Patricia was preparing dinner and had just put in the oven a homemade roscón that she had learned to make last Christmas, a recipe that had been passed down to her by her sister and that originally came from her maternal grandmother, whose baking skills were highly valued in her home. family.
Meanwhile, his 4-year-old son, Martín, was watching the parade of the Three Wise Men on television; They normally attended live every year, but that night it was raining and windy, so they had decided to stay home.
Martín turned to his mother and asked: “Mommy, do you believe in the Three Wise Men?” It took her a while to respond, not because she wasn’t clear, but because she was lost in her thoughts. The previous years she had had a bittersweet feeling accompanied by a strange pang as she saw her son’s face as she watched King Balthazar, her favorite, parading in her carriage.
However, this year that was no longer happening. He had attended several sessions of family therapy; There, guided by the therapist and with the involvement of her family, she had gone through a process of self-knowledge that had allowed her to understand the reason for those feelings: when she was little, Christmas was celebrated at home with great joy on the part of her mother, however, his father did not understand the reason why it was necessary to decorate the house and give gifts, for him it was all a farce and he only saw materialism on those dates.
Patricia remembered a scene in her house when she was little, while they were listening to news about the Three Wise Men: she heard her father, an unloving and somewhat demanding man, comment in a low voice that I didn’t understand that they deceived children like that when it was clear that they were just men in disguise.
This skeptical attitude on the part of her father clashed with Patricia’s enthusiasm and desire to believe and, although facing the gallery until last year she had always shown her best smile, inside the Christmas spirit had not fully penetrated her. . In other words, Patricia, from a young age, unconsciously learned that to remain loyal to her father and be close to him she had to look like him, that meant not believing in the magic of the Holidays.
Should we transmit the existence of the Three Wise Men to children?
The world of children is different from that of adults ; Children have the ability to contemplate life through the prism of magic and illusion and, sometimes, at certain ages they can even confuse reality and fiction.
But as we grow society is in charge of making us see clearly the difference between fantasy and reality It is a necessary maturation process, but it is one thing to grow older and quite another to lose the ability to dream. Many adults no longer spend time playing, someone once said: “We don’t stop playing because we get old, but we get old because we stop playing.”
Parents maintain the tradition of giving gifts every Christmas and pass it on to the next generations. Could we perhaps think that we are deceiving children when we talk to them about the existence of beings that are not really part of reality? Are we betraying their trust in us as parents? How will they face the disappointment that harsh reality offers them in the future? Will they feel disappointed or even cheated by their parents, the most important people in their lives?
There are those who defend the idea that it is counterproductive to create this false belief, given that sooner or later they will have to land in reality, so they consider that it makes no sense to delay it. However, if we clip their wings from a young age: How do we expect them to become hopeful adults? What kind of adults do we expect them to be?
Any of us who goes back to our childhood will remember in most cases the excitement that was awakened when the Christmas season approached and yes, probably when discovering who the real Three Wise Men were, they felt a little disappointment.
Personally, I feel grateful to my parents and the adults who, with that good intention, helped me maintain my enthusiasm every year, those nerves that ran through me the night before, that exciting feeling of going to sleep and waking up with joy to find some surprises in the living room…
Many educators consider it beneficial for children to maintain this tradition, since they are at a stage in which magic and illusion help them develop their creativity and abilities, to believe in their dreams, to trust, even when as adults they look Looking back, that magical feeling will serve as inspiration to let life surprise you.
