Last week, a friend was telling me a story about her oldest grandson losing his first tooth, and how excited he and his brother were about it. Such an exciting time for kids—and a time of lies and pressure for parents.
I remember the day Mark came home from Kindergarten, excited because a little girl in his class had been the first to lose a tooth. “Mom,” he exclaimed, “She got FIVE dollars from the tooth fairy!” At that, I thought a few choice words for that girl’s mother, putting the rest of us in an awkward position by setting THAT kind of monetary precedent. Five dollars? Why, when I was a kid… OK. No child ever likes to hear the “When I was a kid” line coming from his parents, not even when he’s five. Barely missing a beat, I explained with what I hoped was a casual, off-handed tone, “Well, that’s because she lives on the farm, dear, and farm kids get more from the Tooth Fairy. It’s always been that way. You’ll get a toonie.” (For those non-Canadian readers of my blog, a “toonie” is what we call a two-dollar coin. For future reference, a one-dollar coin is called a “loonie”. You never know: if the mint ever produces a three-dollar coin for regular circulation, yes, we may just call it a “thoonie”.)
As Mark was as gullible and trusting as most five year-olds tend to be, he accepted this logic easily. This was one of what was to be quite a few lies I would tell my son—lies that rolled off the tongue a little too easily for my own comfort, on some occasions.
Before long, Mark lost his own first tooth, followed by his second, third, and so on. At first, I was caught up in his excitement and would wait for him to fall asleep before sneaking into his room to retrieve his lost tooth from under the pillow, replacing it with a shiny toonie. By the third time we’d been through this routine, I scrounged a handful of quarters and left them beside his bed instead of trying to tuck them all under his pillow. By about the fifth time, I forgot and fell asleep before making the switch, only to awaken with a jolt at two in the morning. My subconscious was obviously working overtime and I found myself in the garage, in my pyjamas, digging through the parking change in the truck, hoping to scrape together two dollars-worth of change.
I wasn’t very good at this Tooth Fairy business and, inevitably, the day came when I forgot altogether, only to be faced with a surprised looking six year-old, bleary eyed, holding a bloody tooth, exclaiming, “She didn’t come!” Shit. Again, with a wave of my hand, and carefully avoiding eye contact, I smoothed it over by declaring, “Oh Mark. She has schedule to follow, you know, and you obviously lost it a day early or something. She’ll come tonight…or while you’re at school.” “Nice one!” I thought to myself. Quick thinking on that last part!
Another tooth was lost while away for the weekend with his father and I fixed that situation by telling him that the Tooth Fairy only visits your real house, so he’d have to wait until he was home to collect from her.
Along the same theme as the Tooth Fairy, is the wretched Easter Bunny. WHY do we set ourselves up this way? Between Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, that’s a lot of clandestine activity for the average parent. As is often the case, I wanted to recreate the same type of Easter experiences I had had as a child. When my sister and were young, the Easter Bunny would always leave us clues on Easter Sunday, taking us on a treasure hunt from clue to clue, leading us to the final treasure of chocolate and Easter treats. Of course I would do this for my own child! What fun! The first couple of Easter’s WERE fun. I would sit up the night before Easter Sunday, coming up with fun clues and decorating the paper with stickers. I would plant the rest of the clues, leading him indoors and out, enjoying the whole preparatory experience. As he got a little older, it became more challenging and somehow less fun. It started to feel hard: like a test. The clues had to be hard enough to be challenging, but not SO hard that I’d have to pretend to decipher the cryptic messages, like I had some elemental connection with the Easter Bunny, “Oh, I’m SURE he meant this or that he’s referring to that.”
The year that Mark was 9, I found myself grocery shopping with him the evening before Easter Sunday. It slowly dawned on me that not only had I not purchased any Easter treats for the next morning, I was also unable to do so because Mark was with me. I ran through a few complex scenarios in my head that would enable me to secure some Easter treats without his realising, when I just sort of gave up. We were sitting in a parking lot, me in the driver’s seat and him in the back seat, and I just said, “Mark. I have to tell you something. There’s no Easter Bunny.” Silence. I chanced a glance in the rear-view mirror to gauge the situation. He was sitting, quietly, with a look of slight shock on his face, and I could tell he was processing this shocking bit of information. After a moment, he looked slightly relieved and said, “Well, I’m not surprised. I sort of wondered last year when I thought the writing on the clues kind of looked like yours.” Pleased that this was going so well, I turned around to smile at him just as he continued, saying, “At least I know there’s really a Santa and a Tooth Fairy, because I HIGHLY doubt you’d sneak into my room at night to take my tooth and put money under my pillow!” I quickly faced the front again and started the car, muttering something about how many we could go buy him a new book for Easter instead of the treats.
