The Rat versus the Tooth Fairy
Monday, September 15th, 2008Our daughter is on the verge of losing her first tooth. Of course, she is impatient for it to come out since many of her friends have already lost several, but I just realized that I haven’t talked to her about what happens afterwards.
I remember losing my first tooth (I was already in California) like it was yesterday. My mother instructed me that I needed to stick my head out of the window of our apartment, which had the roof of the parking garage directly underneath, and tell “the rat” that I was sending it a beautiful tooth. In return, I wanted “the rat” to send me an ugly tooth. I have to admit that this made no sense to me at the time, but she explained that by asking for an ugly tooth in return for my beautiful tooth, “the rat” would really give me a shiny white tooth. As convoluted as this tradition sounds, this was most likely my first lesson in humility.
So, now the question is: Do I engage my daughter in the Haitian tradition of “the rat“, or do I simply use the American tradition of the tooth fairy (which is what the majority of her friends have described to her)? By the way, I don’t think it is effective to use both because I think that each teach very different values.
Do you have any cultural traditions that you have bypassed for the American equivalent?






