortunately." ~ Even_Budget2078
"NTA. Theater isn't some elaborate scheme to trick kids into thinking fictional characters are real. You didn't reveal some secret like Santa or the Tooth Fairy. You had no idea this could possibly upset her." ~ TheGoochTaint
"Seriously, the kid was probably just tired. My kids used to cry over the weirdest things when it got close to bedtime or when they were exhausted from a day out. I'm sure OP's niece will be fine in the morning." ~ Slade-EG
"NTA. I hate this 'lie to kids to preserve the magic' argument. Paddington isn't real, and it's okay that the kid learned that." ~ MagnusCthulhu
"NTA. This went down differently than I imagined when I read the post title. I'm not big on lying to kids or reinforcing make-believe characters for too long, so maybe other people will feel differently. To be honest, I find the culture of telling kids made-up characters are real, knowing they'll eventually have to learn the truth, to be weird." ~ misalawliet
"My daughter figured out pretty early that the Tooth Fairy and Santa weren't real, but I think she enjoyed that I was able to make up stories about them, to answer her questions."
"Once, I forgot to put money under her pillow. It had been storming a lot, so I just told her that the Tooth Fairy couldn't fly in bad weather, like how flights get delayed."
"Once we had the talk about how these aren't real, I also explained that the idea of them is very real, and she was not allowed to destroy that for her younger relatives." ~ _buffy_summers
"I learned about Santa when I was 8. The next year, I had to stay with my cousins, who still believed. One was my age. I knew I couldn't say anything. They were shocked when I wanted to go to bed and not wait up/hide for Santa." ~ J_for_Jules
"I've been meeting more and more people whose middle school children believe in Santa."
"As someone who figured it out in first grade and was no genius, I think our kids might be getting dumber." ~ elvie18
"NTA, you just told her she was acting in a play, that’s fine. I think your sister was more annoyed that she had to calm down her child rather than you being a big evildoer who destroyed the magic of Paddington bear." ~ fartasticpooper
"NAH. I guess you technically ruined the 'magic', albeit unintentionally."
"But from what you've said, you simply answered a question and had no reason to believe your niece thought Paddington was real. I think a lot of people would probably react in the same way."
"Really, I think your sister should probably have given you a heads up, then the situation could have been avoided." ~ HarryJ92
"I would say it's not even that OP said Paddington isn't real. OP just said that the theatre performance wasn't the real Paddington. That doesn't necessarily mean Paddington isn't real..."
"I believed in Santa and also thought that, because Santa obviously lives in the North Pole (duh!), he had 'helpers' that you could tell your list to in case your letter got lost. I think my parents were quite clever to explain mall Santas to me in advance so they never had to deal with me asking why 'Santa' looked different from the other Santa..."
"Just saying that I believed in Santa as 'real' while also being fully aware that mall Santas were not the real Santa."
"OP's niece can still believe that Paddington is real and now she can have the new knowledge that the real Paddington doesn't do theatre." ~ Even_Budget2078
Should adults lie to children? That's a complicated question.
Should adults allow children to believe in things that aren't real? That's also complicated.
The best choice is probably to defer to the child's parents over such questions.