Dammit. This could have been my chance to break free from all the lies and release myself from the sneaking around and worrying that he’d find out the truth in some horrible way that would scar him for life. No such luck. The other lies would have to continue for a while yet.
The following Christmas, when he was ten, we were out shopping together and I bought something saying, “We should put this in dad’s stocking this year!” Shit. When would I learn to just keep my mouth shut? Before he could connect the dots on that blunder, I said, “Because you DO know that Santa doesn’t fill the stockings for moms, dads, and dogs, right? I mean, he’s really busy with the kids, so I just take care of dad and the dogs.” Again, I was met with silence before a look of shock and worry came over his face. I didn’t think this was a good sign and while I swiftly wondered if I shouldn’t just come completely clean on all of it, he said, full of sincerity, “Do you think DAD knows?!” Trying not to laugh I assured him dad did, in fact, know. It did give me pause to think, however, that perhaps he didn’t and that was why my stocking haul was a little scarce some years.
Now, Mark is 12, and knows the truth about all of it. I didn’t crush him with the harsh truth of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus the way I did with the Easter Bunny. I know he has suspected for the last couple of years, but chose not to say anything. It IS fun to wait up on Christmas Eve and carry out the ritual of filling the stockings and laying out the Santa gift. Maybe it’s the little shot of adrenaline you get from knowing you could be caught at any moment, or the innocence of a child having laid out a cookie and a rum and eggnog for Santa (just kidding…sort of), but I held onto that one as long as I could. Thank goodness Santa isn’t expected to leave clues, because I couldn’t take that kind of pressure twice in a year.
I remember the day Mark came home from Kindergarten, excited because a little girl in his class had been the first to lose a tooth. “Mom,” he exclaimed, “She got FIVE dollars from the tooth fairy!” At that, I thought a few choice words for that girl’s mother, putting the rest of us in an awkward position by setting THAT kind of monetary precedent. Five dollars? Why, when I was a kid… OK. No child ever likes to hear the “When I was a kid” line coming from his parents, not even when he’s five. Barely missing a beat, I explained with what I hoped was a casual, off-handed tone, “Well, that’s because she lives on the farm, dear, and farm kids get more from the Tooth Fairy. It’s always been that way. You’ll get a toonie.” (For those non-Canadian readers of my blog, a “toonie” is what we call a two-dollar coin. For future reference, a one-dollar coin is called a “loonie”. You never know: if the mint ever produces a three-dollar coin for regular circulation, yes, we may just call it a “thoonie”.)
As Mark was as gullible and trusting as most five year-olds tend to be, he accepted this logic easily. This was one of what was to be quite a few lies I would tell my son—lies that rolled off the tongue a little too easily for my own comfort, on some occasions.
Before long, Mark lost his own first tooth, followed by his second, third, and so on. At first, I was caught up in his excitement and would wait for him to fall asleep before sneaking into his room to retrieve his lost tooth from under the pillow, replacing it with a shiny toonie. By the third time we’d been through this routine, I scrounged a handful of quarters and left them beside his bed instead of trying to tuck them all under his pillow. By about the fifth time, I forgot and fell asleep before making the switch, only to awaken with a jolt at two in the morning. My subconscious was obviously working overtime and I found myself in the garage, in my pyjamas, digging through the parking change in the truck, hoping to scrape together two dollars-worth of change.
I wasn’t very good at this Tooth Fairy business and, inevitably, the day came when I forgot altogether, only to be faced with a surprised looking six year-old, bleary eyed, holding a bloody tooth, exclaiming, “She didn’t come!” Shit. Again, with a wave of my hand, and carefully avoiding eye contact, I smoothed it over by declaring, “Oh Mark. She has schedule to follow, you know, and you obviously lost it a day early or something. She’ll come tonight…or while you’re at school.” “Nice one!” I thought to myself. Quick thinking on that last part!
