Thursday, January 18, 2007

Making Excuses for the Tooth Fairy and Santa


It was bound to happen that the tooth fairy would miss our house one night. At least she made it up to the 5th tooth. In the morning after the missed visit I made the excuse that we went too sleep too late the previous night so she didn't stop by. Adam went to sleep promptly that night, so that is an added bonus from now on. So when did the going rate for a tooth get up to $2? I made the mistake of asking a friend what they paid and went with that. We should have started at $1 as we are slowly going broke over all these teeth. Cutting back to $1 on tooth 4 met with a LOT of complaints. Neither Doug nor I had visits from the tooth fairy as children. But then, kids who did only got a quarter. I chalk it up to not "educating" my Chinese parents on this US custom.

The other day, I lost my mind when I heard that Adam "lost" his Gameboy Legos Star Wars cartridge. I started yelling that it was his most expensive game at $30. He said, but Santa got it for me so why do you care how much it costs? In my anger I said that we had to PAY Santa, and nothing is free. Then he asked me how I paid Santa. Oh the tangled web we weave! Thankfully, Doug found the tiny cartridge under Dova's carseat and put out this mom's fire.

So are all these stories considered lying to your children? Doug says that it simply supports our popular culture. It is quite magical to see how kids really believe in them.

1 comment :

Bigqueue said...

Very cool picture for the perfect post. (my daughters used to agonize over the "perfect paragraph"....)

I remember the tooth fairy myself, but I forget the going rate.

As for Santa, I apparently had many questions early on. In fact, I have a photo of me sitting on his lap kind of giving him a funny look. It was right after that photo that I popped the big one on my mother....who laughed and we had a long talk.

I don't look at any of that in terms of truth or lie. None of it is done to be tricky or deceptive...it is done out of love and to fulfill a sort of dream world that draws a common bond among people in our culture.

As with all the other fairy tale and fantasy stories we pass along....we do it all out of love and learning. (in many cases)

BTW: When my friend John's kids used to fight over toys, he would tell them that Santa gave all the toys to him, and John would only let them play with them if they shared.

I'm not sure how well that worked....whether Santa or toy ownership, kids are pretty smart you know...they figure things out. (and sometimes they just keep it to themselves at times...they know which side their bread is buttered on )