This American Life - 188: Kid Logic (2001)

Broadcast on: 22 Jun 2001

Rebecca remembers exactly when she learned the astonishing truth. She was in second grade and ran into her best friend Rachel at school one day. And she pulled me aside and said, "Last night I lost a tooth." And I woke up while the tooth fairy was putting the money under my pillow. And guess who the tooth fairy was? I said, "Oh my God, who was it?" I have to know. And she said, "My dad. My dad is the tooth fairy." And I remember running home after school and telling my mom, "Mom, I know who the tooth fairy is." And declaring it as if I had grown up that I knew who the tooth fairy was. And she said, "Oh, well, who is the tooth fairy?" And I turned to her and I said, "Rachel's dad is the tooth fairy." Ronnie Loberfeld is the tooth fairy.

And she said, "I can't believe you know. It's totally a secret. You can't let anyone else know." But you're right, Ronnie is the tooth fairy and he works really hard and it's a secret. So you can't let anyone else know. He is the tooth fairy but you can't let anyone else know. And from that day on, Ronnie Loberfeld is the tooth fairy. And all of my notes under my pillow were signed, "Love Ronnie Loberfeld."

Now, in his day job, what did Ronnie Loberfeld do? I think he did something in finance. He was either an accountant or a stockbroker. He worked next to a stop-and-shop in Massachusetts and Newton. Had dark hair, wore a suit, and I definitely had images of his driving, his Volvo around the Boston area and delivering the tooth fairy treats. I remember wondering what it was like for Rachel to know that her dad was the tooth fairy. And definitely being a little envious that her dad had this special job and the special power and that he had this whole other interesting life where my dad just came home from work and that was it. So when you would actually run into Ronnie Loberfeld, what was it like for you? How would you act? I tried to act cool. It's like if you're starstruck, but you don't want them to know that you're starstruck. It's like meeting a celebrity. Exactly. You downplay it. You try not to mention it, but you definitely check them out twice and look at them when they walk away. You're like, "Oh my God, you're the tooth fairy." But you knew enough to play it cool. I knew enough to play it cool. I said, "Hey, how you doing? What's for dinner? How am I getting home tonight?" Are my parents going to pick me up if they called? You did play it cool. One interesting question in all this. Why did both girls come to what seems like the least likely conclusion from the evidence in front of them? Of a parent swapping money for a tooth under a pillow. But Alice in Gopnik studies how children think. Jesus, of course it's logical for a seven-year-old to conclude that her own father might be the tooth fairy. Children understand that their parents, for instance, are powerful in all sorts of ways that make them very different from children. Now, from a child's point of view, knowing where those powers begin and end is pretty tricky. I mean, think about all the things that your parents can do that you can't do. And think about the fact that there isn't any obvious explanation about why your father can use a visa card, for instance. Which is something that you can't do. The power to be a tooth fairy isn't all that much more impressive. There's a certain kind of story that kids tell, like the Ronnie Loberfeld story, where they look at something going on around them. Observe it carefully. Think about it logically, how one thing connects to the next. And then come to conclusions that are completely incorrect. Therapist Eileen Goldman in Texas tells this story about a little girl in an airplane. Then she was about four years old, and her very first flight.

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