Cherith
April 12th 2004, 02:49 AM
A fairy tale with teeth
by Patrick Boyle
What does the tooth fairy do with our teeth?
The question was posed to me at bedtime recently by my 6-year-old son, who had a vested interest in the answer: he was on the verge of losing a tooth for the first time.
This is a big occasion for many children, providing irrefutable proof that they're growing up. In a few years, my son will feel the same way about facial hair, sex and beating dad in wrestling.
But as I lay on Alec's bedroom floor scrambling for an answer, the occasion raised different issues -- like "How much should we leave under the pillow?" and "Why do we even bother with this Tooth Fairy thing?"
Now I don't buy the gripes that we harm our kids by making up stories about Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman, et al. At least we can use Santa to bribe our children into good behavior. But kids don't clean their rooms just so the Tooth Fairy will come. Her story doesn't even offer any lessons, except that if you really need money, you can sell your body parts.
Surprisingly, there is little scholarly research on the origins of the Tooth Fairy. She simply emerged from various folk practices built upon beliefs about teeth that fall out.
In the Middle Ages, parents in England believed that a lost tooth had to be tossed into a fire so the person wouldn't have to search for it after death (as if that would be at the top of one's "to do" list at that point). In some European countries, parents would bury a baby's lost tooth so that a permanent tooth would grow in its place. The Vikings supposedly paid a "tooth fee" to a child who lost a tooth, and used the teeth to make jewelry. It is reported that some colonial Americans kept baby teeth in flowerpots, which may have evolved into putting teeth under children's pillows.
In parts of South America, children are visited not by a fairy, but by the Tooth Mouse. Since this is Maryland, I'm thinking of starting the myth of the Tooth Turtle.
If only I had known all this when Alec asked what the Tooth Fairy does with the teeth, I could have said, "What are you, nuts? No one even knows why there's a Tooth Fairy!"
If I had known that scientists believe baby teeth might be a source of stem cells, I could have said the Tooth Fairy sells them to a lab. If I'd known that some parents say the fairy builds castles with the teeth, I could have borrowed that story.
But I was ignorant, so I had to wing an answer. I came up with this:
On the cloud where tooth fairies live, the fairies use little teeth instead of money to buy things. Ironically, the fairies happen to live near a mountain of shiny coins, which they didn't know what to do with. Then they began running low on teeth, sending Fairyland into a recession, which they blamed on the previous administration.
One day, a fairy looked down to Earth and saw that humans used coins to buy things, but didn't know what to do with their old teeth. Voila! The winged entrepreneur figured she could take the humans' discarded teeth, leave them coins, and everyone would be happy.
Thus began the tradition of the Tooth Fairy, who went on to a lucrative career as a management consultant.
Alec enjoyed the story, but surprised me with a follow-up question about where the fairies got the teeth to buy things before they got teeth from humans. I said God gave them a small supply to get started. "Oh," he said.
Sometimes it hurts when he trusts me that much.
That still left us with the "how much to pay" question. Various periodicals and Web sites suggest a dollar or slightly more, although some suggest up to $5. Some people give money only for the first lost tooth, or give more for the first than for others.
We can be thankful that the Tooth Fairy hasn't been corrupted by commercialization like so many other children's myths. It's not for lack of trying. You can buy a Tooth Fairy Certificate signed by Her Fairyness, a letter from the Tooth Fairy, and Tooth Fairy boxes in which to keep the teeth.
The morning after our conversation, Alec called me at work to announce that his tooth had fallen out. The next morning, he found a gold one dollar coin under his pillow. I later realized that almost no one spends a gold dollar, so financially, he got the equivalent of nothing.
But he soon began announcing that he has noticed other ways in which he's growing up. I suppose that's what the Tooth Fairy really delivers.
300
Reprinted with permission from the Gazette Newspapers. Patrick Boyle is editor of Youth Today, the national newspaper on youth work. He can be reached at pboyle@youthtoday.org.
