i'd argue that the actual problem is that parents lied about the tooth fairy to their kids. how can kids trust their parents if parents just make stuff up occasionally? the world is full enough of wonder, no need to make stuff up.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Social reasons. It's easier to just do it than have a 5 year old not understand why they're the only one that misses out, or explain the whole thing and expect a 5 year old to keep it secret from their friends, pissing off all the other parents when they tell them, all to avoid doing something that's just a bit of fun anyway and isn't likely to destroy your kids trust in you for life by itself.
Jokes on them, I occasionally forgot when my kid told me and just had to say I guess the tooth fairy was extra busy. Once I forgot 2 nights in a row. So this wouldn't have been conclusive data.
Thanks for doing your part to keep the ledge alive lol
Grats to the kid. It developed the ability for critical thinking early. Time to admit the lie and stop using fairy tales as a tool.
The next developmental step might make giving money for teeth a really cursed incentive btw. So disconnecting the reward from the loss of teeth is probably a good idea. Just increase the weekly allowance accordingly to not make it look like discoveries are punished.
Tooth fairy can read minds. Don't try to deceive her again, or she will send her cousin, the tongue demon.
We (sibling and I ) thought we were smart and did something similar with Santa when we were kids. We were then told “fine Christmas is canceled then” I can tell you we became believers full of Christmas spirit really quick.
It's a valuable lesson for him to learn the hard way.
Having to route your request through the proper channels to get things done.
“Did you submit a ticket?”
Well yeah kid; how the fuck is the Tooth Fairy(TM) delivery guy supposed to know if your parents don't sign-in to their localtoothfairy.com app?
I heard the app collects personal data they sell to Big Dental.
it's true. they use tracking cookies
The cookies are a ploy by Big Dental to give you more cavities they can fill
Wrong lesson, kid. Hide other people’s teeth under your pillow & keep telling your parents you lost another tooth. Infinite cash.
same with blood donations. The hard part is them stopping to ask questions about whose blood is in the bucket
Why is this marked NSFW? I was expecting to derail the train.
Read the title.
See my brain OCR said "Tooth Fairy Spiders" and I was like "Oh THAT makes sense but I'm feeling brave." But ended up sort of confused. 😂
I’d always put the money in an envelope with my kids names written to be all magical and fancy looking but didn’t try especially hard to disguise my handwriting. When my daughter was probably eight she just casually informed me how much she had noticed the tooth fairy’s handwriting looked just like mine 🤔 she’s smart, it both let me know she knew what was up but was still low key enough the gravy train kept coming for the rest of her teeth lol
Good on her, she'll go far!
My wife writes it with her left hand, to avoid this very issue!
Whenever I try that the text just looks like it was written by a stoned wombat
I tried this as a kid, but i lost the tooth after day 2 and bungled the whole thing
SCIENCE 99
Last Christmas my daughter kept getting closer to figuring things out until one night she cryptically said, "I can't wait until I'm an adult so I can learn about grown up secrets."
"What kind of secrets are those?"
"You know, like if Santa wasn't real or something."
"Well if Santa wasn't real, then we'd definitely want to keep that secret from kids like your little brother, so we'd never ever talk about it."
"Oh yeah."
Then she never mentioned it again.
It may have been our fault for doing way too many holiday activities. She must have met four or five different Santas that year.
Nah the tooth fairy requires you to tell your parents as part of her fairy contract.
I did this as a kid as well, though I never confronted my parents about it. I just quietly died a little inside as the whimsical magic of my childhood was eclipsed by the cold truth of our reality.
I think I was born with a grifters gene, because once I learned the tooth fairy gives money, I told my parents that a tooth fell out at school, and I lost it, but will the tooth fairy still come? And sure enough she did. I got money for no lost tooth.
Only worked once though. My parents got suspicious when I lost a tooth every day after that.
The cold truth being that humans in general are a really bad source for facts. They lie to protect. They lie to save face. They lie because they don't like the truth. And they accidentally lie because they don't know better. No one can be trusted in this world. You have to fact-check everything. And we didn't even have the internet back then.
Conscientious of you to add the spoiler tag, but I hope we don’t have many tooth fairy believers on Lemmy.
Speak for yourself, this post devastated me.
"sorry to disappoint you, Timmy, but the tooth fairy only comes once she knows the parents are aware their child is about to get some money/a visit"
I'm very surprised there are parents telling their kids about the tooth fairy that can't recover the story when confronted by their kid with such evidence.
The problem with doubling down as a habit is that the child's brain will mature more and eventually notice the lie. And then you did actual habitual betraying gaslighting instead of just the usual fairy tales to calm a child. Admit and acknowledge the child's mental development.
Parents start with having the full trust of their children. And there is quite the leeway before puberty hits. But trust once lost might never be fully regained. There is a real risk of creating serious trust issues.
It's not really about the evidence. Once they figure it out you can get them to play along a little longer, but they know.
My parents did lot of things I hate them for, but I'll always respect them from openly having my father be the Tooth Officer from the start
Did he wear a costume?
nah, he was just the man with the box of teeth in his drawer
“Look, you want the money or not kid?”
nsfw to protect people still believing in toothfairy?
Protecting people from the far left radical science.
Spoiler: wait until he finds out about God.
Haha l totally did this
That's exactly what I did back in the day. My parents were dumbfounded. I remember wanting to sleep in the living room because I needed proof Santa was real. Needless to say, I've been a skeptic about stuff like that ever since.
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Honestly, I would be so proud of my kid if they brought this to me, and unless I was prepared for this eventuality, I'd probably admit they're right and paraise their critical thinking. If I was prepared, I'd start poking holes in their theory and show that they have evidence the tooth fairy isn't real, not proof, so more experimentation is required
At 9yo I would just leave it at being proud of them and their methods. I'd reward it. If they are questioning it on their own they are ready for that magic to be gone.
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u got off lucky. daughter found the Santa wrapping paper one year. lined everything up and did a full presentation for us.
That one's a keeper!
Did you take the money back?
The universe answers in its own timeline. If the kid just sent an intent, it doesn't mean it'll happen right away. Hedging quantum physics (like wording it out to parents) adds probability
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