Breaking the News
At some point in their lives, ya gotta break the news to your kids that, no, there is no tooth fairy, Easter bunny, or Santa Claus. I drag my feet as long as possible, telling little white lies or at the very least, evading the truth. It's just fun to prolong their innocence and excitement. Course it can all backfire if the main topic of conversation during their first dates includes things like "What did the Easter Bunny bring you this year?" "Are you putting your tooth fairy money in a roll over account?" or "I wonder what kind of retirement benefits Santa gets?" Incidents like this can lead to emotional scars that only decades of therapy and grandkid babysitting can make up for. So when Annika, who is almost 11 now, asked me (for the jillionth time) to tell her the truth about the tooth fairy, I decided to come clean. "Ya really wanna know?" "Yes," she says, solemnly. " I really don't care as long as I keep getting paid." So I told her that no, there was no tooth fairy to which she replied curtly and with widened eyes, "Oh....okay." She went on to ask about the Sand Man and the Easter Bunny, prefacing her question with assurances that she hadn't believed in those two for a long time because the thought of some freak sprinkling sand in her eyes at night and some mutant rabbit delivering chocolate to her bedside while she was snoring was just plain creepy...even pedophilic. So I confirmed her suspicions that these were just fictitious creatures designed as parental manipulation devices. When she asked about Santa, there was a look in her eyes that told me she wasn't ready to give him up so I replied, "Santa? Of course he exists, whaddya think?" I just neglected to divulge Santa's true identity--her father. Later that day, she seemed a little down. I asked her what the matter was and she told me she was disappointed about the tooth fairy not being real and she wasn't really ready to know otherwise. Not ready to give up her innocence, I guess. I was sad when she lost another tooth this week and didn't even bother to put it under her pillow. My last baby is growing up. Pretty soon, they'll be no fictitious creeps in our house...not until the grandkids come and we can assault them with a flurry of delusions that warp their malleable little minds, plunging them into a state of confusion so deep, it'll take a team of myth debunking mind spelunkers and veteran psychoanalysts to salvage their sanity.