Source: www.fathersworld.com/fatherhood/~
by Patrick Boyle
What does the tooth fairy do with our teeth?
The question was posed to me at bedtime recently by my 6-year-old son, who had a vested interest in the answer: he was on the verge of losing a tooth for the first time.
This is a big occasion for many children, providing irrefutable proof that they're growing up. In a few years, my son will feel the same way about facial hair, sex and beating dad in wrestling.
But as I lay on Alec's bedroom floor scrambling for an answer, the occasion raised different issues -- like "How much should we leave under the pillow?" and "Why do we even bother with this Tooth Fairy thing?"
Now I don't buy the gripes that we harm our kids by making up stories about Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman, et al. At least we can use Santa to bribe our children into good behavior. But kids don't clean their rooms just so the Tooth Fairy will come. Her story doesn't even offer any lessons, except that if you really need money, you can sell your body parts.
Surprisingly, there is little scholarly research on the origins of the Tooth Fairy. She simply emerged from various folk practices built upon beliefs about teeth that fall out.
In the Middle Ages, parents in England believed that a lost tooth had to be tossed into a fire so the person wouldn't have to search for it after death (as if that would be at the top of one's "to do" list at that point). In some European countries, parents would bury a baby's lost tooth so that a permanent tooth would grow in its place. The Vikings supposedly paid a "tooth fee" to a child who lost a tooth, and used the teeth to make jewelry. It is reported that some colonial Americans kept baby teeth in flowerpots, which may have evolved into putting teeth under children's pillows.
In parts of South America, children are visited not by a fairy, but by the Tooth Mouse. Since this is Maryland, I'm thinking of starting the myth of the Tooth Turtle.
If only I had known all this when Alec asked what the Tooth Fairy does with the teeth, I could have said, "What are you, nuts? No one even knows why there's a Tooth Fairy!"
If I had known that scientists believe baby teeth might be a source of stem cells, I could have said the Tooth Fairy sells them to a lab. If I'd known that some parents say the fairy builds castles with the teeth, I could have borrowed that story.
But I was ignorant, so I had to wing an answer. I came up with this:
On the cloud where tooth fairies live, the fairies use little teeth instead of money to buy things. Ironically, the fairies happen to live near a mountain of shiny coins, which they didn't know what to do with. Then they began running low on teeth, sending Fairyland into a recession, which they blamed on the previous administration.
One day, a fairy looked down to Earth and saw that humans used coins to buy things, but didn't know what to do with their old teeth. Voila! The winged entrepreneur figured she could take the humans' discarded teeth, leave them coins, and everyone would be happy.
Thus began the tradition of the Tooth Fairy, who went on to a lucrative career as a management consultant.
Alec enjoyed the story, but surprised me with a follow-up question about where the fairies got the teeth to buy things before they got teeth from humans. I said God gave them a small supply to get started. "Oh," he said.
Sometimes it hurts when he trusts me that much.
That still left us with the "how much to pay" question. Various periodicals and Web sites suggest a dollar or slightly more, although some suggest up to $5. Some people give money only for the first lost tooth, or give more for the first than for others.
We can be thankful that the Tooth Fairy hasn't been corrupted by commercialization like so many other children's myths. It's not for lack of trying. You can buy a Tooth Fairy Certificate signed by Her Fairyness, a letter from the Tooth Fairy, and Tooth Fairy boxes in which to keep the teeth.
The morning after our conversation, Alec called me at work to announce that his tooth had fallen out. The next morning, he found a gold one dollar coin under his pillow. I later realized that almost no one spends a gold dollar, so financially, he got the equivalent of nothing.
But he soon began announcing that he has noticed other ways in which he's growing up. I suppose that's what the Tooth Fairy really delivers.
300
Reprinted with permission from the Gazette Newspapers. Patrick Boyle is editor of Youth Today, the national newspaper on youth work. He can be reached at pboyle@youthtoday.org.
Source: www.fathersworld.com/fatherhood/~