Saturday, 02 January 2010
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Tooth Fairy:Teaching Kids to Sell Body Parts?
Do you remember losing your first tooth? I do. I was close to 5 years old and was so excited when I first felt the looseness. My tongue couldn’t stay away from that tooth. All day long I would press my tongue up against that tooth just to feel it wiggle.
I couldn’t wait until that tooth fell out! At my last cleaning my dentist had even given me a little tooth shaped pillow with a tiny pocket sewn on the back where I could place the tooth when it finally came out. He and my mom explained to me that if I put this pillow under my regular pillow that the tooth fairy would come in the night and take my tooth away and would leave me some money! Money! For my old silly baby tooth!
This is similar to the pillow I had.
During the day I would daydream about when the tooth would finally come out. After what seemed like a lifetime the tooth finally came out but not exactly on its own. Here is the story of the first tooth I ever lost as related to the mall Santa (lost it around Christmastime).
Santa: Hello, little girl, how did you lose your front tooth?
Me: Santa! My mommy punched it out.
Oh my poor, mother who was in earshot of that conversation! Now for how it actually happened. My mom had been tickling me and as I was squirming like a maniac my mom ended up accidentally hitting me in the mouth. She didn’t even hit it hard but my tooth had been hanging on by the last little root so just tapping it caused it to fall right out. Thankfully Santa understood when my mom explained what really happened and she just narrowly avoided being put on the naughty list that year.
Anyhow, the point of this post is more to find out how parents these days feel about the tooth fairy and what the going rate is for a tooth. Now when I was a kid I typically got a dollar for every tooth. I may have gotten two bucks for that first one, especially since it had come out in such a traumatizing way : )
Things seem to have a changed a bit from when I was a child though. Recently, I was sitting for a 5 year old who had just lost his first tooth and do you know what he got? 5 dollars and a board game! I almost fell on the floor when he told me that! Is that kind of payment typical these days?
I have also heard some parents say that they don’t even do the whole tooth fairy thing because they feel it teaches their children that they can sell their body parts. Now that is a hilarious thought but I’m not sure kids really think that they can go around selling their body parts just because they get some money when a tooth comes out naturally. Some kids do come out with some pretty interesting things though so who knows?!?
Do your children believe in the tooth fairy? If they do what is the going rate for a tooth these days?
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- From: michcoy@xanga
- Name: Michelle
- About Me: I am a full-time nanny who loves to write whenever I can. I also love being outdoors whenever possible. Camping, hiking and kayaking are a few of my favorite activities.
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Comments (27)
When I lost the first couple teeth, I was at my mom's house and I got like 2 bucks per tooth. One happened to fall out while I was staying at my dad's house, and I got a poker chip.
Of course, that was a long time ago, so I have no idea what the current rate is. Five dollars seems a bit steep.
We haven't reached that point yet although I expect to soon since my oldest is almost 6 now. I think we're going to the same as we do with Santa, just a fun story of make believe. It's cute to experience but not really real.
I'll give the same my mom did, $2 bills (you can get them from the bank). I always remember feeling so special because I had "special money" that I never saw any other time so of course it had to be the tooth fairy.
the way I lost my first tooth is quite hilarious:
I was 5. I was up at Kelleys Island, a Lake Erie island, and I was at an ice cream store. I got a candy necklace and put it around my neck and put the string necklace in my mouth to get the candy. It must have wrapped around my tooth and I pulled down hard enough for it to come out. It was a bottom row front tooth and I felt the tooth in my mouth and got so scared I swallowed it. A little bit of blood was coming from my mouth and I ran crying to my godmother, who was there in the store with me... my mom was on the boat i think. Anyway, all I remember is all these people young and old telling me how they lost their first tooth. Since I swallowed it, I had to write a letter to the tooth fairy explaining what happened and to please leave me money.
I got 25 cents. The most I ever got was 75 cents. Never a dollar and absolutely NEVER $5. That's insane! My family has never been rich and it's not like I am 45 years old saying this. I am 20, meaning I was 5 in 1995.
Kids are spoiled these days and I think the tooth fairy is cute and fun and stuff and I will probably do it if I ever have children, but I will only give them 25-75 cents just like my parents did. That's enough.
We're not there yet (she's only 17 months old), but I am planning on doing it. I'm thinking maybe a quarter? a dollar at the most? We'll see. I don't know if I'd mind the whole $5 and a board game, because the board game would be a present for me, as well! I love playing board games. I don't think we'll ever do that, though.
