My brother entrapped Dad into showing his hand as the tooth fairy by concealing that he’d lost his tooth until the morning, then complaining that the tooth fairy hadn’t come, and ambushing Dad when he went to make up for it.
He always was canny.
Also we spent the longest time not telling our parents we knew Father Christmas wasn’t real, because he said it would upset them if they knew we knew. I think that all came out when he busted Dad planting the tooth money though.
I got a rock.
With apologies to Charles Schultz.
What!!!??? No Santa Clause? The tooth fairy isn’t real??? Thanks a LOT, fuckers.
Don’t worry Taters, if you clap your hands and get your friends to clap your hands, the tooth fairy will come back.
I knew that there was no Santa by the time I was maybe 6 years old. Nonexistence of the other magical holiday gift-givers just sort of followed that. See, I was a nocturnal child, so I caught my parents wrapping presents and putting them under the tree. Of course, I didn’t say anything about it to them, because I thought they’d be upset that I knew it was all fake. I also never told my brother and sister. I let them figure it out on their own.
I used to try to trap the Tooth Fairy. We’d put the teeth in an envelope and put them under our pillows. I’d draw a tiny, tiny line (like a millimeter long) on the envelope so it was on both the flap and the envelope itself. Of course, my mother eventually caught on to this and started to search for the line and mark the replacement envelope the same way.
She wasn’t inventive enough. Leave the envelope untouched, and allow the topic to arise at breakfast. Then maybe suggest that the tooth fairy relies on scent to find teeth, or some such suggestion which implies that the envelope was a problem.
Damn. I only got a dime and that was only for the first one or two teeth.
I have to admit that I’ve always liked my family’s way of dealing with Santa and the Easter Bunny. (Hopefully the need for the Tooth Fairy ends at some point!)
EVERYbody gets presents from Santa. EVERYbody gets an basket from the Bunny. Age has no bearing, and kids get sucked into helping once they’re old enough to Get It.
When my daughter – oh, so tentatively – suggested that she suspected that I might, maybe, in some alternate universe, somehow be Santa, my response was “Of course I am! And so is Grandma, and Grandpa, and your aunt, and, and, and… And now you’re old enough to be an elf and help us!”
And (once the other adults were warned that there was a new Elf in the clan) there was a lot of dramatic whispering and “I’ll distract your little cousins, you stuff stockings” and lo, family tradition continued.
(My grandson is now an Elf – and we suspect that my granddaughter is pretending to Believe In Santa to humor the adults!)
When I was younger I used to get £1 (about $1.30?). Im 24 now so Im sure a dollar or two is still ok - 5 seems a bit much. I dont remember when I stopped believing in the tooth fairy/ Easter Bunny/ Santa. I do remember once when I was about 5 or 6 noticing that Santa & Dad had the same writing and I asked about it and I was told that because Santa was in such a hurry because he had to visit everyone he would tell Dad what to write! Believed that excuse completely. On another occasion a piece of a toy was missing and Santa left a note saying he would drop it by later in the morning, at about 11am I moved my hand and there was the toy… even then I still believed Santa had been in the room!
Yea I was a clever child!
My kids get $1, always in the form of a dollar coin. $5 is absurd.
The loose tooth in question, came out tonight. I had her put it under her pillow like normal. I put my son to sleep and then as my wife was reading to my daughter, I walked in with a dollar and slyly slipped it under the pillow and withdrew the tooth.
My daughter started laughing. I put the tooth away and came back to kiss her goodnight. She asked me, “What do you do with the teeth?”
Me: “I keep them for when you’re an adult, it is just something parents do.”
So, what do we do with the teeth? Why do so many of us keep them?
Jim
I have three older brothers, though, so by the time it got around for me it was pretty much just money for teeth with none of this Tooth Fairy business. Not saying I wasn’t aware of the Tooth Fairy myth, just that I was aware of it as something other people tried to get their kids to believe was real. Same deal with Santa, Easter Bunny, etc.
Going rate was Susan B. Anthony dollar coins.
A brother got a $2-bill for a particularly interesting extraction.
I haven’t decided if I’m going to play along with my kid(s). I’ll probably still operate a currency exchange that deals in teeth, but I don’t think it will dispense US currency. Should probably stock up on dirham and dinar coins next deployment.
What sort of correspondence does the Easter Bunny keep?
For that matter, I’ve never heard of the Tooth Fairy leaving anything written either… Has my local Tooth Fairy been failing to leave receipts?
I’ve tried to keep the teeth too. I don’t know where they all are now. Why do we keep them? Because they’re physical mementos of children we loved and are no more – the five, six, seven, eight, and counting year old girls and boys that passed through our homes and hearts on the way to adulthood. Why else?
Or just possibly, to perform some Voodoo rituals in their teen and young adult years to keep them on the straight path, to have grandkids young enough for us to meet, to dump that loser boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. I’d like to keep that option open just in case.
Only Santa has any correspondence in my family. I never thought of the Voodoo angle. I have to keep that in mind when she starts dating in 9 years.
What, you mean I have to let her date before she is 18?
Are you sure?
Crap!
Jim
In Dave Barry’s book Dave Barry Turns 40, he discusses this very subject:
Aww yeah. I know where he’s coming from.
Ironically, at the time he wrote that column he only had a teenaged son. Since then he’s also become the father of a little (but no doubt fast growing) girl…
I’m 22. I got a buck most times, but three or four for the back molars when they came out (bigger teeth, obviously more useful). I lost six of them almost all at once, about one every other night over the course of a two-week vacation. Towards the end of it, one guy in a restaurant told my dad I was the bravest kid he’d ever seen - I was washing my hands in the bathroom, felt it pop loose, reached in, pulled it out, spat blood a few times, washed my tooth, washed my hands again, and walked out like nothing had happened.
Obviously the tooth fairy didn’t know how to find us on vacation, so it had to wait until we got back home. I got $20 for the set.
We give 50 cents or so for a tooth. Then again, we’re cheapskates 
Unless the tooth exited the mouth with the assistance of a dentist, then it’s 5 or 10 bucks. Fortunately that’s only happened twice.
When my little girl starts losing hers, I was going to give a quarter a tooth, but maybe I’m too cheap? Or I could just tell her that there is no tooth fairy and save money up front 
The loving are the daring. Dare to love and be loved! :o
I think we each have to make our own decisions, but a quarter sounds like very little. I think my reasoning was that a dollar can at least buy a toy or item at a dollar store. I recall getting a quarter 30 years ago, so it seems a little low to me. What does a quarter buy now? A gumball?
Of course the parents giving five dollars probably do not think that one dollar is worth anything, so we are back to it is up to each of us.
Jim {Welcome to the board Becky, I hope you enjoy your stay}