{"id":636,"date":"2009-06-22T20:48:54","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T03:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=636"},"modified":"2019-03-11T16:00:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T23:00:27","slug":"does-anybody-know-the-going-rate-for-the-tooth-fairy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id636-does-anybody-know-the-going-rate-for-the-tooth-fairy.html","title":{"rendered":"Does Anybody Know the Going Rate for the Tooth Fairy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My 9-year-old daughter, Lenina, lost another tooth today!<\/p>\n

Of course, most everyone knows custom dictates that when a child loses a tooth they dutifully place it under their pillow knowing that the Tooth Fairy<\/a> will come and take it in exchange for some money. It’s a tradition that’s dutifully been passed from parents to their children for generations.<\/p>\n

And so it was that when my now 12-year-old son, Matthew, was within a year or so of losing his first tooth, I thought it would be a good idea to purchase a bunch of Sacagawea golden dollars so that I would have them to put under my kids’ pillows on behalf of the Tooth Fairy when the time came.<\/p>\n

Of course, I first had to figure out just how many of those golden dollars to get. At the time due to their initial popularity, there was a shortage of them. And because they were really hard to find I felt I needed to make a “lifetime” buy in order to ensure I would have enough to last until my youngest child lost her last tooth.<\/p>\n

In order to make an informed decision I had to know two things: 1. the number of baby teeth in a child’s mouth; and, 2. the going rate the tooth fairy was giving out for an average tooth.<\/p>\n

The first question was easy. A simple search on Google confirmed the number to be 20.<\/p>\n

The second question, though, was going to take a bit more thought on my part.<\/p>\n

You know, when I was a kid the Tooth Fairy usually left me a quarter, which was a fortune to a 6-year-old back in the Pleistocene era.<\/p>\n

That might not sound like a lot of money today, but back then twenty-five cents would get me a frozen treat from the ice cream man and still leave me enough to buy a candy bar down the street at the Pixie Mart!<\/p>\n

As I got older I noticed that the original 25-cent payout, for whatever reason, had suddenly increased. I assumed it was because they were the bigger molars. But whatever the reason, by the time the last of my baby teeth were falling out I was earning a whopping 50 cents for each molar!<\/p>\n

So how much would the Tooth Fairy pay my kids for their teeth?<\/p>\n

Well, by using the amount of money I got in 1970 as the official “Tooth Fairy standard,” I determined that for my kids the inflation-adjusted going rate for every cuspid, bicuspid, and incisor would be one dollar, and for each molar it would be two.<\/p>\n

Now according to my daughter those prices seem to be in the ballpark with what her friends get, although she did say she has a friend who received $20 for a tooth! Just so you don’t think that was a typo, I’ll spell it out this time: Twenty dollars! Somebody please tell me that that is truly not normal when it comes to rewards from the Tooth Fairy. Anybody?<\/p>\n

Aw, well. Sadly, last year the inevitable finally occurred when one of Nina’s friends let the cat out of the bag regarding the reality of the Tooth Fairy. Ironically, this has resulted in a bigger disappointment for the Honeybee and me than our daughter.<\/p>\n

Now we simply and unceremoniously hand over a coin to Nina whenever she loses another tooth. Thankfully, Nina is still excited every time a tooth falls out because she still gets a shiny golden Sacagawea dollar for her piggy bank!<\/p>\n

Best of all, whether she gets one dollar or five really doesn’t seem to matter to her, which makes sense considering young kids really don’t have a firm grasp on the value of a dollar anyway, as this experiment I did a few months ago clearly demonstrates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So how about it readers? How much did you receive when you were a kid? How much is “too much”, and what do you pay out for your kids’ teeth now?<\/p>\n

If you liked this article, please be sure to <\/em>subscribe to my RSS feed<\/em><\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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