The Tooth Fairy Cometh
Robin has a loose tooth! He was pretty anxious about it when he first noticed it—came running in to say, on the verge of tears, “Mommy! My tooth is broken!”
And it struck me all at once that this is the purpose of the Tooth Fairy story: to recast something scary (a kid losing their teeth) into something fun and exciting and magical. To show them quite literally (with cash!) that they are gaining, not losing, by the process. I felt like I got the whole Tooth Fairy thing for probably the first time.
So I assured Robin that this is normal, that it’s supposed to happen; I told him all about how his baby teeth are going to fall out and his big boy teeth are going to come in; and then I told him that “some people believe” that if he puts his tooth under his pillow, the Tooth Fairy will come and take it and leave a present behind.
“Other people believe that there is no Tooth Fairy,” I said, scrupulously, “and that somebody else takes the tooth and leaves the present. This is science! You have two hypotheses, the Tooth Fairy hypothesis and the ‘somebody else’ hypothesis. You will have to make observations and decide for yourself what you believe.” This is the same solution I’m using for the Santa Claus dilemma: I don’t want to lie to my kids, but I also want to give them the opportunity to enjoy these stories for as long as they want. And on a more serious note, it’s exactly how I plan to present world religions: some people believe this, other people believe that, it is up to you to decide what you believe.
But as it turns out, Robin was vastly uninterested in the question of where the present would be coming from. He only cared about what sort of present, exactly, he would be getting. “You’ll have to wait and see!” I told him, but this was unacceptable: he started making a series of ever-more-improbable guesses until I finally cracked and told him that the going rate for teeth is one shiny gold coin. (I have a stash of Sacagawea dollars squirreled away for precisely this purpose.)
And this seemed to satisfy him completely. Bribery, it has its uses!
July 15th, 2012 at 5:37 am
I love your insights about the purpose of the tooth fairy! Here, our fella has opted out of the tooth fairy racket, deciding he would rather keep his old teeth than offer them up in exchange for small gifts or cash settlements. To what end? Best not to think about it.
I’ve taken the same position here with the kids about world religion–which is an easy one for me, I guess, secular humanist that I am. …But Santa Claus? The man in red is unquestionably and unalterable real, no two ways about it. 😉 (I write fiction, so like it or not, I’m a liar from the get-go. As Faulkner said, facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.)
Shiny gold coins: that is the perfect tooth fairy surprise. Just like pirate money!
July 15th, 2012 at 8:21 am
“Here, our fella has opted out of the tooth fairy racket, deciding he would rather keep his old teeth than offer them up in exchange for small gifts or cash settlements. To what end? Best not to think about it.”
Ha ha hah! My mom, the archaeologist, kept my baby teeth in a little white box neatly labeled, “teeth.”