Payment for gaps in their smiles burning holes in their pockets
That tooth fairy is such a secretive little nymph; a winged, magical, late-night barterer conducting her business under the cloak of darkness.
Why, exactly, does she want so many teeth? What does she do with them? Why only the baby teeth? And, most importantly, how does she settle on a price?
There seems to be a protocol, an innocent faith that if you put your little tooth under the pillow, the compensation will be to your satisfaction.
When it comes time to explain the tooth fairy – and settle on a price – so many new parents are at a loss.
For most, there is a 20-year … er … gap between the last time they stuck a tooth under a pillow and the day their kindergartner's mouth starts resembling that of a hockey player's, and they become the tooth facilitator.
The tooth trade
It would appear that parents are the middlemen, but when it comes to answers, oftentimes they don't have a whole lot.
Kimberly Bailey isn't sure how she will explain it to her son, 5-year-old Cameron, when he starts to lose his teeth. He'll probably get $3 a tooth, but the rest is murky.
"I'll tell him that she has a collection," says Bailey, 32. "Why? I don't know. I hope he doesn't ask."
But those children … you know they surely will ask.
In Andrea Sharpe's household, the contract between tooth fairy and parent stipulates a relationship of mutual benefit — a sanitization service, if you will.
"The tooth fairy cleans them and gives them back," says Andrea, 6. "She gives my mama the money. Mama just says, 'Give the money to me, and I'll make sure to give it to her.'"
And, apparently, Mama meets with the tooth fairy regularly and can give a general description — wings, magic wand, about the size of a first-grader's hand.
The tooth fairy, it seems, is a shrewd businesswoman.
That is, if Jaylon Tolbert's suspicions are correct. Jaylon has lost eight teeth all told, his upper row virtually nothing but gums. For each tooth, he gets a dollar.
Jaylon says his understanding is that the tooth fairy sells teeth (possibly, he says, to help make clocks) at a whopping price of $100 per tooth.
When asked about whether he should be due a little kickback on the profit, Jaylon doesn't know whatever in the world that means, but, he says, smiling, "yeah, sure."
The price ranges differ. Some kids get a silver dollar, others $2 and some upwards of $5, says Sangrita Vakharia, a Greenville dentist.
But what children might not understand, as they see their classmates getting two to five times more than they got from the tooth fairy, is the economics underneath it all.
Tooth fairy inflation
In 1979, when he was a 6-year-old kindergartner, University of South Carolina research economist Don Shunk says he got 25 cents a tooth.
If you were to apply that 25 cents in 1979 into today's inflationary terms, that quarter would be worth about 54 cents, Shunk says.
He has settled on $2 a tooth for his 7-year-old son, and the same for the three younger children yet to lose their teeth. That means Shunk's son is getting nearly four times the amount his father did versus inflation.
While not quite as volatile as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or even Mom and Dad on a birthday, the tooth fairy claims no immunity from inflationary pressure.
When it comes to gift giving over the years, adults have tended to round up in whole dollars, so much so that Grandma is paying $20 when she used to pay $1. The inflation involved there is off the charts.
So why is the price going up when the supply-and-demand equation doesn't play out?
"As the population grows, there's an ever-growing — and apparently endless — supply of teeth," Shunk says. "You would think that would put downward pressure on price. But I guess you have to think about what exactly the tooth fairy is doing with all these teeth."
That leads the young economist to only one conclusion: There must be a demand for teeth that either meets or exceeds the supply.
Carley Calhoun thinks it's simple: There is a never-ending demand for tooth necklaces.
"She puts them in her bag, then she makes a necklace," says Carley, 7, who always gets a crisp paper dollar bill in return.
Actually, that would be in keeping with the history of the tooth fairy, whose roots are traced back to medieval Europe.
In Viking culture, warriors believed that children's articles held a certain value for strength and luck. Adults would pay children for their teeth and string them onto necklaces to wear into battle.
In English culture, it was believed that teeth, like fingernails, held much power when in the hands of a witch, so parents would have children drop their teeth into a fire.
Throughout the rest of Europe, the teeth would be buried, both as a symbol of hope that permanent teeth would grow in and a means to keep them away from the witches.
The tooth fairy, however, as manifested in the miniature, winged, sprite figure, first emerged in America.
A truly capitalistic beginning.
Baby teeth only, please
No matter her origin, one thing is clear: The tooth fairy has no desire to enter the permanent-tooth market.
If anyone would know, Ryan Stewart would.
As a hockey player manning the left wing for the Greenville Grrrowl, Stewart has lost two teeth. Actually, he didn't lose them. They were right there on the ice after an opponent knocked them out.
The tooth fairy, he says, is never happy that he refuses to wear a mouth guard, despite the fact that he has trouble breathing through it while playing.
The tooth fairy entertains no excuses, leaves no money. And she's quite the proactive, Victorian lady.
"She always leaves me a scolding letter about not wearing my mouth guard," says Stewart, 29, insistent that he's never tried to put a knocked-out tooth under the pillow.
And then, too, there's the other tooth person to face.
"We always get in trouble at the dentist's office, walking in sheepishly, trying to explain how you lost another tooth," he says.
It's not surprising that the dentist and the tooth fairy would be of like mind, says Dr. Vakharia.
Both are dogged champions of proper tooth care, whether it's a lecture on the benefits of preventing cavities or on avoiding insanely high-contact sports where teeth are referred to as "Chiclets."
"The tooth fairy would prefer that you take care of your teeth and keep them in your head for the rest of your life," Vakharia says.
