On Becoming the Tooth Fairy

As a mother of young children, I enjoyed the small, playful delights that came with the job, including being the tooth fairy. At night, I got to embody the mysterious character who plays with the child’s connection to a magical world. Slipping back into the role of mother in the morning, I loved seeing the excitement and puzzlement on my children’s faces when they found treasure under their pillows. I learned that the tooth fairy, like all transitional objects, can help with questions about reality and fantasy—can something be real and imagined all at once? And I discovered that because a child forms a relationship with the tooth fairy over many years, this imagined being may help with the complicated process of growing up.

My son’s first tooth had to be pulled by the dentist. That night, he wrote a detailed note to the tooth fairy, explaining the ordeal and asking for something special in return, thus beginning our family tradition. By the time he was eight, he needed something different. Confronting me, he said, “Mom, you and I both know that you are the tooth fairy.” As both prosecutor and judge, he was not letting me off the hook.

Was I the tooth fairy if he didn’t believe anymore? And should I stop performing my tooth fairy duties if I had been discovered? Silently creeping into my child’s room, retrieving his baby tooth from under his heavily sleeping head, replacing it with some treasure … Perhaps, I thought, my son simply needed a bit of consensual reality—reassurance—as he went on being a child. Despite his discovery, I continued to leave him treasure for some time. The spell was broken, but the ritual continued until it simply faded away.

My daughter, then age five, had been engaging in a lively correspondence with the tooth fairy for a year already. In her early notes, she identified herself as her brother’s sister, as though locating herself in the tooth fairy’s mind. Over time, the notes became letters, signed with her own name, and filled with questions a