Grimace

Oh gosh, this is great. When I was younger my parents never let me believe there was a Santa Claus. In Elementary School they taught all of us that if we were "good kids" we would get a visit from Santa Claus and when I went home it went down like this:

"X teacher told me that Santa Claus will give me a present if I'm good!"
"...No. There's no Santa."

Thanks parents. And this is why I am a twisted person. Then again, I'm pretty sure these days kids can just Google whether or not there's a Santa. Actually, to tell you the truth I don't believe in giving children 10,000 gifts on one day. I think it's better to positively reinforce them for good behavior consistently. Growing up I never received positive reinforcement for anything, but plenty of punishment was received for 98/100. I was eventually two classes ahead of my grade in math, playing piano like a good kid, winning essay writing competitions in the newspapers, etc. Somehow whatever I attempted was never enough. I became desperate--grasping at straws. I worked incredibly hard to try and be good at everything in order to hear them say good job or that they were proud of me. Nothing. As a result I became good at a bunch of random useless things and it wasn't until college that I figured out I should want to excel for myself and not for anyone else. From there I picked up Biochemistry and a guitar and sailed away into the moonlight.

I'll continue this later--it's getting too personal.