Is the Tooth Fairy parenting pressure getting out of hand?

Forget potty training, there’s no greater parenting pressure than that of playing the Tooth Fairy.

The winged-one has just made her eighth sparkly visit to our house, but the first time she came we were somewhat caught off-guard.

As a child I was overjoyed to be rewarded with a shiny 10p in exchange for losing my first milk tooth, but times they have a changed.

When in doubt turn to social media.

“Daughter just lost her first tooth, what’s the going rate for the Tooth Fairy these days?” implored my Facebook post.

The responses were somewhat shocking. While most suggested a fairly reasonable £2, turns out other Tooth Fairies were forking out £10 a pop and one particularly generous fairy paid a whopping £20 PT (per tooth). Wowzers!

To complicate matters further, we happened to be on holiday in Spain when my daughter’s wobbly tooth finally gave up the ghost. We settled on a shiny Two Euro coin and thankfully our daughter was delighted with her loot.

But, turns out she may have been within her rights to be somewhat disgruntled, as a new survey has revealed that the Tooth Fairy may have been underpaying in our household. In some parts of the UK kids are finding a rather hefty £6 in place of their tiny toothypeg.

The study, from VoucherCodesPro, shows that children of the North West come out on top when it comes to their teeth, getting a massive £6, which adds up to a whopping £120 for a full mouth of teeny milk teeth.

Kiddies in the South East are the next most profitable, making an average of £5.80 per tooth. But down at the other end of the scale, the sensible tooth fairies of Northern Ireland are handing our just 80p per tooth, while the stingy fairies of the West Midlands are keeping it real with a tightfisted 50p.

And this difference in going rates is causing quite the concern for some disgruntled kiddiewinks.

“The Tooth Fairy left Jake £5 for his tooth” was the ungrateful response we got when our son woke up to his first tooth loot. Sadly, kids will definitely trade Tooth Fairy exchange rates in the playground so you will need to prepare yourself for some outside peer pressure.

We got round it by explaining that every family has a different fairy, so not all children will get the same amount. We also jazz up the dosh by trying to pick particularly shiny coins.

But just like its not always possible to select super shiny coins, sometimes the ‘Tooth Fairy’ gets caught without any change whatsoever. Though we’d agreed to stick with a going rate of £2 per tooth, when my daughter lost her first big, front tooth we were completely caught on the hop with not a coin in the house. Cue: a £5 note being left along with an explanation that big, front teeth are worth more and a promise to have to remember to stick to the new cash rules. See what we mean? Minefield.

There are other hurdles to overcome when taking on tooth fairy duties too. On one occasion I was woken at 6am by the sobs of my six-year-old daughter because the tooth fairy had forgotten been too busy to come. Needless to say it was a parenting low, but one I share with many other parents.

A new survey by The Fine Bedding Company reveals that a whopping 78% of parents have forgotten to ‘be’ the Tooth Fairy at some point in their child’s lives.

My own ‘Tooth Fairy had so many children to visit last night’ excuse explanation was joined by some other creative parental fudging including ‘the Tooth Fairy ran out of money’ and ‘the weather was too bad for the Tooth Fairy to fly.’ Genius!

Other Tooth Fairy pressures include the decision about whether or not to supply a note. Again it’s something you’ll need to bear in mind before the magical-one makes her first appearance as it is something you’ll have to keep up a further 19 times. And that includes keeping the writing, sign-off, wording EXACTLY the same.

Kids are perceptive little so and so’s and will notice the slightest difference in handwriting, signature, or change in tone on their notes (read: sarcasm) left from the Tooth Fairy.

My daughter even helpfully pointed out that the Tooth Fairy had rather similar writing to ‘mummy’ so if you can face it, it could be worth disguising the notes or, if you’ve got the time, typing them.

Some parents are taking the note thing a stage further by sprinkling little trails of ‘fairy dust’ (WARNING: looks great on Pinterest but you’ll be hoovering it up for weeks!) or leaving some sort of present, like a tooth fairy doll. In fact new research has revealed that parents are spending a whopping £2,570 per child to keep childhood myths such as the Tooth Fairy ‘alive’.

The research, from TopCashback.co.uk, shows that 21% of parents feel pressured to spend money on keeping certain myths alive, with 29% going over budget because of it.

Aside from the tooth under the pillow, parents also spend money on giving their children gifts and letters from the Tooth Fairy, and even decorate the house to make the illusion that much stronger, resulting in an average spend of £24. What’s more, 44% of parents give their children money on top of the Tooth Fairy’s pillow offering.

But though there’s no doubt playing Tooth Fairy can be costly, it’s also one of the biggest perks of parenthood. And when the last baby tooth has finally fallen, you can guarantee we’ll be mourning those face-splitting grins at sight of their magical morning delivery. Sure you could be £120 poorer for it (depending on where in the country your fairy lives of course), but their happiness is worth it, right?

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