Is it God, or is it the tooth fairy?

My husband and I started a dangerous trend when, at the age of four, our daughter lost her first tooth. Yes, that’s a bit young to show up at breakfast with a big bloody gap in your mouth. She was freaked out, we were freaked out, and we decided to give her a nice little present and tell her it came from the tooth fairy. Nice way to think ahead, I know. She’s lost eight more since then, and the end is not is sight. Who knew human beings had this many teeth?

Recently, while cleaning my daughter’s room, I come upon the following note:

“Please God, give me eight pretend kitties for my next lost tooth.
Love, Isabella”.

Apparently, the tooth fairy has been fired. She’s had it coming for a while; after all, she’s a stranger who comes into my daughter’s bedroom in the dead of night to steal a tooth. What seven-year-old finds that attractive? And what, pray tell, does she do with all those teeth anyway? From the questions she has been asking, I know my daughter has been imagining millions of baby teeth, piled high in a faraway land somewhere, and for what purpose, nobody knows. It does leave my daughter with the small problem of where to trade her teeth for cool stuff, but the note proves she’s found her solution.

As adults, my husband and I don’t have a clear blueprint for who or what God is. We refer to a ‘Him’ not because we have a clear conviction regarding divine gender, but because it is convenient. However, to our daughter, God is still the kind grandfather who lives in the clouds, and monitors her every move. He can make sure she stays healthy, has enough to eat, and apparently He can bring her ‘pretend kitties’.

What should we, as her parents, do next? When the tooth fairy was still deemed an acceptable entity, we used to include a fake note with Isa’s present. We can’t do that anymore; we have our limits. Is she, at six, old enough to begin a discussion about why God doesn’t do our bidding? Why he doesn’t give us what we want, whenever we want it? It’s a lesson she has learned about her parents and teachers, why wouldn’t we tell her the same message when it pertains to a Higher Power? Maybe I’m hesitant because I don’t want to interfere with her basic, simplistic understanding of who and what God is. After all, when she doesn’t get the expected response the next time a tooth falls out, she might not automatically conclude that God doesn’t exist, or that He doesn’t care. It’s also not a bad idea to allow young children to figure certain things out on their own. Plus, there is always the possibility that she’s long since forgotten about writing the note in the first place; it’s been a few months since losing her last tooth.

Besides, what on earth are “pretend kitties”? Stuffed animals? Cats that only exist in her imagination, like the friends she talks to but nobody else can see? I think, when the time comes, we’ll just put a nice little book under her pillow. If she ever brings up the question why her note went unanswered, I’ll simply tell her the truth: pretend kitties are very, very hard to take care of. Everybody knows that.