How Well Should the Tooth Fairy Pay?

Two interesting blogs have been posted recently about the Tooth Fairy. It seems that parents are starting to fight back against rising payments for their kids’ lost baby teeth.

Who knew baby teeth could cause such controversy?

Says blogger Ben Bromley, “The Tooth Fairy still visits my house, except when he — er, she — either forgets or doesn’t have change for a five-spot. My 8-year-old son Drew got $1 for his most recent tooth, a marked increase from the quarters his big sister Claire used to get. Why Forbes magazine didn’t cover this breaking financial news, I don’t know.”

Bromley states that he only received $.10 for his lost baby teeth as a child, but he knows plenty of kids who get $5 or more for each lost tooth now, up to as much as $20!

Whoa!

Jenn Savedge, Mother Nature Network’s family blogger and a “green” author, paid $5 for her daughter’s first lost tooth, and $1 for each subsequent tooth. But after her daughter lost two teeth at once, she felt obliged to ask her readers to report how much their local tooth fairies pay.

Wrote Savedge, “Judging by my recent informal survey, prices are on the rise again. A few parents thought $1 per tooth would do the trick, while others thought this occasion was so special that it warranted a cool $20. Overall, most people suggested that I give my daughter $5 per tooth.”

But the savviest advice may have come from Lynne Miller, mother and blogger atOrganic Mania, who told Savedge, “Better ask her best friend’s mother! ”

Truer words have never been uttered!

Many of the recent articles dealing with Tooth Fairy “payments” have sprung from a survey posted earlier this year that showed parents are leaving less money under the pillow of little ones who have lost baby teeth. In fact, the survey, called “The National Tooth Fairy Poll,” showed that the average Tooth Fairy gift dropped to $2.10 last year from $2.52 in 2010. That’s a drop of 42 cents or 17%, which is one of the largest annual declines Delta Dental has recorded since they began polling in 1998.

Which of course leads me to ask our readers the same question. Does the Tooth Fairy pay for lost baby teeth in your home? If so, what’s the average gift, and does it vary by situation?

—Dr. Shannon Norman-Kotre, Ann Arbor Dentist