You Can't Handle the Tooth

Welcome to part II of my deceiving our children series.

Any rookie parent can pull off the Santa thing. It’s an annual event that you spend weeks gearing up for along with everyone else. The application of carrying out such a charade is well established and you just plug yourself into one role and your children into another. “Santa won’t come until you’re asleep and he only comes to good little girls and boys.” Badda boom badda bing. Done.

Hollywood lends a hand cranking out film after film and TV special after TV special. They keep children’s heads spinning with a dizzying array of stories and different versions of how the magic happens. Really you just pick one and go with it.

If you can’t pull off Christmas you should just take your kids back and get a refund (by the way, can someone find out if that’s possible? Just curious.)

The real test of parental fortitude is the perilous and unrelenting molar parade that is the tooth fairy. Although it sounds dainty I’m here to tell you it ain’t for sissies.

Once they hit that magic age it can strike at any moment. And you’ve got to be on your toes for years. Doesn’t matter if you’re tired, sick, busy or distracted; when that tooth pops loose you’ve got to be ready for action.

Unlike Christmas you are on your own. There’s no massive worldwide effort complete with reminders in every store and on every channel. Nope it’s just you versus your own guile.

And don’t expect any help from Hollywood either. Sure the tooth fairy has a cameo now and then but there’s only one full length feature film dedicated to the topic and despite The Rock’s best efforts even he can’t save you when the day (or more appropriately night) of reckoning arrives.

Whether your sweet innocent child comes to you with tooth in hand or you pry it loose from their gaping jaws with a set of pliers; operation incisor has now been activated. Tying a string to it and slamming the door or dropping a toaster is only half the battle; and it’s the easy half.

No your task is, without outside aid or assistance, to remember.

You help your child place the tooth underneath their pillow, hopefully positioning it for easy extraction later. You kiss them goodnight and tell them to sleep tight. Then you settle into your nightly routine. Therein lies the problem. Your nightly routine does not include a stealth recon mission into enemy territory. Nope, you wind down or straighten up; you finish up work or veg out in front of the TV. Then it’s off to bed.

Then in the wee hours of the morning a tiny disappointed person approaches your bed. “The tooth fairy didn’t come last night.” Horror and shame washes over you. How could you forget? You are in it now. You have no choice but to lie (and by "lie" I mean lie more). You try to comfort the child with fabricated stories of the perilous lives of tooth fairies. Maybe there was a blizzard in tooth fairy land or maybe the tooth fairy was trapped by the neighbor’s dog and couldn’t make it. Maybe the tooth fairy called in sick.

At first the tender hearted innocent fruit of your loins accepts your canard, but then comes the questions. “What’s tooth fairy land like?” Of course you don’t have an immediate response to this out of the blue question. Seeking satisfaction your child pens a letter to the tooth fairy and places it under their pillow with the forgotten tooth.

This time, motivated by guilt, you do not forget. You replace the tooth with money and reply to the child’s note with a simple story of a magic land with tooth shaped buildings and pray they don’t recognize that the tooth fairy and Santa have identical hand writing.

Now’s where the tangled web you’ve woven becomes suffocating. Their younger sibling is delighted by this reply and decides they too will compose a letter to the tooth fairy at their next de-toothing. Only this time they go a step further and ask for a picture of you, the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy, you, replies back that you, the tooth fairy (Which is, again, you…wait I’m confused. Where were we? Oh yes, the tooth fairy), don’t have a picture but will gladly draw one. You, the tooth fairy, sketch a tinkle bell like picture and replace the note with a monetary token for the lost tooth.

Seeking to head off any further written correspondence you, the parent, explain to your children that they ought not to bother the tooth fairy, you, with letters because they are busy and might miss other girls and boys if they take time to respond to your note. Shameless

So that is settled and all is right with the world until that blurry eyed child wanders into your room again, lower lip protruding, mournfully exclaiming “The tooth fairy didn’t come last night”.

Without hesitation you reply, “Sweetie, that’s because it’s Cusp of Carabelli Day. It’s a tooth fairy holiday.”

You’re a monster

The Way You Lie

Each person who purposefully embarks on the journey of parenthood has a basic understanding of what will be expected once the new life they’ve spawned enters the world. That is they will be responsible for the necessities of life; food, clothing, shelter and protection. In addition they have the obligation to care for the emotional and mental well being of the child.

Naturally young children look to their parents to provide these fundamentals. They look to their parents as they form the foundation of morals and principles that they’ll carry with them throughout their lives.

As parents we want our children to be healthy and happy; we want them to understand basic principles of right and wrong. We use stories and fables to illustrate the importance of honesty like “The boy who cried wolf” and “Pinocchio”. No child wants to be eaten by a wolf or sport an unusually long nose while their bloomers are a blazing. Why is it then that we parents have given old Jiminy Cricket a collective flip from off our shoulders?

