Toothless and the Tomtegubbar

On July 3, at the mall while grabbing dinner before the Capital Fourth concert, Mia lost her first tooth. I simply cannot believe it!

First, I cannot take in that I have a child old enough to be losing her baby teeth – how did that happen?!? I took her to the dentist in March, and he said one of her teeth was a little loose, but I just brushed it off. I figured it would take another year or so before it was ready to fall out.

Second, it is the final proof that Mia inherited more of Jeffrey’s genes than mine. [I did not lose my first tooth until the second grade, by which point it was no longer cool to be losing your teeth, it was rather odd. I missed all the years of having your name up on the awesome tooth board in kindergarten class or getting to show off the gap in your mouth. And, it meant I was still losing baby teeth in the 6th grade – which was a totally unfair genetic quirk because I started my menstrual cycle in the fifth grade – also a very uncool and self-conscious time for such a bodily change. So, all in all, I was just a big nerd who grew too tall (I was my current height by age 11, and certain I was going to always be a tall, skinny giant) and matured too fast, with the exception of her teeth that were delayed by about 3 years. Fortunately, Mia got her first tooth early, at three months, and is following a much more normal course of development!]

At the beginning of last week it began to visibly wiggle. Mia spent a lot of time working on it with her fingers and tongue, daily showing us the progress. She was DELIGHTED to have a loose tooth and very excited about the prospect of losing it. While, I tried to ignore the indications that my baby girl really is growing up, the loss of Mia’s first tooth raised another important, though somewhat unsettling, prospect for Jeffrey and me regarding how to parent our children.

Jeffrey and I can generally agree in concept on the priorities and values that we want to employ in raising our daughters. Neither of us is too extreme about things, and our upbringings hold enough common ground with the majority of American sub-culture that most times we are not faced with tough decisions. We love nurturing our children’s imaginations and giving them material from which to develop fantastical and mythical perspectives about the world, while believing in also exposing them to modern events, religious traditions, and realism. In most cases, this has led to common agreement. We take our kids to Disneyland, have similar beliefs about what constitutes appropriate entertainment, teach them about God and Jesus, and tell them LOTS of stories.

Our kids believe in and get presents from Santa Claus each Christmas, a cultural tradition founded on history and embodying many values of giving and unselfishness that we both feel warmly about. However, I simply cannot perpetuate the tradition of the Easter Bunny. It in no way feels related to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has no historical roots, and in my personal view, is simply an absurd practice designed to create more consumption by the American public. Besides, it is simply too under-developed a myth for me to explain to my kids. Where does the Easter Bunny live? Where does the stuff come from that he delivers? How does he get into the house? Why is he so big? Can he talk or is he a real rabbit? I just cannot waste the mental energy to explain such inevitable questions, and so we determined that we would just not perpetuate the myth.

We fill up baskets of prizes and hide eggs at our house Easter morning, but I have just told my children, flat out, that there is no Easter Bunny. Regardless of our efforts, Mia -- up until recently -- still believed in the Easter Bunny and outright refused to accept he wasn’t real. At age three and age four, she continued to speak of the gifts that the “Easter Bunny” had brought to her Easter morning, even though I had never breathed a word to her about the large rodent, and I told her directly the gifts were from her parents. I still do not even know how or where she acquired this idea! Finally, one time when I corrected her and just said, “You know Mia, there really isn’t an Easter Bunny,” she replied, “I know, but I am just pretending.”

So, given our history of trying to lay out both fact and fiction for our children, to balance the need for truth and imaginativeness and not to blindly perpetuate the cultural traditions that we personally find to be devoid of meaning or ridiculous, we have had a bit of an issue regarding the tooth fairy.

Now, before you think that this debate is a high-minded discussion of whether our children ought to be exposed to yet another tradition that may of may not really enrich their lives, I must clearly state, it is not. Rather, it is about whether to embrace the mainstream culture or create a new, even more complex mythology that may expose our children to skepticism and ridicule.

Let me start with some background. During his final year of law school, Jeffrey competed in the National Moot Court Competition with a woman who told him about how when she was growing up she did not have the tooth fairy come to her house, instead she was visited by the “Tomtegubbar.” (We pronounce Tomtegubbar “tom-teh-goo-bah,” not “tom-teh-goo-bar.” This is akin to the New England accent, where for some reason words ending in “ar” drop the “r” sound at the end and words ending with “a” add an “r” sound. Thus, car is “kaa,” idea is “idear,” and Tomtegubbar is “Tomtegubba.”) Apparently, this lady and her siblings had a choice: leave your tooth under your pillow for a measly quarter from the tooth fairy, or scrub the tooth until it sparkled, place it in a glass of water with a designated number of salt granules, put it in the windowsill, and hope the Tomtegubbgar would bring you several dollars. However, if you did not perform the procedure correctly or if the Tomtegubbar was busy, it may be awhile before you got your money.

For some reason, this practice of Rita’s family sparked Jeffrey’s imagination. He LOVED the idea of the Tomtegubbar. From that day to this he has insisted that our children would not have the tooth fairy come, rather they would be visited by this other mythical . . . . I don’t know what. It is better, he insisted, because then if you forget to leave the money or don’t have any when the tooth falls out, it is okay. That is all part of the way the Tomtegubbar operates. Far less pressure on the parents! Besides, I think he was taken in by the notion of creating an elaborate scheme and mythology all his own.

I argued, rationally I believed, but ultimately unsuccessfully, that this was just too weird. What were our kids going to say when other children were visited by the tooth fairy? How were they going to explain why they were the only children on the planet to know about the Tomtegubbar? Unimportant trifles to Jeffrey! How could I not see the brilliance and promise of the Tomtegubbar?!?

I had no major issues with or objections to the tooth fairy. It was some what silly and meaningless, but harmless enough. But, Jeffrey would not relent (as I admit I had expected him to) when it came to the Tomtegubbar. Finally, in “compromise,” he said we would let the children decide. They could choose if they wanted to have the tooth fairy or the Tomtegubbar come to them. I capitulated. It was a battle I just could not keep fighting.

And so, he began a concerted and deliberate scheme of indoctrination. He told Mia how when she was old enough she could “choose” who she wanted to collect her teeth. He told her the tooth fairy was silly and unselective, but the Tomtegubbar was cool and would bring her TONS more money. I ask you, what child would not be taken in? Especially, when it is the child who somehow bought into an Easter Bunny myth (never told to her at home) all on her own volition.

So, as Mia wiggled away at her tooth, Jeffrey became increasingly excited in anticipation of the Tomtegubbar’s first visit to our home. I put in my two cents for just letting the “tooth fairy” come, but finally gave up.

A few days ago, Mia and Jeffrey used hydrogen peroxide and a tooth brush to clean her tooth, for exactly five minutes. They measured out 9 ounces of water into a glass and placed 31 granules of salt inside it, stirred the water with a silver blade three times to the left, and ten times to the right, then dropped the tooth in and left it by the window over the kitchen sink. Mia anxiously ran downstairs the next morning to check, but apparently the Tomtegubbar had not yet come for her tooth, which she informed me was okay, since sometimes it takes the Tomtegubbar a few days. I am wondering when and how much the Tomtegubbar is going to deliver, and if it will be sustainable over all future tooth losses and children.

In the meantime, at my behest, Jeffrey has committed to writing the Legend of the Tomtegubbar. He has laid out his new and elaborate mythology. And, if you are interested, he is looking for converts. He would invite all to: Unleash the chains of the tooth fairy and join the Tomtegubbar movement!