In the early 2000s when my kids were very young, I wrote a monthly column for a Los Angeles parenting magazine, but I also spent my free time away from teaching writing opinion pieces, narrative nonfiction, personal essays, political commentary, and anything else that interested me. Some of those were submitted to (and often published in!) a variety of magazines, newspapers, and even websites. Others were never sent anywhere but served as a means of honing my craft. After all, according to Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers, I needed to clock my 10,000 hours. So I wrote and wrote.
What follows is an essay I wrote in 2003 – over twenty years ago! The fun part about this is I completely forgot about the day my daughter discovered I was the tooth fairy, leaving me eternally grateful for having captured this in words.
How about you? Do you remember when your kids discovered that you were the tooth fairy?
Today was a sad day in our house. The Tooth Fairy was exposed as a fraud. My only consolation is that my three-year-old did not witness the unfrocking. Fortunately, my seven-year-old, Emily, promised not to reveal her true identity.
My daughter has had her suspicions. Her so-called friends at school have told her that the Tooth Fairy is really her parents, but she jumped right into the fray and argued on behalf of the Tooth Fairy. Plus, the most vocal Scrooge in her class had yet to lose a single tooth, leaving him a suspicious source. What did he know about the whole affair anyway, she reasoned.
But I have no one to blame but myself. I blew it. I got sloppy.
The Tooth Fairy was also my introduction to the realization that our parents are responsible for many of the wonders of childhood. When I was seven, my best friend told me, through a sinister laugh, that the Tooth Fairy was really my mom. I also argued vigorously against such a thing. But I couldn’t help myself. I pretended I was asleep and waited to meet the Tooth Fairy face-to-face. It was a crushing blow when I felt my mom’s arm under my pillow. Like most kids, though, I recovered, excited to help perpetuate the fantasy for my younger sister.
Emily lost her second top front tooth, leaving a gaping hole in the front of her mouth. After I was certain she had fallen asleep, I snuck into her room. I lucked out. Her head was not even on the pillow as she was stretched out sideways across her bed. But there was no tooth to be found. She had evidently forgotten to put it under her pillow. And I did not see it anywhere around her nightstand. I wasn’t sure what the rule was here. It did not seem right to leave money when no tooth had been left. So I crept back out.
For each tooth, I place under the pillow a golden dollar and a coin from a foreign country. She had already received coins from Mexico, Canada, and Italy. This time I dug out a French franc. Not seeing it necessary to put it back into the basket where I keep all of my foreign coins, for that would mean searching through them all again to find the French one, I placed the two coins on top of the refrigerator.
The next morning, I innocently asked if she had put her tooth under her pillow the night before. She couldn’t believe she had forgotten. But apparently, she also had forgotten where she had put the tooth. We searched everywhere and could not find it.
“That’s ok,” she informed me. “Grandma says that if you swallow or lose your tooth, you can just write the Tooth Fairy a note.”
Ok by me. I wouldn’t know since I had never swallowed or lost a tooth!
That night, though, she challenged me about the Tooth Fairy.
“Christopher says the Tooth Fairy is really your parents. Is it? Are you the Tooth Fairy? Come on now,.”
“Me?!” I responded innocently. “Why don’t you stay awake tonight and find out for yourself,” I suggested.
“Nah. I’m too tired.”
So when I tiptoed into her room late at night, I felt safe; I knew she wasn’t trying to stay awake. I snatched the note, hid it away securely, dropped off my loot, and tiptoed out. And I slept well that night.
The next morning, she was delighted to discover the glittering coins, but then she said to me, with a gleam in her eye and a smirk on her face, “I saw these coins on top of the refrigerator yesterday!”
What? How was that possible? She is barely tall enough to ride the little kid roller coasters at Magic Mountain. But before I could question her regarding this, she was off to the kitchen. She opened the pantry and proceeded to climb up the shelves until she could reach any goodies that lay on the top shelf. She then turned her head to the exact spot on top of the refrigerator where I had left the coins.
“Ah-hah!” she proudly proclaimed, beaming as a master sleuth who had just solved a crime. “It is you!
What could I say? I was caught red-handed.
Just then, her little brother appeared, wiping sleep from his eyes. “Look what I got, James,” Emily showed him. “I got them from m…o…” I dragged her out of the room mid-sentence.
“Em,” I whispered, “let’s not tell James about the Tooth Fairy. Then you can help me play the Tooth Fairy when his teeth start falling out.”
She loved that idea. But then her smiled straightened out. Her mind was churning. “But mom, what about Sant…” At that moment, James came running over, and in typical James fashion, smacked Emily on the arm. He ran off; she ran after him. And the subject was dropped … for now.
Santa was saved by a little boy who was just put on the list of naughty kids.
The latest in my project Praying in Chicago: Religion in the Windy City is now available on Substack. Check it out! Tomorrow’s installment is about my visit to the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, located in the iconic round building on the Chicago River on Wacker and Wabash.
The Writing Life 