Another tooth was lost while away for the weekend with his father and I fixed that situation by telling him that the Tooth Fairy only visits your real house, so he’d have to wait until he was home to collect from her.
Along the same theme as the Tooth Fairy, is the wretched Easter Bunny. WHY do we set ourselves up this way? Between Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny, that’s a lot of clandestine activity for the average parent. As is often the case, I wanted to recreate the same type of Easter experiences I had had as a child. When my sister and were young, the Easter Bunny would always leave us clues on Easter Sunday, taking us on a treasure hunt from clue to clue, leading us to the final treasure of chocolate and Easter treats. Of course I would do this for my own child! What fun! The first couple of Easter’s WERE fun. I would sit up the night before Easter Sunday, coming up with fun clues and decorating the paper with stickers. I would plant the rest of the clues, leading him indoors and out, enjoying the whole preparatory experience. As he got a little older, it became more challenging and somehow less fun. It started to feel hard: like a test. The clues had to be hard enough to be challenging, but not SO hard that I’d have to pretend to decipher the cryptic messages, like I had some elemental connection with the Easter Bunny, “Oh, I’m SURE he meant this or that he’s referring to that.”
The year that Mark was 9, I found myself grocery shopping with him the evening before Easter Sunday. It slowly dawned on me that not only had I not purchased any Easter treats for the next morning, I was also unable to do so because Mark was with me. I ran through a few complex scenarios in my head that would enable me to secure some Easter treats without his realising, when I just sort of gave up. We were sitting in a parking lot, me in the driver’s seat and him in the back seat, and I just said, “Mark. I have to tell you something. There’s no Easter Bunny.” Silence. I chanced a glance in the rear-view mirror to gauge the situation. He was sitting, quietly, with a look of slight shock on his face, and I could tell he was processing this shocking bit of information. After a moment, he looked slightly relieved and said, “Well, I’m not surprised. I sort of wondered last year when I thought the writing on the clues kind of looked like yours.” Pleased that this was going so well, I turned around to smile at him just as he continued, saying, “At least I know there’s really a Santa and a Tooth Fairy, because I HIGHLY doubt you’d sneak into my room at night to take my tooth and put money under my pillow!” I quickly faced the front again and started the car, muttering something about how many we could go buy him a new book for Easter instead of the treats.
Dammit. This could have been my chance to break free from all the lies and release myself from the sneaking around and worrying that he’d find out the truth in some horrible way that would scar him for life. No such luck. The other lies would have to continue for a while yet.
The following Christmas, when he was ten, we were out shopping together and I bought something saying, “We should put this in dad’s stocking this year!” Shit. When would I learn to just keep my mouth shut? Before he could connect the dots on that blunder, I said, “Because you DO know that Santa doesn’t fill the stockings for moms, dads, and dogs, right? I mean, he’s really busy with the kids, so I just take care of dad and the dogs.” Again, I was met with silence before a look of shock and worry came over his face. I didn’t think this was a good sign and while I swiftly wondered if I shouldn’t just come completely clean on all of it, he said, full of sincerity, “Do you think DAD knows?!” Trying not to laugh I assured him dad did, in fact, know. It did give me pause to think, however, that perhaps he didn’t and that was why my stocking haul was a little scarce some years.
Now, Mark is 12, and knows the truth about all of it. I didn’t crush him with the harsh truth of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus the way I did with the Easter Bunny. I know he has suspected for the last couple of years, but chose not to say anything. It IS fun to wait up on Christmas Eve and carry out the ritual of filling the stockings and laying out the Santa gift. Maybe it’s the little shot of adrenaline you get from knowing you could be caught at any moment, or the innocence of a child having laid out a cookie and a rum and eggnog for Santa (just kidding…sort of), but I held onto that one as long as I could. Thank goodness Santa isn’t expected to leave clues, because I couldn’t take that kind of pressure twice in a year.
2 comments:
What is a loonie? you ask. Some may not know the Canadian one dollar coin carries an image of a loon. Sill unclear? I believe in the U.K. this bird is known as the Great Northern Diver. Such are the pitfalls of cross-cultural communication.
I think it's pretty amazing that there is a mutual conspiracy among parents to continue these white lies. Have you ever heard of any parent dropping the ball and telling any kid that the tooth fairy and such exist only in our imagination?
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