Moms Talk: What is the Going Rate for the Tooth Fairy in Lake Forest?

Moms Talk is Lake Forest Patch’s newest feature in an ongoing effort to connect with local moms and families. We encourage you and your local circle of friends to come together and build an online community of support here at the Patch.

One of my daughter’s friends had a big announcement in class yesterday morning. He lost a tooth.

And the tooth fairy brought him $20.

The teacher’s eyes got big. The kid quickly announced that he got more than usual, because it was a special tooth that was painful to get out.

Still, I can just picture the conversations which will take place in the homes of his classmates:

“Do you think I’ll get $20 when I lose my next tooth, Mom?” or, “Why does Ricky get more from the tooth fairy than me?”

For this mom, who thought the 25 cents I got for each lost tooth was pretty darn cool, deciding about how to handle the tooth fairy was tricky. We wanted it to feel special, and for our daughter to be able to afford to actually buy a small toy with her first payment. But we also didn’t want to set ourselves up to need to raid our savings to pay the tooth fairy. (We’ll save that for the orthodontist, but that’s another Moms Talk topic…)

So we settled on $5 and a special note for the first tooth, then $1 for each subsequent tooth. So far, our daughter hasn’t complained. But if her classmates keep losing such lucrative teeth, I wonder if she will start asking questions.

So that’s our issue for Moms Talk this week. Does the tooth fairy come to your house? What does she pay? And how do you talk with your kids about money when they start to notice the discrepancies between your family and those of their classmates?

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