What does the Tooth Fairy give for a tooth these days?
My daughter just lost her first tooth. Looks like the Tooth Fairy will be visiting this evening. I haven’t dealt with the Tooth Fairy for almost 10 years now and I was wondering if anything has changed since then.
When my sons lost their teeth they received a dollar. I remember stories of children receiving $5, $10, sometimes $20 (depending on what neighborhood you lived in). I think $1 will be enough but I wonder if she’ll go to school in a week bragging about her $1 and other children will tell her that she got cheated.
What does the Tooth Fairy give to your children?
Do you have any cute or interesting Tooth Fairy ideas?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
94 Answers
leave her a toothbrush and a packet of floss. that’s what you get when you go to the dentist.
$1.00 is fine- and if given in nickels the kid thinks they are rich.
I always received $1 and my parents have always been loaded. :P
I don’t remember ever telling anyone at school about it, though.
I always got a 2 dollar bill.
I used to get a quarter in coins…
But we used to give my little sister a $1 bill and some coins, we used to put them in a sock so that they wouldn’t scatter all over her pillow at night :)
@Dog Great idea! That explains why Liberace had his chauffeur hand out bags of pennies on Halloween in Las Vegas. True story
I give a dollar per tooth!
My son got a dollar coin.
I usually got dollar coins.
For bigger teeth, I’d get two.
Oh, and receiving up to twenty bucks for a tooth? Ugh, that’s ridiculous. That’s not what the Tooth Fairy is about.
Man, I only got a quarter
I used to get 5 or 10 dollars and that was a long time ago though since I don’t have wiggly teeth now =]
A note reading “The tooth fairy doesn’t exist. You’ll thank me later.”
I used to get a two dollar coin only because a one dollar coin would not fit in the little round sort of ornamental box with a tiny sculpture of a fairy on top I kept for the purpose.
We only got a wooden nickel when we were kids, and we felt lucky to get that! Of course, my dinosaur ate my wooden nickels on my way to school, which was uphill both ways, against the wind, and always through the snow, and we liked it!!
:::grumble, grumble, spoiled kids grumble, grumble::::
@Ivan and then a note from your kid later “thanks for the shitty childhood”
being lied to is awesome!!
My mom used to wrap up the tooth and put it under my pillow for me. She told me if I opened it up, the tooth fairy wouldn’t come at all. Of course, she was wrapping the money up and leaving the tooth out, so she wouldn’t have to try to sneak in during the night. I found out there was no tooth fairy one night when I unwrapped it anyway because I wanted to see what the tooth looked like, and found money there instead, when I hadn’t been to sleep yet.
I think she gave me a dollar in quarters. This would have been in the late 70’s. Sounds like the market price for lost teeth has stayed relatively stable for the last few decades, not even adjusting for inflation.
@Ivan I wish you would use common sense once in a while, I know you are capable of it, I believe in you!
@laureth That’s a great suggestion. I’m exhausted from having spent the weekend in our pool with my daughter and niece and I can’t get her to sleep now. I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep before she does.
@Ivan I survived the truth. A little magic in childhood is fun. You should try it!
Lying to children is common sense.
I don’t think we should be having this argument on this thread. Maybe take it elsewhere?
Response moderated
It is essential to childhood development to have creative make believe and games. Children are not able to bear the truths of the world and it is our job to create a fun safe place for them to grow.
I never knew anyone who mourned on realizing that their parents were the tooth fairy.
“Children are not able to bear the truths of the world”
“I never knew anyone who mourned on realizing that their parents were the tooth fairy.”
These two statements are contradictory.
@Ivan; I’m sitting here trying to come up with a response that will explain how the Tooth Fairy/Santa/Easter Bunny/etc. are harmless childhood activities, but I realize you will never be able to understand that so I give up.
I realize that you will always analyze everything from a super non-emotional standpoint which leaves you unable to actually understand a lot of things.
in a sense i support telling children the santa/easterbunny/toothfairy lies. when they find out that none of them exist, they will gain some kind of natural barrier against jesus.
@Ivan When kids are older and find out that there is no santa/tooth fairy etc.
