Yep, my daughter was telling me she had a very loose tooth. She thought it would fall out soon.
Me: “Daughter, you’re nine now, I need to tell you a special little secret. You have to promise not to tell your brother.”
My Daughter: “Ok, I won’t tell, I promise, what is it?”
Me: “You probably know this already, but there is no Tooth Fairy.”
My Daughter: “Yeah, I know, I also know that you are Santa and there is no Easter Bunny.”
Me: “How long have you known?”
My Daughter: “I guess since I was six, one of my friends told me there was no Santa and I realized he couldn’t deliver to every home on Christmas Eve. If there was no Santa, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy make less sense. I like to pretend, especially with my brother as it is more fun to pretend.”
This was a very cool conversation and made me feel good about my daughter and the little family myths we continue.
I love the fact that on her own, she kept up the story for her brother. I also love the fact that one night in the next week, I will not be waiting until midnight to sneak into her room and leave a dollar under her pillow. Last time, I tripped on a toy and almost woke her up and I had to wait another 30 minutes before making the exchange. It will be pleasant to give her the dollar before she goes to sleep.
BTW: What is the going rate among dopers for teeth these days? She has friends that get $5.
My kids get a dollar. Some time ago they started setting “traps” for the tooth fairy, by leaving piles of stuff inside their door. They have been wise to the game for a while, but want the money. We toy with each other. I still love my daughter’s theory (or bait) that “Santa Claus must be a thief, since there is no way someone could afford to buy all of those toys!”
I think I pay a dollar, but the kids don’t care all that much, and they usually forget or lose the tooth. Even though I’ve been faithfully keeping all the teeth I collect in an old film cannister, it seems like I hardly have enough to kit out a newborn.
I just left my daughter 4 dollars and some spare change Tuesday for her front tooth. Course as a 5 year old, she was more excited about the .70 cents than the 4 bucks.
Several years ago one of our friends had a daughter leave for college. She thought it would be a good idea to send the daughter an “anonymous” note, with disguised handwriting, congratulating and encouraging her on this big step in her life.
A few days later the daughter thanked her for the note. My friend asked, “How did you know it was from me?”
The daughter’s reply, “It was in the same handwriting as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.”
My mom left my sister $20 for a tooth once when she was five. It was messed up and had to be extracted at the dentist’s under novocaine so the tooth fairy said it was a “special tooth” that deserved extra money. Both of us usually got a buck though.
My experience is that most children are smart enough to sort out the existence of Santa and the Tooth Fairy very early in their lives, but are very happy to go on with the pretence – for years if necessary – just in case they stop getting presents if the myth goes away.
And I don’t think 9 years old it too young to learn something about the facts of life, like “Daddy puts a seed inside Mummy, and nine months later (if all goes well) a baby is born.” – and I put in that “if all goes well”, because my daughter had to face the fact that, at age 2, she had a still-born younger sister. She’s 25 now, and she still wishes she had that little sister. But kids are resilient, and can face facts better than we adults often give them credit for.
Over the course of a year when I was about 8, my parents did the slow reveal: no tooth fairy, a few months later no Easter bunny, a few months later no Santa Claus. I wasn’t particularly traumatized (I’d heard it all at school anyway), but I did spend the next couple of years wondering if God and Jesus would be next.
I just want to tell everyone that my mother was the sneakiest at the tooth fairy. Definitely a subscriber to the “work smarter, not harder” theory of tooth fairying.
Here’s how things would typically go down: I would put my tooth under my pillow, tuck in for the night, and wake up excited. Literally every time, every single time, when I woke, up… THE TOOTH WAS STILL THERE! Perturbed, I would dash into my mother’s room and wake her up!
“The tooth fairy didn’t come! The tooth fairy didn’t come!”
“Really,” She would say calmly, “Let’s go take a look.”
Holding back tears, I would follow my mother into my bedroom. Where she would procede to look around and “inspect” things.
“Wait!” She would cry, “Here’s the dollar! The tooth is gone… The tooth fairy must have come while you came to wake me up!!!”
I would spend the rest of the day alternatively marvelling at how quickly and quietly the tooth fairy stole into our house, feeling slightly uneasy that such a creature had such ready-made access to my bedroom, and kicking myself for leaving the room and missing a chance to glimpse such an elusive fairy.
I don’t think I wisened up to my mom’s little switcharoo until I was 27.
Early teens?! I got my first period when I was 12, and I was not the first of my friends. I got sex education in my conservative private school in 4th grade, when I was 9 and I already knew some basic stuff by then from my older sister and my friends.
I think telling kids age appropriate stuff as they grow is the way to go, myself. No sense saving it all up for one big talk.
I never believed in the tooth fairy, I knew it was my dad leaving the money because he was the one with all our baby teeth. But they never tried to get us believing in Santa or the Easter bunny either. We got visits from the neighborhood Santa and such, but we all knew it was pretend.
