The dentist has informed my wife and I that our son will start to lose his teeth within the next 18 months or so. It’s something he’s been looking forward to, since he already knows about the Tooth Fairy. Little did I realize that he was also planning to negotiate rates with her.
I forgot how much money my wife and I had agreed upon as a Tooth Fairy gift, so when asked I said, “She’ll leave you a quarter…or…um, some sum of money. I’m not really familiar with the current Tooth Fairy rates.”
He immediately countered with, “Or she might bring me a present. The Tooth Fairy brings presents now.”
Wait…what?
I double-checked with my wife on this, and she didn’t say anything of the sort to him. This is just my son trying to set the currency he receives for major milestones in his life. I think he noticed that the Easter Bunny brings him candy instead of toys and realizes he missed the boat on negotiations.
On the one hand, I want to commend the boy on his dedication to making sure he gets the best deal possible. On the other hand…NOPE, NOT GONNA HAPPEN. There are already enough magical elves and fairies that give toys year-round without adding another one!
It’s enough that my wife and I have to debate over how much money gets left behind. I got a quarter per tooth, and she got a dollar. I think she needs to check her tooth privilege. An average of the two boils down to 62.5 cents, and the US doesn’t have a half-penny.
The debate about tooth money took way more time than it probably should have. In the end, my wife went online to look up inflation rates between 1988 and today. Through this, we discovered that my 80s quarters would be worth 51 cents today. If only I had invested wisely.
By contrast, the $1 my wife received comes out to about $2.05 today. Taking an inflation-adjusted average between her value and my value comes out to $1.28, which means that the Tooth Fairy is really short-changing our kids a little if she still gives out $1 per tooth.
This, of course, is all rudimentary data. I don’t know what the cost of living in Tooth Fairy Land or wherever has done over the past couple of decades. If the property value on houses made of teeth has depreciated considerably, then cutbacks would obviously be necessary.
I could go on for quite a while about this, but I’ve come to the realization that I’ve put entirely too much thought into the buying and selling rates of children’s teeth. I do know, though, that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t give out toys. I appreciate my son’s attempt to negotiate, but he’ll have to wait for another fantasy creature to shake down.
What’s the going rate for a tooth in your household?
CommentImages: David R. Tribble, Petr Kratochvil
