Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam. Here a quick content warning
Speaker 1: parents and guardians of kids who are maybe just about
Speaker 1: to start losing baby teeth. A heads up. This episode
Speaker 1: talks frankly about the history of the tooth Fairy, so
Speaker 1: choose your audience wisely. And that's the strangest content warning
Speaker 1: I've ever given, so let's dive right in. We spoke
Speaker 1: via email with Christina Kilgrove, and anthropologist in science writer
Speaker 1: with a background in archaeology, so she's used to dealing
Speaker 1: with teeth and bones, but even she wasn't prepared for
Speaker 1: the site of her seven year old daughter extracting her
Speaker 1: own upper right central incisor and an effort to cash
Speaker 1: it in. Kilgrove said, I was initially inspired to track
Speaker 1: down the source of the tooth Fairy legend when my
Speaker 1: older daughter lost her first tooth. She knew the tooth
Speaker 1: Fairy wasn't real, but wanted to know when and why
Speaker 1: the story began. Even if you aren't familiar with the
Speaker 1: tooth Fairies origin story, you've likely heard of her or
Speaker 1: encountered a kid like Kilgrove's daughter who's perhaps a little
Speaker 1: overly excited to earn some dough. The folklore dictates that
Speaker 1: when a child loses a baby tooth, they should place
Speaker 1: it under their pillow at night, and when they awake
Speaker 1: the next morning, they'll find their lost tooth has been
Speaker 1: replaced with a small amount of money, a courtesy of
Speaker 1: a magical and seemingly enamel obsessed sprite. Unlike Santa Claus
Speaker 1: and the Easter Bunny, the tooth Fairy has a somewhat
Speaker 1: enigmatic history. Kilgrove said, I was surprised that the tooth
Speaker 1: Fairy is a comparatively new legend. She started to take
Speaker 1: off with the boomer generation getting paid for their teeth,
Speaker 1: and was cemented in encyclopedias and the media with gen
Speaker 1: x and While other childhood characters typically have roots in
Speaker 1: religious traditions, Kilgrove says, quote the secular tooth fairy is
Speaker 1: really a modern invention. So who is this mysterious mythical
Speaker 1: creature and why is she so dead set on swapping
Speaker 1: baby teeth for cash. We also spoke by email with
Speaker 1: Dr Syle Colombo, d m d of the Little Royals
Speaker 1: Dentistry for Kids in Jupiter, Florida. He said some have
Speaker 1: suggested that the story of the tooth fairy dates back
Speaker 1: to Norse traditions from the thirteenth century, when it became
Speaker 1: a tradition for a tooth fee to be given to
Speaker 1: a child when they lost their first baby tooth. The
Speaker 1: more modern tooth fairy as we know it was first
Speaker 1: referenced in an editorial from the Chicago Daily Tribune in
Speaker 1: n eight, which at that time value the tooth fairies
Speaker 1: contribution at five cents compared to an average approaching four
Speaker 1: dollars a tooth today. So kill Grove pegs the popularity
Speaker 1: of the tooth Fairy to the childhood of the Boomers,
Speaker 1: and Colombo dates the character's birth back to the twelve hundreds.
Speaker 1: But there's a third possibility. Writer and publisher Michael Hingston
Speaker 1: explained in a piece for Salon that the legend really
Speaker 1: took off in the nineteen seventies when a woman named
Speaker 1: Rosemary Wells took it upon herself to thoroughly research and
Speaker 1: report on the tooth fairies saga. Kilgrove said. Dr Wells
Speaker 1: was a professor teaching scientific writing at Northwestern unif City's
Speaker 1: dental School in the nineteen seventies when she realized there
Speaker 1: was little information about the origin of the tooth fairy legend.
Speaker 1: She worked on tracking down the origin and surveyed Americans
Speaker 1: on their tooth fairy practices for twenty years before starting
Speaker 1: a small museum in her home dedicated to the tooth fairy.
Speaker 1: Kingston said, I love when people accidentally become world experts
Speaker 1: on something, and Rosemary Wells is a great example of this.
Speaker 1: She asked a simple question, followed her curiosity, and ended
Speaker 1: up with a private museum in her home dedicated to
Speaker 1: the tooth fairy. How do you not root for that?
Speaker 1: As Hingston writes, the tooth fairy is a relatively recent creation,
Speaker 1: but quote rituals surrounding tooth loss date back much further
Speaker 1: than that. He points out that every single recorded human
Speaker 1: culture has some sort of traditional practice centered around the
Speaker 1: disposal of lost baby teeth, and researcher B. R. Town
Speaker 1: End broke down the various rituals in an article in
Speaker 1: the British Dental Journal in nineteen sixty three titled the
Speaker 1: Non Therapeutic Extraction of Teeth and its relation to the
Speaker 1: ritual disposal of shed deciduous teeth. Town And said that
Speaker 1: cultures tend to do one of nine things. Throw the
Speaker 1: tooth into the sun, into fire, between the legs, onto
Speaker 1: or over the roof of the house, place it in
Speaker 1: a mouse hole, bury it, hide it, place it in
Speaker 1: a tree or on a wall, or have the mother
Speaker 1: child or an animal swallow it. Americans, however, spun the
Speaker 1: legend in a unique way, blending and augmenting existing traditions
Speaker 1: to result in a benevolent fairy who rewards the dental
Speaker 1: milestone with money, and as Hingston points out, the tooth
Speaker 1: fairy star rose at a time when Disney was introducing
Speaker 1: kind and cuddly characters who are perfectly in line with
Speaker 1: the tooth fairies sweet and supernatural image. If you're a
Speaker 1: parent and unsure of how to handle the tooth fairy
Speaker 1: topic with your young tot, Colombo has a suggestion. He said,
Speaker 1: we encourage parents to call tooth fairy hotlines for the
Speaker 1: first tooth lost, as well as remind them to put
Speaker 1: the tooth under the pillow so the tooth fairy can
Speaker 1: work their mad check. And yes, googling tooth fairy hotlines
Speaker 1: does turn up all sorts of helpful results, including apps
Speaker 1: and local dentist's office voice mailboxes, and if you're curious
Speaker 1: how much the tooth Fairy is doling out nowadays. A
Speaker 1: researchers found that the national average was up to four
Speaker 1: dollars and sixty six cents as of almost higher than
Speaker 1: the average in eleven, which was around two dollars and
Speaker 1: sixty cents. But if you're a freaked out and frugal
Speaker 1: parent in you can breathe a sigh of relief. Study
Speaker 1: found the national average had dipped back down to three
Speaker 1: dollars and seventy cents. So despite the impact of inflation,
Speaker 1: it appears even the tooth Fairy has her monetary limits.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering whether it's time to break the
Speaker 1: news to your kid that you're the one responsible for
Speaker 1: that under the pillow cash reward, you can relax. Columbo said,
Speaker 1: we don't have a timeline to discuss when we stopped
Speaker 1: talking about the tooth Fairy at our office. We love
Speaker 1: to encourage kids young and old to think of the
Speaker 1: tooth Fairy. It's positive reinforcement and it helps give the
Speaker 1: children something to look forward to during a part of
Speaker 1: their lives where things are changing for the better. We're
Speaker 1: pediatric dentists and we revel in the mythology and the
Speaker 1: fun and whether you're five and losing your first tooth
Speaker 1: or twelve and losing your last baby tooth, it's all
Speaker 1: part of the experience. Today's episode was written by Michelle
Speaker 1: Kanstantinovski and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other tooths and topics, visit our
Speaker 1: home planet has stuff Works dot com and for more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.