I suggest you go ask a question of your own if you wish so that this thread is not ruined by your desire to verbally spar.
yeah its fun having your tooth fall of
First of all, lying is not harmless. And even if it was, there’s a difference between “harmless” and “beneficial.”
i kinda wish my parents never told me about santa or any of that. I would have actually appreciated all the things they gave me more as a kid and not just thought santa could get me whatever i wanted as long as i was good.
also in the case of my sister who didnt find out until she was quite a bit older, it would have saved her being made fun of by other kids for still believing in santa/toothfairy/ect.
I really hope that Ivan does not have, nor will ever have, children.
@chyna; that’s kinda a harsh, I’m sure if he ever has kids he will mellow out a bit.
Yeah, it definitely can go too far, I wish my parents would have told me sooner too. But looking back, as a 20 yr old, I still like the images of Santa and the Easter bunny because they remind me of a simpler time when I was a kid.
@ragingloli Jesus is as much a fairytale as the Tooth Fairy…
@chyna
lol. I can see it now: children who are never lied to and are taught the virtue of honesty, critical thinking, and questioning from birth. The horror!
@Brassman that was my point. by being disillusioned about santa etc, they will hopefully put jesus in the same category.
@Ivan Meh. So nice of you to mess up this thread for your own soap box.
@J0E
I don’t know about all y’all, but my parents never told me that Santa and all that wasn’t real. I just figured it out on my own. And I don’t feel particularly damaged by being told that all that was real. I was too young to care about it. By the time I was old enough to realize it wasn’t true, I just felt it was something harmless and childish.
kids like money more than fake characters. they’ll get over it.
@Ivan, No one will ever dispute that they would be smart, but you know there is more to life…at least I hope you know.
btw, does the american santa also punish bad kids by hitting them with his twigs or giving them coal bricks as presents?
@ragingloli i believe if you’re bad he makes you watch CSPAN and read quips over 2 paragraphs on Fluther.
@chyna
Takes two to tango, hun.
someone should make a wanted poster with a pic of santa and the text “wanted: serial burglar, armed and dangerous”
My best suggestion: get her to put the tooth in an envelope and address it, and then slip it under her pillow. Worlds easier to find when groping under a little sleeping head than a single tiny tooth.
Bonus: you can stow it away, and then when the time comes that she has a tooth fall out at the dinner table, all bloody and slippery, and you lose it down the drain when you’re washing it off, you can go quick-quick and slit one of those envelopes and recycle a tooth.
A dollar was the going rate in my sons’ time too. I would not have submitted to extortion for more no matter what the other kids said. Ten times the rate I got as a kid is inflation enough.
Anyway, if they had ever asked me, I would have said it’s just a game we play. I don’t think teaching kids to believe things we know are false is the right thing to do. It’s bad enough teaching them to believe things we think are true.
[Edited to add] Laureth’s suggestion is good, and I wish I’d thought of that. You can do a sneak when you wake her up: lean over her bed and give her a good-morning kiss with one hand on the bed alongside her pillow, and you can slip the payoff under the pillow. I saved a disaster that way a couple of times. Once he found the whole original envelope still intact under his pillow, though. I said it must have been the Tooth Fairy’s night off and we’d try again the next night.
I was glad when we’d gone through all the teeth.
In the 80’s I got .25 or .50. Given inflation, I’d say it’s probably up to $27/ per tooth.
Edited for accuracy.
Well as my household tooth fairy i usually give 5.00 for the first tooth lost and 1 to 2 dollars for each tooth after and the last tooth lost 5 to 10 dollars the first and the last are made to be the most special. I know it sounds like alot but think about inflation. lol..what can a child buy for a dollar these days not even an icee or a candy bar. or a coke. you gotta make sure they can enjoy their well earned booty once the tooth is out.
I’m a big fan of the $2 bill, dollar coin(s), or anything else special of <$5 value. I honestly don’t even remember how much money I got. So maybe not super important. I do strongly vote against the $20 choice though.
Oh and on another note, @Ivan, do you have anything else better to do than be disruptive?
I agree with @chell. My kids got $5 for the first, $1 for every one after.
I think the $2 bill would be cool, it’s not something common.