Our neighbors did $20 for the first tooth and something like $10 for every other one. I don't think they use the same tooth fairy this house will be calling! I was considering the $2 bill thing but I'm not sure yet. Need to decide though because we've got one very wiggly tooth here!
I thought the going rate was a quarter per tooth. Talk about inflation. Five dollars and a game. Geez.
I loved getting a dollar for my baby teeth unfortunately though most of them came out with cavities
My kids get a dollar. It is always either a Susan B. Anthony, Sacajawea or Presidential dollar. They have special wooden treasure chests they keep that special money in. ONCE they each got a $2 bill but that was because one of them lost a tooth while on vacation and that particular tooth fairy just did spare change which was not very special so our home tooth fairy got a note and the spare change under the pillow and it was replaced by a $2 bill. The other child got a $2 on their next lost tooth to even things out. I also have read them a book we have about how the tooth fairy makes their lost teeth into the new stars in the sky.
this book
We always got money where-ever the tooth was left... often on the kitchen table! lol. It was usually a quarter though.
I guess it is all a matter of what the parent thinks the child should be paid for. Like the people I knew in school who got paid for their good grades...
When I was a kid I got a dollar. I'm 24 at the moment.
I do think parents tend to spoil their kids a lot more these days than even when I was a kid (which wasn't all that long ago!), but I think it is the most ridiculous stupidity I've ever heard whenever I hear that the Tooth Fairy apparently teaches children to sell their body parts. I really doubt that. If that were the case, we'd be seeing a nation of people willing to go right out and sell body parts, by now. And it wouldn't be illegal in the United States to sell your body parts, since if this were true about the Tooth Fairy by now everyone would be so okay with it that nobody would see the point in making it illegal.
But, yeah, parents spoil their kids these days. Not all parents, but quite a lot more of them seem to be doing it than seemed to before. :/ Five dollars and a board game....totally unnecessary.
@shes_lump@xanga - Your tooth story is hilarious!
@sinpescado@xanga - Wow, I want that tooth fairy!
I got $1 I think. My nephew just lost his first tooth on Christmas eve. He got $1 as well
I got $1 a tooth. One time I lost a tooth and there was a snowstorm and my parents didn't have money in the house so they wrote a letter (from the Tooth Fairy) saying that I would get the dollar the next night lol. I do remember wiggling my teeth until they got loose just becuase I wanted the dollar, but never wanted to sell other body parts. That is silly! But you never know. Some kids do some crazy things.
I got a few $. I think it depended on who was playing tooth fair that night. My mom would give maybe $1 or $2, my dad would give a lot more. Thats fitting for their personalities tho. I know a lot of families are straying away from the tooth fairy now a days. For me, its just a symbol of growing up. Or the transition from toddler to big kid. I dont see a problem with putting a $5 in the tooth fairy pillow, but the board game is a bit weird. The tooth fairy isnt santa claus. Mom and dad could have given the child a game bc he/she is growing up and they think the child is mature enough to play it. Not JUST bc the tooth fell out. That kind of confuses the message. If I was going to get toys as a kid, I probably would have found a way to get rid of every tooth possible. LOL
I don't remember losing my first tooth, but I do know that the going rate for our teeth was a quarter. My daughter now gets a dollar per tooth and I'm hoping we can keep it at that. Of course, she knows that mommy is the tooth fairy and she loves reminding me before bed not to fall asleep!
I never got anything for my teeth. I never believed in the tooth fairy either.
yeah, it turns everybody into a whore......get real.
I always got quaters except for one year, I got a CD... it was NSYNC! XD
Frankly, who cares what kids now a days get for loosing a tooth. They aint my kid, and I hate other peoples kids...
When I was little I think I'd get a dollar per tooth, except one time I think I got $3 because it was so hard to get out.
But I didn't believe in the tooth fairy long because she would forget to come and I'd have to go wake my mom up and tell her the tooth fairy didnt come, and when I was eating breakfast she'd put money under my pillow and tell me the tooth fairy came.
When I was younger I didn't believe in the tooth fairy, but my parents agreed to give me a dollar anyway, because the kept my teeth in a memory chest. When it came time for my first tooth to come out, it was a little loose when a friend of mine hit me in the face with a flashlight. (accidentally, I swear!) I went to my mom crying and somehow in the midst of it I started playing with the tooth and pulled it on out myself. And every tooth after that, I pulled out by myself. lol.
But seriously, 5 dollars for a tooth is a bit much. If I had know that was even possible when I was younger I would've held out for more. lol.
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