In these times of financial struggle, it’s only sensible that we look for income wherever we can. And that’s bad news for your children, because it’s been reported that the Tooth Fairy is now shelling out up to a tenner a tooth. That means that, if your child is the right age, they’re walking around with £200 inside their head. If you’ve got twins, that’s a PlayStation. It’s a wonder they’re not constantly being mugged for the contents of their mouths.
Now, to be fair, those are only the highest fairy fees reported in a new survey. In fact, the national average is only £2.10 a tooth. Daft London prices apply here too, with an average of £2.50. The discrepancy is thought to be down to the fact that the Tooth Fairy hates stupid provincial children. But even £2.10 still works out at £42 a head. In 2008, as the world faced up to the scale of the banking crisis, you’d only get £24.40 for it. The price of teeth has almost doubled in just seven years.
Oh, sure, the price has been offset elsewhere. Pocket money, in comparison, has stagnated. In 2005, the average weekly amount a child received was £8.37. But by 2009 it had dipped to £6.24, and by 2010 it had sunk to a low of £5.89. It made a tentative comeback in 2013, struggling back up to £6.50, before collapsing back to 2009 levels last year.
But it’s clear that the price of teeth is spiralling out of control. If it continues at this rate, parents will be doing everything they can to stop their children’s teeth from falling out – maybe even supergluing them to the inside of their cheeks – simply because they know that they’ll be worth double again seven years from now.
But this level of hyperinflation simply cannot sustain itself. We’re in the middle of a tooth bubble, plain and simple, and heading for a crash. When it comes, we’ll be left with piles of derelict teeth lying all over the place. Imagine Detroit, but made of teeth. It’ll be a nightmare. Parents, now is the time to cash in. If that means fooling the Tooth Fairy by yanking out your own teeth, then so be it.