I’m not a psychologist but my understanding of cognitive dissonance is basically when our idea of who were are, or who we are supposed to be, doesn’t match up with our actions. If I may get biblical it’s like trying to serve two masters. There are immediate and acute feelings that accompany this gap between what we say and what we do. When faced with this chasm we can either change our attitudes, beliefs or actions; or take the much easier road of justifying, blaming or denying.

Its Christmas time, as the song says ‘the most wonderful time of the year’. This is the season where Christians celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ whose life exemplified the manner in which we should live ours. However, our modern celebration of this event is built on the biggest worldwide conspiracy to deceive and bamboozle the most innocent amongst us.

***SPOILER ALERT*** For those of you reading this who truly believe in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, leprechauns, and all other magical beings please stop reading now. It’s about to get real, kids.

Now I know there are those of you out there saying ho-ho-hold on a minute you’re not going to tell us that you have told your children the truth about Santa and the tooth fairy? No, of course not, I too am complicit in this monumental betrayal of trust. I too live by ingesting a healthy dose of justification and denial (note: a spoon full of sugar really helps it go down). My purpose is simply to point out inconsistent behavior in others and pretend that I am, in every way, above it all.

So why do we do it? Sure, our parents did it to us. Sure, everybody’s doing it. Sure, we’re not hurting anybody. But aren’t those just the excuses that we would never accept from our children? What could possibly compel us to halt the practicing of what we are preaching?

Let's examine the word "Santa", shall we? S-A-N-T-A, Santa. Let's see, what have we got here? We've got an S and an A, an N, a T, and another A. Hmm… Who would help grown men and women peel the focus from the baby Jesus on his birthday? Who could it be, I just don't know. Could it be… Satan!!

Seriously though, the origins of these traditions and stories came about far before our arrival here on earth. They’ve changed and grown throughout time. They are harmless enough. Most are used to provide gifts and a sense of wonder and magic in the world. Each of us have our own cherished memories and feelings as it relates to these mythical creatures and want the same for our children.

Imagine with me, if you will, the alternative.

A young impressionable child approaches you and looks up with those big innocent eyes and asks, “Is there really a Santa Claus?”

You bend down, place your hand gently on his shoulder and say, “Listen Bobby,”

“My name is Billy.”

“It doesn’t matter what your name is. The only thing that matters is that you know the truth. You’ve been duped. The media and the entire adult community have conspired against you and those naïve little toddlers you run around with. Your parents buy toys weeks in advance and hide them in the closet, in the garage, at a neighbor’s house, it’s all right under your nose. They wait until you are asleep and then sneak around like cat burglars assembling and wrapping presents only to later tell you that they were built and delivered by magical elves that choose to live in a frozen wasteland that you can never find. To top it off they commit a Class A misdemeanor by forging the name of the head magic elf on your packages. Oh and the tooth fairy is your mother, your dad hides all those eggs and the leprechaun thing, well, I’m still not sure how you bought that one. I’m not going to lie to you kid. I wouldn’t do that to you. This is honesty. You’re welcome. Now clean up this mess; just use those tears to wipe up your hopes and dreams off the floor.”


Nobody wants that. So we lie. We tell ourselves that it’s a good thing we are doing and then we lie. Oh and for those of you saying to yourself ‘I don’t lie to my children, I just let them believe’. You are the worst kind. You feel more deeply than most that something in your behavior is amiss and you can’t even bring yourself to say it out loud. You say things like “Well what do you believe?” or “It’s real if you believe it is.” Remember honesty is not only truth telling but truth living. So don’t think you can separate yourself from the rest of us just because you don’t tell your children stories of a jolly fat man who can fit down a chimney barely big enough for a squirrel, or spin wild tales of a giant storm in fairyland that delayed the tooth fairy when you forgot to replace that tooth with a quarter the previous night. You’re no better than we.

That brings me to the final tangle in this web we weave. Eventually they get wise to this game. They grow older and smarter. We too get old and sloppy. Gifts are found prematurely. Inconsistencies develop in our stories. The questions become more penetrating and poignant. So what do we do? We ramp up the lies of course.

We tell ourselves we’re doing it for them. They are too young to let go of the magic. It’s too soon for them to handle it. The truth is though that we are terrified at how they’ll handle our betrayal and will do whatever it takes to cover it up for as long as we can.

So pull it together. Get your stories straight. If you have to invent new magical creatures to cover for the old ones who’ve failed or slide down that chimney yourself; you do it. Use props, costumes, elaborate stories, skits, magic tricks, whatever it takes. You lie until you’ve painted yourself so tight in the corner that only your little piggy is touching. You keep up the deception until they are old enough to learn the truth from their friends, older siblings or strangers on the street because that kind of thing should never come from their parents whom they trust. Remember it’s all for the children.