Heide Benser/Corbis

In the Styles section of The New York Times this weekend, Bruce Feiler goes after the tooth fairy. What could be wrong with the tooth fairy? Plenty, he argues.

Why should we give rewards for routine biological events? Plus, the transactions with said fairy tend to revolve mostly around money. Children want to know what other children got and feel slighted or superior when they hear the response. Parents frantically try to establish the benchmark when their night sneaking into the bedroom suddenly arrives, and they inevitably feel as if their peers are stingy (or spoiling their children, or setting the wrong sorts of benchmarks for other parents).

Mr. Feiler and his wife have come up with a solution that works for them and their twins: a note from the fairy plus a book about tooth-losing traditions from around the world for the first tooth and a handful of foreign currency (from different countries each time, perhaps) for subsequent tooth shedding.

I like this approach, but I bet there is an even better one out there somewhere. Do you find Mr. Feiler’s logic compelling, and if so, have you come up with a better way to mark the tooth loss events in your house?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=815b30ae36ed92282c8a4804087fd0f8