Lies, Damn Lies, a Fairy and a Bishop

Isn't it peculiar that we teach our children that honesty is vital, when we actually promote and foster several complete fabrications throughout their early years? Lying is the worst thing, and we teach our kids that they must always tell us the truth, even if it's to confess something they have done that will make us angry - we will be more angry if we find out they have lied than about the actual crime, whatever it may be.  I remember as a young child, the word 'lying' conjured up a real sense of evil and seemed like the worst thing anyone could do!

Yet we are all complicit in several huge scams in which children are utterly deceived!  Yes, I am about to reveal that the Tooth Fairy and Santa are not in fact true... If I have just burst your bubble, I do apologise.  (A bit.)  (Not really...)

Ok, let's not get carried away.  We are of course not really lying or deceiving anyone. (Technically though....) Of course: the Tooth Fairy helps kids see a possibly traumatic and bloody tooth loss as magical and beneficial - it's a lovely idea in many ways! And I understand how Santa came to be the fat bloke from the Coke ads and Hollywood, derived all the way from a Turkish bishop. 

Matthew lost his first tooth yesterday and was thrilled when he woke this morning to find a shiny coin under his pillow. By the time he came home from school, a classmate had told him that she thought the Tooth Fairy didn't leave the coin, but parents did. Notice she didn't say there was no such thing as the Tooth Fairy! Matthew kind of told me this without asking me directly, which meant I didn't have to lie.  By this evening he was chatting away again about the Tooth Fairy and giving his remaining teeth a good old wiggle to hasten the arrival of more under-the-pillow riches. Perhaps he decided to hedge his bets in case lack of belief meant lack of money!

If he had asked me straight out if I had left the coin, I would have said yes. This would have been followed quickly by the instruction to keep this quiet and not to spoil this for his classmates. By six I think a child should be able to do this. In fact, I know they can, because I was that child: I didn't tell my classmates that there was no such thing as Santa. Or indeed Sinterklaas.

How did I find out by six that there was no Santa? Well, call it another Third Culture Kid situation.  As we were growing up in Holland my parents had to decide how to handle the whole clash of Sinterklaas and Santa. Here's a quick introduction to Sinterklaas for the uninitiated: he is absolutely also derived from St Nicholas of Smyrna. In fact, he is still dressed as a bishop, with a mitre and everything.  But he lives in Spain, not the North Pole. And he travels by boat to Holland and then around the roofs by horse on December 5th, not 25th. He doesn't nip down the chimneys himself, but has Black Peter, his servant, who leaves presents in the shoes that are left out. Naughty children run the risk of being put in a bag and being taken away to Spain by Black Peter.  There are many other features; families get together and give each other very complicated gifts, with poems. ( I really am not making this up.) There is a big tradition of chocolate and marzipan letters and sweets. And of course Sinterklaas' arrival in Holland is broadcast live and is cause for huge excitement as his helpers throw special sweets called Pepernoten to people.  It is a big big deal.

So how do you explain to your little girls what this is all about when all their cousins in Ireland and England are talking about Santa? My parents decided to cut their losses and as far as I can remember, I always knew that neither Santa or Sinterklaas were real.  The most important thing, however,  that my sister and I were told in no uncertain terms, was that we were absolutely not permitted to burst anyone else's bubble... If you can believe it, we never did. I remember many conversations where we played along with our excited classmates in anticipating the gifts Sinterklaas would bring, despite knowing full well it was all a load of rubbish.

One of the reasons my Mum was happy enough to tell us the truth early on, was that she has never forgotten the crushing and humiliating disappointment of discovering that her whole family already knew that Santa wasn't real and she was the last to know, as the youngest of six. That was the year she got a bike and her Dad had even put soot on the saddle! This just added to the sense that they were all playing a big trick on her, and she was pretty devastated. 

When it came to my kids, I would have been quite happy to go the same route and do without the whole Santa thing. In discussing this with friends when Matthew was much younger, some of them looked at me like I had suggested cutting off his legs. Seriously, I wonder how many of them considered calling social services...  In general Andrew and I were quite taken aback by how much Irish people went on about 'Santy' and asked us if we were taking Matthew to see him at his very first Christmas. He was 4 months old! 

Andrew wasn't impressed by the idea of not letting the kids believe in Santa and felt it was taking away the magic of Christmas. Having never believed in him and always absolutely loved Christmas and felt it was quite magical enough, it was hard for me to understand this.  In the end, I was outflanked as both boys learned about Santa at such a young age from their play schools and were so convinced and excited that it would have been absolutely awful of me to take some kind of stand on this. So, in our house, Santa brings the contents of their stockings and the rest of the presents are from family and friends.  This limits the gift lists as well as Mum and Dad's wallets are not as bottomless as Santa's!

In the end, I don't like the idea that I am not being honest with my children, even if my motive is to give them a bit of magic in the middle of their childhood. I will never lie if they ask me straight out if Santa or the Tooth Fairy are real. For now, these questions haven't even begun to occur to them, so the myth remains intact. We will see what happens when they do find out and I guess my one concern is that they may begin to question the truth of all kinds of things and I would hate for them to throw out the baby with the bathwater, by which I mean baby Jesus when it comes to Christmas at least! On the other hand, I can see the value of them questioning this as it may lead to some good chats. We shall see.  

I wonder when the myth will be exploded! Apparently Paris Hilton believed in Santa till she was 17. I started out talking about lies, and this may be a whopper, or at least an urban myth.  But as a matter of fact I have no problem believing that she was that stupid and sheltered. I expect she probably still does believe in the Tooth Fairy.

