The Tooth Fairy

Our second oldest son is 6 years old, the age when he will start to lose some of his baby teeth. He has not lost one yet, but we know that before long, he will inform us of his first wiggling tooth. We have gone through this already with our oldest son, who is now 8 1/2. Here is the dilemma for parents: how much does the Tooth Fairy leave for a tooth? Now when I was a kid growing up, we got 50 cents, not 2 quarters, but a fifty cent piece. When it was time for our son to place his first tooth under his pillow, I had a conference with my wife, and we decided that one dollar would be appropriate. Of course, the next day, he was excited to find out that the Tooth Fairy had indeed stopped by and exchanged his tooth for a folded one dollar bill. Imagine our surprise when he informed us that a friend in his class received $5 for his first tooth! Five dollars! Now we had a problem. We told our son that there must be different kinds of tooth fairies. We tried to redirect his attention to the fact that he received a crisp, one dollar bill, for which he basically had to do no work for. Just pull the tooth out of his mouth, and put that sucker under his pillow before he goes to bed and presto-chango, a $1 bill in the morning. And he had more teeth coming! One time we learned another way that children think differently about money. I found out that I did not have a dollar bill in my wallet, and my wife did not have one in her purse. I placed 4 quarters under the pillow and the next morning our son seemed a little disappointed that he got 4 quarters instead of a dollar bill. I explained to him that 4 quarters was the same amount of money as a one dollar bill, but that didn't really help. A dollar bill was better he said. Paper money trumps coins, parents! I did a little research and found out that the average amount that a tooth fairy brings is now $2.64, so there are other parents giving out $5 bills and moving the amount up. We have stuck with the $1 bounty in our household. We have 5 kids so, even at $1, this tooth fairy thing could add up over the years. Now, we have to address this St. Nick issue...another friend of our child claimed that St. Nick brought him a video game! What the heck? Our kids had to split a piece of chocolate 4 ways!