My Husband Is Carrying Out What He Thinks Is a “Sweet” Tradition With Our Child. I Want No Part of This.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My 6-year-old daughter, “Merida,” is about to lose her first tooth and my husband, “James,” has fed her the “Tooth Fairy lie.” He’s gotten Merida all excited about the whole ritual of putting her tooth under her pillow once it comes out and awaiting a reward. I think this deception is going to damage her psyche when she learns the truth, not to mention make her think that a stranger coming into her room at night is a good thing. James, in his ignorance, thinks it’s completely harmless. This deceit needs to be shut down immediately, right? —Fairy Fallacy Dear Fairy Fallacy, I doubt that many children suffer psychological damage from believing in Santa or the Tooth Fairy when they’re young, or we would hear about those negative effects all the time. Little kids believe all sorts of fanciful, magical, or imaginary things, often without adults’ encouragement, and the power of these myths and stories naturally fades over time. It’s something we all go through, growing up and gaining a clearer sense of what is “real” and what is not. Yes, it can be a little sad to finally accept that magic isn’t real, but it doesn’t mean the years spent believing (or wanting to believe) were harmful. Since it’s highly unlikely to cause her any harm and Merida is already excited about the Tooth Fairy’s visit, it might be easiest—and less confusing for her, honestly—to hold your peace about it, at least this time, and let your husband play Tooth Fairy. If it’s not too late to alter Merida’s expectations about how the ritual should go, I would recommend having her place the tooth in a dish and also leaving the money there (some kids are light sleepers!). You could even have her set the dish somewhere outside her room, if that makes you feel any better—no need for her to anticipate anyone entering her room at night. I get that you dislike the idea of sharing what is technically an untruth with your child. My kids only “believed” in Santa for a couple of years, after absorbing the story from picture books and peers. Since I also wasn’t wild about telling them something untrue and it didn’t seem to add much to their enjoyment of the holiday, I never really tried to push or nurture that belief. But I didn’t want to take away whatever fun they were having with the story, either, so I just let them decide what they believed and resolved to tell them the truth if they ever asked me directly. This is still a pretty good practice, I find. —Nicole More Parenting Advice From Slate I’ve never really liked my father-in-law, “David,” but up until last week, I thought my feelings just represented ordinary not-getting-along-with-the-in-laws. David was visiting us for a little bit, and my husband and I were heading out for the evening. David’s an old man, and somewhat frail, so he wasn’t up to looking after our son, “Todd,” especially as Todd can be rather rambunctious. Fortunately, we have a very reliable babysitter, “Claire,” who was able to take on the task, and we went out and had a pleasant evening. We got back at around 11. Todd was asleep. We paid Claire and were settling in for the night when I noticed that Claire’s car was still in the driveway. I went looking for her to make sure everything was all right … Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Kids