How I found out Santa was dead
Ok, so he’s not dead, as I had pointed out to me, he can’t be dead if he never existed in the first place but you know what I mean.
I can’t remember what age I was (ok, I can but I’m not telling cause it is potentially embarrassing), but I remember it was a gradual process. Here I was, a dyke in the making, growing up loving all the things us budding dykes are supposed to love, football, star wars, action figures. Yes, I was a tom boi.
If you were looking for me I could most likely be found playing football with the boys, racing my Cindy car down the hill (while I was sitting on it), or up a tree.
I screamed blue murder when I was made to wear a dress or skirt, even at the age of six I knew I wanted to be in trousers and dresses weren’t for me. Still my mum persisted. Girls, were, after all, supposed to be in dresses. After my baby sisters christening, when everyone was back at our house, probably getting pissed, and the kids were thrown out on to the street to play (get out of the way), I begged to be let out of the hideous ‘thing’ that was supposed to be a dress so I could play properly. My cries went unheeded.
So, Christmas would come and go, and, ungrateful sod that I am, it would always be tinged with disappointment that I got a Cindy doll instead of Action Man. I don’t ever remember if I asked Santa for anything, but I remember one year (you have to guess which one it was) I made a conscious decision to ask Santa for what I really wanted. I must have been getting suspicious about the whole jolly-fat-man-fitting-down-a-chimney-even-when-we-don’t-have-one story I was hearing year in, year out. I asked him for what I wanted with one thought in my mind – if I get any of these things I will know for sure that there is a Santa, and if I don’t, I’ll know for definite there isn’t.
Christmas morning came and guess what? Nothing, nada, zip. Not so much as a football sticker from the big red one. I knew Santa was dead. My childhood was officially over.
But it wasn’t the Santa story that was the point of this blog. This story, as I was telling it to someone the other night on the phone, started me thinking about the lies parents tell their kids simply because they don’t know how (or can’t be arsed) to answer it any other way.
You have Santa, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and the story of creation. You grow up to learn that no matter how many crusts you eat, your hair is never going to go curly. Carrots don’t help you see in the dark, and no matter how strong the wind is that changes, your face will always return to its natural state. Childbirth does not occur through the belly button, and women don’t get pregnant simply because they kissed a man who loves them
But this one, this one is the biggy, for me anyway….that you’re gonna want to kiss boys!
“Mummy, this boy at school tried to kiss me, urgh, that’s gross”
“When you get older dear you’ll be glad boys want to kiss you”
Urm, no..I won’t!
Imagine not having to come out, not having to spend endless nights wondering what was going on that you fancied your best friend and not her brother.
Imagine if we’d grown up not beating ourselves up because we didn’t match up to what girls were ‘supposed’ to be and do?
I wonder what our world would be like if our parents had told us the truth?
Imagine.