My parents would always give us a dollar or toonie and a pack of gum, the kind that says it is good for cleaning teeth. I remeber one time I wrote a note to the tooth fairy and my dad went as far as writing a note back in small tiny writing in a very small envelope to trick me into thinking I actually recieved a letter back from the tooth fairy. I do not suggest doing that (my mom begged him not to) but it was a very sweet gesture for my dad to do.
@Nefily My daughter will most likely buy this with the money that she receives tonight. That was very sweet of your dad!
I’m late to this one. I gave my kids $1 to spend, and $1 to save. They were required to put the saver in their bank. In “our” family story about the tooth fairy, it is the way parents play make believe with their children, and one of the first signs they are growing up.
Playing make believe with our children is a far cry from “lying” that I see others here are worried about. The child knows what make believe is, and it can be fun to make believe the parents will pretend to be a “grown up” fairy and put money under their pillow.
I started reading fairy tales when I was around 3 years old, and I talked them over with my parents. I have seen my two year old grandson make up pretend stories entirely on his own.
P.S. My sister and I made little tiny tooth fairy pillows, just big enough to hold two folded dollar bills when we knew a loose tooth was about to fall out.
@YARNLADY Thank you!
Lying is what many couples do when they stay together for the children. Using your imagination is entirely different!
@jonsblond Yes, while that is true for many couples, it is by no means every couple. I have known some families who know that Mom and Dad are no longer married, but they still both live in the same house so the kids don’t have to worry about ‘visitation’. Not everybody who falls out of love automatically falls into hate.
@YARNLADY That’s a whole different debate but I still lurve you! I’m just trying to show @Ivan that using your imagination with children can be positive. Telling stories about imaginary beings is not lying to your children.
lie, prevarication
a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth
no matter how many euphemisms you invent, it is still lying.
@jonsblond Agreed. I do believe there are different levels in the telling. If the parents give false answers to their children to keep the story “real” that is wrong. I always asked leading questions and my parents were very honest with me, as I was with my kids. We stuck with “Let’s play Tooth Fairy” or “Let’s play Santa Claus” and never tried to pretend it was real.
how do you know it is lying huh? what if there is a tooth fairy out there somewhere who just refuses to collect teeth for herself these days…
@shrubbery I am the tooth fairy dammit! I’m putting $1 under her pillow at this moment. It’s tooph fairy according to her.
The funny things children say when they are missing a tooth!.
hey. that’s exactly right. parents are the tooth fairy. so “she” does exist, and will as long as parents continue to swap teeth for money. therefore it’s not lying :)
I gave my daughter £5 for her first tooth and £1 for other teeth, if it was a big tooth she got £2.
I used to write to the tooth fairy when I was little and used to get tiny notes back from her, I also used to use my Barbie hair prushes and make up sets for her to use and I always got a thank you note back. I loved it.
My daughter doesn’t do this is is at the stage where she REALLY wants to believe in the tooth fairy, Father Christmas (she’s nearly 11) but keeps saying, s/he isn’t real is s/he? and I always say if you don’t believe in the magic of Christmas then the spirit of Christmas is lost.
as for the lying debate I asked this on another thread and think it should be kept to just that, and not in a debate on how much we should give to our children from the tooth fairy
My daughter (now nine) got a tooth-shaped container form the school nurse when she lost her (second or third?) tooth at school. We used this for all her subsequent teeth, and it’s easy to find under her pillow. (BTW, she has been getting 1 or 2 per tooth, depending on the size of the tooth.)
My older twins, now 22, got a quarter for each tooth, and a rain check for a candy bar or something for their last tooth. By that time, they were in on the “adult conspiracy.”
One time we forgot to replace the tooth with money. Our son was so upset he disowned us, and ran off with the circus.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ok. Just being silly.
We did almost forget once. My wife had to sneak in at the time he wakes up, but fortunately, as we were on vacation and there is no TV, he slept late and never noticed.
@jonsblond
“Telling stories about imaginary beings is not lying to your children.”
You’re telling them that imaginary beings are not imaginary.
