Elf on a Shelf and Prepping My Kid for the Surveillance State

“Should we get Hank an Elf on a Shelf for Christmas?” my mom asked over the phone.

“I hate to ask,” I responded, “but what is that?”

As a new parent, I am behind the curve on most of these trends, so I’m usually the last to know. My mother explained the creepy voyeuristic trend that has swept the nation.

For those unfamiliar with this holiday tradition, the Elf on a Shelf is based on a 2004 book of the same name. The story answers an age-old question: How does Santa know how every boy and girl has been naughty or nice?

The answer: An army of elves — invited into the homes by parents and dressed up as a holiday tradition — who observe and report back to Santa. After the children have gone to sleep, parents are tasked with repositioning the elf in a different part of the house and duping kids into believing that the elf can be anywhere at any time watching.

My initial reaction to this offer was negative — and for obvious reasons.

“You’re teaching (kids) a bigger lesson, which is that it’s OK for other people to spy on you, and you’re not entitled to privacy,” explains Laura Pinto, a Professor of Digital Technology at the University of Ontario. “If you grow up thinking it’s cool for the elves to watch me and report back to Santa, well, then it’s cool for the NSA to watch me and report back to the government.”

I want my kid to learn and cherish his privacy and learn how to protect it.

After a few days of introspection, however, I’ve started to rethink the offer. Maybe preparing my child for the surveillance state isn’t such a bad idea.

But rather than inculcate him with the notion that privacy is fleeting, and he should “just learn to deal with it,” I could use Elf on a Shelf as a teachable lesson about how to circumnavigate surveillance and learn the value of encryption.

He Sees You When You’re Sleeping…

Our childhoods are filled with teachable moments that are often the result of parental white lies.

None of these lies are bigger than Santa. Many of us can pinpoint that one moment in the continuum of our childhoods where we learned and came to the realization that the portly, bearded man of the North Pole didn’t exist. For some, the realization is equated to a loss of innocence.

For me, unraveling the Santa lie was a great lesson in skepticism. Though it took me years to develop into the cynical skeptic that I am today, this moment always served as a precedent for my distrust of authority — and I am forever thankful for it.

While I pursued the truth about Santa, my parents attempted to throw me off the trail a couple of times. I remember my dad pretending to have a conversation with Santa in our garage. When I rushed to see Santa in the flesh, I was too late; the garage door was open, and Santa was gone.

But when I began to ask more blunt questions about the existence of this mythical being — who could somehow defy gravity and the space-time continuum — my parents responded simply, “What do you think?”

Those four words inspired a lifelong thirst for knowledge and an insatiable appetite for verifiable facts.

If Santa’s nonexistence was my teachable moment for my skepticism, then Elf on a Shelf most certainly can provide an equally valuable lesson to my young one.

Since We Have No Place to Go, Let It Snowden, Let it Snowden…

The parallels to the Elf on a Shelf and the NSA’s surveillance program are so glaringly obvious that they don’t even warrant elaboration. Parents are willingly creating the illusion that the Elf on a Shelf is an omnipotent snitch who — without due process — can place you on a list where you share the company of other unsavory and suspicious characters.

This story pitch reads as if George Orwell haphazardly attempted to write a children’s Christmas tale. (Perhaps later editions will feature a foreword written by Edward Snowden.)

My son will grow up in a drastically different political culture than what occurred in my childhood. It is not my goal to politicize my child’s existence; there is an innocence that should be maintained for as long as possible. Furthermore, he has to come to his own conclusions from education, reflection, discernment, and experience.

However, as a parent, I must prepare him for the future as well. Judging by the current trajectory of national politics, I don’t foresee any ramping down of the surveillance state in the near future.

As a result, there is no time like the present to teach our children how to protect their identities and privacy — and putting a spin on Elf on a Shelf might be just the ticket.

New Rules for Elf on a Shelf

Elf on a Shelf requires adherence to several rules (the elf must be moved every night, it cannot be touched, etc.) for the con to work effectively. If I were to partake in the Elf on a Shelf scam, I would add certain caveats that the original book didn’t offer.

First, the Elf — though ever-present and always watching — is imperfect. Inundated with information, the Elf can still easily miss information occasionally — much like our own government, which has often been caught with its pants down.

Second, to help this likelihood come to fruition, it is best to encrypt sensitive information — the type of information that may be abused in an extrajudicial manner — using cryptography.

In fact, cryptography — the art of setting and solving codes — can be turned into a fun problem-solving game for the kiddos. Cryptography introduces early mathematical concepts, historical lessons (e.g. Navajo code talkers during World War II), critical thinking skills, and language development.

Third, my child must assume that the Elf on a Shelf is always absorbing, learning, and adjusting. Encryption methodologies need to be shifted and adjusted routinely.

Make it into a spy game. Pretend you and your kid are double agents, and you have identified a mole in your agency — that trifling Elf. You must successfully encode and encrypt communication, or else information will likely end up in the wrong hands.

If you need ideas for codes to use to elude the Elf, the CIA, oddly enough, offers some code-breaking activities on their website.

As I said before, it is not my goal to burden my son with the depressing news that everything he does is being monitored by the apparatus of an omnipotent state — one that is a busybody nanny state at its best, an oppressive police state at its worst. He’ll have plenty of time to draw that conclusion on his own.

I have to counterbalance my cynicism to protect the innocence of his childhood.

So the lesson here to share with our young ones is simple: Dance and play as if nobody — especially that nosey Elf — was watching; encrypt as if they were. Staying off of lists — whether of the “naughty or nice” variety or the “no-fly” variety — is a holiday gift anybody can enjoy.