Tooth Fairy Facts and Fantasies

It's gone!

Liam lost his first tooth last week. As the kind of person who plans Halloween parties in March and shops for Christmas decorations in August, there are few childhood development stages that I have not been fully prepared for and eagerly awaiting – but this one caught me completely off guard. Losing teeth? Wasn’t it just yesterday that he was getting teeth?? Memories of new chompers being tested out quite inappropriately during feeding were still fresh in my mind....


I was so surprised when he first told me that his tooth was loose that I texted my pediatrician to ask what was up. He told me it was a little early (Liam is five and a half) but not unprecedented – seems I was just asleep at the wheel on this one. Within a couple of days it was out. Gone in the night. Literally. We never did find it and I can only surmise that it was swallowed.



The evidence

From my childhood I can only remember losing three teeth. Two were “extracted” by our local family dentist whose chair-side manner was so memorable that it led me to subsequently avoid any dentist’s surgery until I had actually become quite “long in the tooth”. The third I lost at my grandmother’s house when I was 9.  I ate it. One moment it was a wiggler and the next it was missing and the evidence was circumstantial, but strong - there was blood on the apple in my hand.

Even at 9 I recall being kind of grossed out at the thought that I had swallowed my tooth and I knew enough about the rules that the Tooth Fairy operated under at our house to be seriously concerned that no tooth - no money.  The Tooth Fairy only paid a quarter back then but the idea that she wouldn’t come at all was still enormously worrying. Fast forward a few decades and luckily for me my lack of preparation for this childhood rite of passage meant my son had barely heard of the Tooth Fairy and so we were able to make up the Tooth Fairy rules for our house as we went along and tailor them suit. I suggested the reason we couldn’t find the tooth wasn’t because it had been swallowed (I never mentioned that possibility and really I don’t think it occurred to him), but because the Tooth Fairy had already come in the night to collect it. As this was a “new account” she would be back tomorrow night to leave payment (paperwork takes time even in the fairy world.)

All that was left to be determined was how much she would pay and how she would pay it. Tricky. How to make it special in a world in which coinage doesn’t have the impressive properties it once did? My go-to starting point for most advice is the internet (I call it Dr. Google) but she was less helpful than usual on this particular topic. Lots to say about Dwayne Johnson’s latest cinematic outing, a few suggestions that the Tooth Fairy now pays $2 a tooth, but not much guidance on how to personalize this particular ritual to make it more about magic than money. The real world was far more helpful than the virtual world and a girlfriend, who is a much more experienced mother than I, provided a perfect solution.

Dollar coins. The ones that are dispensed from automatic vending machines for stamps and subway cards and such. They’re shiny, golden, and legitimate currency to boot but rare enough to be totally appropriate as the method by which an other worldly creature would settle debts.

By the end of the day I was prepared. A trip to the post office had yielded the necessary dollar coins. A few minutes on the computer and, with the help of some fairy clip art and a suitably swirly font, I’d conjured up a thank you note to go alongside the payment. The box where I recycle wrapping paper, gift bags, ribbons and such had provided a small drawstring bag to hold the coins and some red food coloring mixed with sugar had created pink fairy dust to leave a trail of evidence of the fairy’s visit. It all worked a treat. The next morning I was awoken to the breathless announcement “Mom! Look! The Tooth Fairy left me money!”

As I smiled at my son’s delight and excitement I remembered why we say childhood is magical. The Tooth Fairy is not about the money – it’s about the magic. It’s about living in a world in which we get to interact with mythical beings like fairies and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and the real magic of childhood is that parents get to live in that world again too. We remember why we liked it.  As someone who tries to be as truthful as possible, I have sometimes wondered how I would deal with the inevitable questions about whether such beings really exist. And now I know.

The Tooth Fairy does exist, for I am she.

Click on….

Want to be better prepared than I was to play the role of the Tooth Fairy?


Get a modern spin on the story in the Tooth Fairy movie. Add some literary background to the whole experience with books like Dear Tooth Fairy or learn about other national traditions associated with loosing teeth in Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions from Around the World.

Be prepared with a special pillow, pouch, treasure box or stuffed toy. And encourage your child to write a letter to the Tooth Fairy - maybe asking the eternal question, what do they do with all the teeth?