Lying is an integral part of being a good parent. All the best parents have that in common; they can successfully and consistently lie to their offspring. Most lies are to give a sense of hope; to soothe your offspring in stressful situations. Some lies just help you get through the day in one piece without strangling them.
We are going to discuss the more universal and socially expected lies or, as I like to call them, the myths of childhood.
There are several of these myths that we delve into overtime. Today, though, I want to discuss one particular lie we tell our young and that is the existence of the tooth fairy.
For the few who aren’t familiar with this phenomenon, let me explain. When a child loses a tooth (and they do this a few times in their life cycle- refer to my blog about teething earlier in this series) parents convince their children to put the detached tooth under their pillow so when they are sleeping called a tooth fairy comes and takes the tooth. In exchange, the tooth fairy leaves a few bucks under the pillow.
I can’t think of anything more terrifying to tell their kid.
This is the kind of lie that makes things like the human organ black market possible. Not only that, stop and consider what message this sort of thing gives young and impressionable minds. Kids are a lot smarter than they pretend to be. It’s not going to take them long to figure out that one child’s tooth is pretty indistinguishable from another. BOOM! Suddenly your offspring is borrowing your toolbox to “play” dentist with the neighbor kids.
Also, what about the natural progression of this? What I mean by that is children are, in fact, worth some serious cash. If a stupid fairy will pay a couple of bucks for a small tooth, how much would their leg be worth? Their spleen? Where does it end?
Pretty soon there will be a suspicious amount of red in your laundry and a distinct increase in kids with deformities in your neighborhood.
And it’s all because of one innocent lie about some fairy with a tooth fetish.
For shame!
Azra
***Disclaimer***Azra has been around children for centuries. While not having any of his own, part of being an exiled angel means blending in on earth. As he traveled the earth, he picked up on a lot of parenting practices across the globe. This blog is meant to share his parenting wisdom with a new generation. And to win a bet.
*Note: any advice given is meant to be satirical and not to be taken literally. Please do not exercise it upon any living being, child or otherwise.*