So excited! I love this contest, can’t wait to see the winners!

My (now 15 year old) niece was always terrified of my dad when he dressed up like Santa, which he’d done every year for our town’s children for our whole lives. We couldn’t figure out why she was so scared, but when she was 3 or 4 (old enough to finally communicate clearly) after another failed attempt to sit on “Santa’s” lap, she finally went to my sister (her mom) with tears in her eyes and said, “Why does Santa have Grandpa’s eyes?”. We all felt so bad that we’d been subjecting her to this terrifying feeling for so long without realizing why she was so upset! Now it is just funny, though. She’s still too smart for her own good…

Maybe I’m just a stick-in-the-mud, but I really hate crying baby/toddler pictures, and crying-kids-with-Santa pictures in particular. I know that most people think it’s just in good fun, but forcing a child to sit on a stranger’s lap when they don’t want to, then photographing it and broadcasting that picture (without the child’s consent) for the larger world to laugh at? I know it seems so minor, but after you mentioned The Gift of Fear in another recent post, the idea of a forcing a small child or baby to go against their instincts and be held by some strange man for the parent’s entertainment really rubs me the wrong way. And I know some kids are excited about seeing Santa and then start crying once they are on his lap, but still… to ignore/laugh at/make light of a child’s natural and HEALTHY instincts to be weary of strangers seems so wrong. Part of raising my daughter with respect and teaching her to respect others, and learning to respect and trust her own body and boundaries, means not mocking her pain or discomfort, no matter how mild or silly it may seem to me at the time. I don’t want her to think that her feelings and fears are something for adults to laugh at. As the theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack said recently on a related matter (sexism in science), “It’s not a big deal, but it’s part of a big deal.” I think that quote is really applicable here.

#4, definetly