@Ivan No I am not. They are stories. The question that I asked was about the tooth fairy and how much money parents usually put under their child’s pillow. It is not a discussion about lying to your children. If you are so interested in the topic why don’t you ask your own question. Otherwise you are not helping me at all. I’ve come to expect that from you
I gave you a sincere answer; we have subsequently been discussing that answer. I know people REALLY hate it when you question their arbitrary and meaningless traditions, and I know everyone loves to come up with snotty, lurve-whoring, one-liner last words instead of actually defending their position rationally, but don’t yell at me for attempting to have a legitimate discussion regarding a question you asked, especially when plenty of other people have been just as involved.
@Ivan – As a parent who is raising children who are taught the virtue of honesty, critical thinking, and questioning from birth but also enjoy the Fantasy world of Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy I have to disagree that it has to be one or the other or that one has a negative effect on the other.
@Bri_L
I’m relatively ambivalent about any harmful or beneficial effects it might have. It’s the principle of the thing. I don’t feel comfortable lying to children (or anyone else for that matter), regardless of how trivial or well-intentioned it might be.
@Ivan – I don’t understand that in this case, but I can respect that as your stance.
@Ivan . . .Who sucked all of the joy from your life?
Why do you find it necessary to suck all the joy from everyone else’s?
Isn’t telling “your mother” jokes also a form of lying?
Being lied to is joyful
Unless you’re telling your children that there’s a fairy who gives you money when you lose a tooth as a joke, that is not analogous.
@Ivan . . .It’s the principle of the thing. I don’t feel comfortable lying to children (or anyone else for that matter), regardless of how trivial or well-intentioned it might be.
Hmmm. . .
Ivan, it’s called pretending, make believe, a game and when the time is right the game is over.
@Ivan Pretending “yo mama…....” is the same thing. It’s all pretend, and just as it took me some time to catch on to the yo mama jokes, it takes little children some time to catch on to “pretend” as well.
So all of your children are in on the joke? They don’t actually believe you? You aren’t actually telling them that an imaginary character exists?
@Ivan In my family all fictional, pretend characters are talked about much the same way jokes are told. In other words “It’s Santa Claus, ha, ha, ha, wink, wink, nudge, nudge”. Everyone knows it’s a joke.
@YARNLADY
Well then I don’t think your family is terribly representative of the norm.
I’m super late on weighing in here, but my daughter got $1 a tooth, until the last tooth – then she received $5.
I did forget one time, so the tooth fairy made a trail out of coins for my daughter. She loved the trail and the pile of coins. Later, she fessed up to seeing me quickly placing the coins. We both got a good laugh out it.
[mod says] From here on out, please take the lying vs. make-believe debate to PMs or a question asked specifically for that purpose. Further posts on that topic will be removed. Thanks.
lol, what a wonderful way to promote site participation…removing it.
I forget why, but the first tooth we gave $5, with the possible intention of saying this was because it was the first tooth, being more important and what not. But then the next tooth came out when we were wrestling and I accidentally kicked him “albeit gently” in the face, and knocked the second one out. I gave it some thought and talked to my wife, and though we both thought $5 seemed excessive on the surface. But I realized there are 20 baby teeth, 20 times 5 is 100. It takes a good 4 years for all the teeth to come out. If I can’t give my son $100 over the course of 4 years, just because, well there’s something wrong. So, let him think the tooth fairy gives $5. Gives him a reasonable amount of money on hadn to actually be able to buy something with now and then and help me teach him the value of a dollar.
Emily lost her second tooth tonight. I’m so glad I have a dollar in my wallet.
Looks like my daughter is going to be lied to again. At least she is excited and happy. That’s all that matters. :D
@jonsblond How exciting you lying terrible parent! I am so fearful of that phase, because I hate looking at people missing teeth, and I don’t care if it’s children, it just skeeves me out. As a parent, I’ll have to overcome this eventually lol
What EVER you do, try not to EVER forget to put the money under their pillow! You won’t be able to live with yourself when you see the delighted anticipation turn to disbelieving disappointment when they realize the tooth fairy FORGOT! I gave about a buck, in change.
aside. When my son was about 9 he knew the real deal, and started extracting teeth for profit. He’d show it to me and say it was worth $5 because of the silver and ivory “artifacts”. Told me to pass the message on!
@Ivan Quit rainin’ on the parade or Dutchess is gonna get you!
Response moderated
Answer this question 
This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.
Composing members:
0
