Myths Lies, and  Childhood minds…

    The other day I was walking to the park with my 10 year old daughter and her friend. They both started comparing notes on how many teeth they have both lost,  by not only  pointing to the blanks spaces in their mouths, but their own war stories on how they lost their teeth through the years.. The subject then came up on the tooth fairy.

   At one point my daughter turned to me and said , “Dad, I know it’s you and Mom”.

   I told her , “No way, we are not the tooth fairy”.

  “Oh, yes you are” she said, with utter conviction , “ and I can prove it!” she said.

 “ Remember the time I put a tooth under my pillow , and the next morning the tooth was still there.. You said the tooth fairy forgot, but she never forgot before..- You and Mom always forget stuff…. I knew it was you from then on!

    “Yeah!” , her friend chimed in, “ I even woke up and caught my Mother putting money right under my pillow one time ,and all my friends say--  

    “OK , OK!” , I said “You are right.”. “Mom and Dad’s are the tooth fairies”…

  They looked at each other with a smirk of disbelief and delight, that they have both finally cracked the mystery!

   “But” I continued, “Do you know why parents collect children’s teeth”

   “No”, they both answered.

  “Well, we recycle them, I said. “All the children’s teeth are sent to a giant recycling center that the parents get money for at he end of the year. The parents then give the children money under their pillows.”

  They both looked at me like I was telling them the long lost secrets of the Tooth Fairy  Code..

  “Recycle. What do they recycle teeth for?” , they both asked.

 “Pianos” , I told them.

“They make pianos out of teeth”, they asked?”

 “No, they make the white part of the piano keys out of teeth”, I said.

       I went and told them years ago we used to kill Elephants to get the ivory for piano keys. At some point people did not want to kill any more Elephants for ivory, so they decided to use kid’s teeth- it worked just as well as Ivory and the Elephants were saved and…..

       This went on for a while, lie after lie, twisting the truth, mixing fact with fiction, and they both believed every word of it. –

--See how easy it is? To perpetuate lies to kids. This true story was  pretty funny (I thought..) and innocent, but think about the not so innocent ones that are left to lie throughout their life:  The Virgin Birth, The Resurrection, The Rapture, Faith Healing, Prayers,  Superstitions , Water into Wine,  Condom use is morally wrong, Stem Cell research is morally wrong..Heaven , Hell, 72 Virgins.. This list of Myths goes on throughout our lives… There are no Muslim Children, - No Christian Children- It was an accident of birth who you are- You are a blank slate until you can think and reason for yourself. Children start school believing in Santa Claus- By the time they are out of school they do not believe in Santa Claus. Why? They figured it out, by reason, knowledge and to always challenge authority …

      Sooner or later my daughter and her friend will figure out what I told them was a pile of crap... They will Goggle it, research it, ask other people more qualified than me (Piano makers for one…) ask their teachers,  and find out what the real truth is: then call me out  on it, which they should—I’ll probably tell them truth  pretty soon actually- I do not like to lie to kids…Mark Shifflett