Nationality-ism

A friend told me recently that she had mentioned me to 2 other ladies I also know, but not very well.  This led to a very confused conversation as they all thought I was from a different country. 'Oh, yes, the English Mum.' 'English? She sounded Irish to me!' 'Hang on, she told me she was Dutch...' So my friend wanted me to settle the matter.

The question 'Where are you from?' always makes me feel a bit self-conscious. Over the years I have developed a fairly short reply, but it tends to lead to further questions and inevitably: 'So, what nationality are you?'

The short answer to the first question is: 'I was brought up in Holland by Irish parents.' My answer to the inevitable question that follows is a bit noncommittal - I am of the opinion that you don't really have to choose a nationality if you don't feel that it fits you. If pushed, I would say I am European.

Many people absolutely can't cope with this reply at all and settle in for a chat about it; tending to approach it like a maths problem. 'So, where were you born?' or 'Where are your parents from?' or 'What passport do you carry?' Holland, Ireland and Irish respectively as it happens, which leads to the inevitable: 'Well, then you must be Dutch/Irish!' 

I must? Do people think I am too stupid to have worked that out for myself if they have managed to do so in 30 seconds using their own personal criteria? It's not as simple as that!

If you were born in the country your parents are also from and you grow up there and all your relatives live there as well then I don't know that you can understand not having a nationality and you may not realise how much a part of your identity it is, as it has perhaps never been questioned or analysed. The thought of someone not having a nationality, or not needing one, is perhaps slightly confronting. 

But it is about identity, not about passports or places of birth.  If I am filling in a form, I have to fill in Irish, as that's what my passport is, but that is just box-ticking and doesn't inform who I am. Growing up, I did identify myself as Irish. It is natural, particularly for teenagers, to identify yourself as 'the other'. It made sense to me that I must be really Irish as I was definitely foreign in my Dutch school. It was only when I moved to England that it became clear that a huge amount of my assumptions, experiences and habits were, naturally enough, very very Dutch. This was confusing and it was during the summer when I was 19 that I concluded that I wasn't Irish. And I wasn't Dutch. I just let go of the idea that I needed to 'feel' or 'be' any particular nationality - it's just not part of my identity. Obviously aspects of Dutch, Irish and English culture have become part of me; but I felt strongly that I didn't need to attach to one more than the other and was fine with no nationality at all. I was quite happy with that conclusion - it made and still makes complete sense to me.

One important caveat however is football.  I will always support Holland at football - Hup Holland Hup! My Dad assumed I would support Ireland and was very taken aback when he realised I did no such thing.  He is not in much of a position to be cross though - who gave me this cross cultural upbringing after all?

The story continues in my house now as my boys have their English Daddy (who has never never questioned his nationality and loves to wind me up about mine.... 'You're Irish really!') and therefore have 3 teams to be excited about in any sport.  I thought they might explode at times during the European cup last summer!  It did mean there were lots and lots of matches to be excited about. Equally, for the Olympics, it meant we had someone to cheer for in nearly every event. We haven't yet had a big sporting event where 2 of the 3 countries have clashed. That will be where we start to see with which nationality the boys are beginning to identify themselves. Although it's quite possible that this will be based more on the likelihood of sporting success rather than deep emotional connection!

Third Culture Adult

The phrase 'third culture kid' is one I have heard flung about for years, without ever really understanding what it meant. It was never very clear to me what the third culture was; evidently not the culture one lived in, or the culture of one's parents.  This quote finally illuminates for me what was meant and defines something I definitely already knew and absolutely experienced.  So now it comes together and makes sense!

My relationship with this quote is as follows: my parents' culture is Irish - they were both born and bred here and lived here till they were in their mid twenties.  The culture in which my sister and I grew up was Dutch, but included a very strong international element.  We attended an international school until I was 11 and my sister was 8 and there were always kids from all over the world around.  Not sure how that element would be part of the definition, but that was my experience! 

The concept of not having ownership over any culture is absolutely true and I remember in my late teens feeling that I would never feel fully at home in any country.  This actually made me quite angry and I went through a bit of a phase of expressing how much I felt like an outsider in interesting hairstyles and clothes. Of course all teens feel like an outsider and maybe I was quite fortunate in having such a clear focus for the usual angst and insecurities.

When we lived in  Holland, I assumed I was quite Irish. This was simply a conclusion I drew because I didn't really feel Dutch.  When I ended up in England at university, it became clear that I was in fact quite a bit more Dutch than I had ever realised: I turned up on time for everything and was told I was very blunt and direct!

For all that I was born in Holland, I didn't grow up in a Dutch family and I could have lived in Holland for a hundred years and never ever fully understood or learned all the social niceties or linguistic quirks. Things that were completely self evident to my classmates were utterly baffling to me, on a daily basis! I never got the hang of the correct 'the' for each nouns: 'het' or 'de' and was always being corrected. 

Equally, now living in Ireland, but not having been here for my childhood, there are always things that I need to have explained - particularly when it comes to kids tv, with which the Irish, and more particularly the English, are utterly obsessed once you get them talking about it. (There isn't room in this blog, or even the whole internet to talk about how out of step I felt with the English culture when I first lived there!)

The quote rings absolutely true when it comes to the third culture: the sense of belonging comes from links with people in the same situation. Of course all siblings share a unique bond; but I do feel my sister and I have a particularly unique bond. She and I are the only ones that know what is was like to be of Irish parents, living in that part of Holland, in such an international setting. My third culture was shared with her, until I moved to England, and it is a culture of fun, imagination, music and creativity. 

I guess my boys will have their own third culture in amongst a mix of an Irish education, an English Daddy, a throughly confused Mummy, Dutch cousins and learning a smattering of Dutch themselves. If theirs is half as unique and meaningful as Rebecca's and mine, they are going to have a wonderful bond.