Submitted by wonkitime on August 21, 2008 - 9:42am.
by Won Kim
If you haven't already heard, the hype surrounding the
discovery of Bigfoot by two hikers in Georgia was a hoax. The Bigfoot
in question ended up being a rubber suit, and the two men were paid an
"undisclosed sum" by Tom Biscardi, the creator of the website that purported
the discovery of the false Sasquatch.
Like you, I had a strong hunch that it was a fabricated
story, but I'll be honest, I was a little saddened that there was no validity
to the story. A part of me wanted to see if there really was a 7-foot hairy
creature roaming the backwoods of Georgia. Alas, the search for the
real Bigfoot continues.
This got me thinking about some of the fairy tales I grew up
believing, ranging from Santa Claus to the tooth fairy to leprechauns to the
Easter bunny-I apologize ahead of time if you were somehow still under the
impression that your presents during Christmas was delivered by a chubby guy in
a red suit who lived in the North Pole. In any case, with my son starting to
reach an age where he thinks WALL-E really exists and that Santa Claus will
bring him more Thomas trains come Christmas, I'm wondering what are the
benefits of my son believing in made-up characters?
I don't let my son think for a second that monsters really
exist in his closet or that his stuffed bears come alive at night. Then how
come I continue to advance his belief in other inventions of lore? Is it
because they're friendly characters or that it teaches him lessons or maybe I'm
just going along with the culture at large?
Let me throw this out to the dads out there. Do you let your
kids believe in imaginary characters? If so, why and what are the benefits? If
you don't, why not?
To start the conversation, I've begun a featured
conversation to complement this blog post entitled, "Bigfoot, Santa Claus,
tooth fairy ... Is it good to believe in something that doesn't exist (well, the
jury's still out on Bigfoot)?"
