tl;dr: Should I teach my kid about Santa?
So I'm sure by now that a bunch of y'all have heard about the Santa actor that had a kid die in his arms, which has really messed with my head. As an atheist, I couldn't care less about the holiday, but the whole thing has really gotten me thinking about the harm of The Illusion. Up until now, I've tried to keep it 100% with my daughter when it comes to cultural/religious myths, but philosophically speaking, is there really a difference between Santa and Thomas the Tank Engine? They're both fictional characters that, at this age and for the sake of argument, she thinks are real. For instance, when we went to the Thomas theme park, she thought that she was actually seeing the same Thomas from the tv show and we pretended that it was. When I relate that to the news story, I can't help but wonder if it's better to have that illusion as a source of wonderment.
A more cynical person would say that the kid dying in Santa's arms instead of the parents was fostered by society and the parents themselves...that if the parents didn't socialize the kid about christmas, then the parents would've been in the room instead of in the hallway watching a stranger pretend to be someone else being the last one to hold their child. To be quite honest, that person wouldn't be wrong. Then again, the child dying could've just as easily happened if the parents went to the bathroom or get a drink...you just can't predict these things and I'm not judging anyone in the story.
I certainly know that I'd want to be holding holding my child in that situation, but at the end, it's really about them, right? If cheap consumerist garbage can make the kid happy for a moment when they're at death's door, why should it be a problem? I just don't know how to square that circle and it really makes me question myself in regards to how I build relationships between her and certain things.