Culture Focus: Losing Baby Teeth

Losing baby teeth is sort of a significant event in American culture, and so we have a ritual associated with it. When a child loses a tooth, he saves the tooth and puts it under his pillow that night when he goes to bed. During the night, the “tooth fairy” comes and takes away the tooth. In place of the baby tooth, the tooth fairy leaves some money – maybe a quarter, or even a dollar in some cases. Of course, the “tooth fairy” is really Mom or Dad :).

Sometimes, a fancy little pillow or pocket is used to hold the tooth until the tooth fairy comes, and then the money is put in the pillow or pocket. Usually, though, the tooth is just placed under the child’s sleeping pillow.

When a child notices that a tooth is loose, he gets excited, because he knows that it will fall out soon. He may wiggle the tooth every day until it is ready to fall out, or he may ask a parent or older sibling to help him pull it out. A favorite method for pulling out a loose baby tooth is to tie a string around the tooth and yank it out quickly. Other times a parent may use a small cloth (to get a better grip on the tooth) to pull out the tooth. Sometimes, though, a child expects that having a tooth pulled will hurt too much, and would rather let it fall out on its own. Such children may find that they bite something crunchy, like an apple, and look down to see their baby tooth stuck in the apple!