O004  The Tooth Fairy

For my once upon a time story, Ifd like to recall a story that is told in Australia. Um itfs about the Tooth Fairy. In our household, it may be a little bit different to other households in Australia, but when the Tooth Fairy comes at, when the child looses their teh tooth, um itfs put in a glass of water, and overnight itfs left um on ah the desk or bedside table, ah nearest to the to the where the child is sleeping. And then at night, the Tooth Fairy is supposed to come and take the tooth, and leave some money behind. And in our household, ah the Tooth Fairy would leave a color in the water. And from the coloring you could tell whether it was a male or a female. If it was green or blue, obviously it was a boy, or um if it was yellow or pink it was perhaps a girl. Um that may be a bit of a variation um in my household, but thatfs how it happened. And I remember this story ah the most clearly, um since ah one morning we forgot my sister, I was old enough to realize the Tooth Fairy wasnft real, but haha my sister was still too young to um realize that, and she still believed in the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny. And one morning, we forgot to um take the tooth out of the water, leave money and change the color of the water. Um, and so, um I managed to do it on behalf of my parents, because they have forgotten, very ah late in the morning, and my sister was already awake, and she saw me coming to her bedroom. And she was furious, she was absolutely furious. And um she thought about it for a couple of days, she didnft really speak to us for a couple of days, haha because it seemed that we had destroyed her fantasy of the ha of the Tooth Fairy. Um but she didnft say anything for a couple of days and then she came up to us in a family conference, and questioned whether the um Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were actually ah real as well, so hahaha unfortunately, we managed to shatter my sisterfs dreams of those three entities the all in one go. Um but it just got me thinking about um the stories that um parents tell their children, and um their myth, the myth behind them. And so that um interested me most and I wanted to share that, and um whether, I guess I was always a bit perplex as whether it is a good thing that the parents um tell the myth to their child um and I wondered if that was um if similar, if countries all over the world had similar myths that they will tell to their children and the basis for doing so. Thank you very much.