What's the History of the Tooth Fairy?

I've ever given, so let's dive right in. We spoke via email with Christina Kilgrove, and anthropologist in science writer with a background in archaeology, so she's used to dealing with teeth and bones, but even she wasn't prepared for the site of her seven year old daughter extracting her own upper right central incisor and an effort to cash it in. Kilgrove said, I was initially inspired to track down the source of the tooth Fairy legend when my

older daughter lost her first tooth. She knew the tooth Fairy wasn't real, but wanted to know when and why the story began. Even if you aren't familiar with the tooth Fairies origin story, you've likely heard of her or encountered a kid like Kilgrove's daughter who's perhaps a little

overly excited to earn some dough. The folklore dictates that when a child loses a baby tooth, they should place it under their pillow at night, and when they awake the next morning, they'll find their lost tooth has been replaced with a small amount of money, a courtesy of a magical and seemingly enamel obsessed sprite. Unlike Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, the tooth Fairy has a somewhat enigmatic history. Kilgrove said, I was surprised that the tooth

Fairy is a comparatively new legend. She started to take off with the boomer generation getting paid for their teeth, and was cemented in encyclopedias and the media with gen x and While other childhood characters typically have roots in religious traditions, Kilgrove says, quote the secular tooth fairy is really a modern invention. So who is this mysterious mythical creature and why is she so dead set on swapping

baby teeth for cash. We also spoke by email with Dr Syle Colombo, d m d of the Little Royals Dentistry for Kids in Jupiter, Florida. He said some have suggested that the story of the tooth fairy dates back to Norse traditions from the thirteenth century, when it became a tradition for a tooth fee to be given to

a child when they lost their first baby tooth. The more modern tooth fairy as we know it was first referenced in an editorial from the Chicago Daily Tribune in n eight, which at that time value the tooth fairies contribution at five cents compared to an average approaching four dollars a tooth today. So kill Grove pegs the popularity of the tooth Fairy to the childhood of the Boomers, and Colombo dates the character's birth back to the twelve hundreds.

But there's a third possibility. Writer and publisher Michael Hingston explained in a piece for Salon that the legend really took off in the nineteen seventies when a woman named Rosemary Wells took it upon herself to thoroughly research and

report on the tooth fairies saga. Kilgrove said. Dr Wells was a professor teaching scientific writing at Northwestern unif City's dental School in the nineteen seventies when she realized there was little information about the origin of the tooth fairy legend. She worked on tracking down the origin and surveyed Americans on their tooth fairy practices for twenty years before starting a small museum in her home dedicated to the tooth fairy.

Kingston said, I love when people accidentally become world experts on something, and Rosemary Wells is a great example of this. She asked a simple question, followed her curiosity, and ended up with a private museum in her home dedicated to the tooth fairy. How do you not root for that? As Hingston writes, the tooth fairy is a relatively recent creation, but quote rituals surrounding tooth loss date back much further

than that. He points out that every single recorded human culture has some sort of traditional practice centered around the disposal of lost baby teeth, and researcher B. R. Town End broke down the various rituals in an article in the British Dental Journal in nineteen sixty three titled the Non Therapeutic Extraction of Teeth and its relation to the ritual disposal of shed deciduous teeth. Town And said that

cultures tend to do one of nine things. Throw the tooth into the sun, into fire, between the legs, onto or over the roof of the house, place it in a mouse hole, bury it, hide it, place it in a tree or on a wall, or have the mother

child or an animal swallow it. Americans, however, spun the legend in a unique way, blending and augmenting existing traditions to result in a benevolent fairy who rewards the dental milestone with money, and as Hingston points out, the tooth fairy star rose at a time when Disney was introducing kind and cuddly characters who are perfectly in line with the tooth fairies sweet and supernatural image. If you're a parent and unsure of how to handle the tooth fairy

topic with your young tot, Colombo has a suggestion. He said, we encourage parents to call tooth fairy hotlines for the first tooth lost, as well as remind them to put the tooth under the pillow so the tooth fairy can work their mad check. And yes, googling tooth fairy hotlines does turn up all sorts of helpful results, including apps and local dentist's office voice mailboxes, and if you're curious

how much the tooth Fairy is doling out nowadays. A researchers found that the national average was up to four dollars and sixty six cents as of almost higher than the average in eleven, which was around two dollars and sixty cents. But if you're a freaked out and frugal parent in you can breathe a sigh of relief. Study found the national average had dipped back down to three dollars and seventy cents. So despite the impact of inflation, it appears even the tooth Fairy has her monetary limits.

And if you're wondering whether it's time to break the news to your kid that you're the one responsible for that under the pillow cash reward, you can relax. Columbo said, we don't have a timeline to discuss when we stopped talking about the tooth Fairy at our office. We love to encourage kids young and old to think of the tooth Fairy. It's positive reinforcement and it helps give the children something to look forward to during a part of

their lives where things are changing for the better. We're pediatric dentists and we revel in the mythology and the fun and whether you're five and losing your first tooth or twelve and losing your last baby tooth, it's all part of the experience. Today's episode was written by Michelle Kanstantinovski and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production

of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other tooths and topics, visit our home planet has stuff Works dot com and for more podcasts for my heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.