The Tooth Fairy
Posted on August 18, 2005 at 8:27pm | 3 comments
When should the Tooth Fairy stop visiting children? Does anyone have a definitive view on this?
Our kids love Santa, fairies and all those magical things, and we’ve let the connections lapse in their own time. When Kathleen was 10 she told Dude (8) there was no such thing as Santa and he was devastated.
The same Kathleen, now aged 11, still expects the Tooth Fairy to deliver her $2 per molar. Is this profiteering? I think so, but when should it stop?
We told Catherine that Santa was only pretend, right from the very beginning. It’s never dampened her enjoyment of him, since he now just goes into the pot with all the other characters (Wags the Dog, Dorothy the Dinosaur, etc).
Seems to me like falsely representing fiction as fact is likey to raise trust issues as well. We want our children to know that they can believe what we teach them–they shouldn’t have to reach any certain age before determining for themselves whether we were duping them or not.
I was raised that way and feel that I missed something. I think it’s part of the magic of childhood to believe in fantasy. The trust issue only arises if you prolong the fantasy after the child suspects the truth.
Michael, I’m totally with you. My rule is I push the fantasy stuff until Jack starts asking questions. Then I’ll tell him the truth. Although with Santa, I kind of blurted it out because Jack started planning how he was going to trick Santa into thinking he wasn’t Jewish so he could get some gifts out of the guy.
Once on a cruise, I called Jack on the phone and pretended to be his favorite Disney Character. He was so excited. He loved it. But then he started asking so many questions, and I felt guilty about lying. I’ve been lied/tricked before, and I know the feelings can very hurtful. Anyway, I finally told him, and I worried he’d be so sad. He looked sad for a short moment, then he asked me to call as the Disney
character again.