Survey says the tooth fairy leaves $13 under NYC kids' pillows

The tooth fairy also has to gear up before coming to New York, what with carrying all that cash.

Ah, losing a tooth, that childhood ritual that rewards kids with cash in exchange for accepting the pain and horror of watching your body fall apart in front of you. Never mind the existential lessons they’re supposed to learn from their teeth falling out, kids only care about that visit from the tooth fairy and the quarter or maybe dollar he brings as a reward. New York City kids are probably the most impatient of all when it comes to losing their teeth though, because a survey from an oral healthcare company, via Yahoo, claims that the tooth fairy gives out $13.25 (53 quarters) per tooth on average in NYC. We wonder if the tooth fairy takes adult teeth…

The findings by Sunstar GUM, which most definitely plays into the stereotypes of rich city parents who spoil their awful progeny, are based on a poll of 1,000 parents in five cities across the U.S. Unsurprisingly, New York’s $13.25 per tooth average was the highest in the country, with the next highest average as L.A. at $9.69. That’s L.A. for you, always kind of coming close to it, but not really measuring up to New York.

Before you start having cold sweats at the prospect of having kids and needing to shell out almost $20 per tooth they lose, keep in mind that New York parents Yahoo polled on Facebook didn’t report giving out that much. It could be, for instance, that the survey only got data from the kind of idly rich people who have time to talk about how much they give their kids when they lose teeth, for instance. Or maybe a few rich families threw the findings off. Either way, we wouldn’t worry about having to pay out that much if you take the parenthood plunge, provided you never let your kid find the survey.

And before you start pulling teeth out of your head to leave for the tooth fairy and make rent money, please remember the tooth fairy isn’t real and that no one, not even science, wants your gross adult teeth.