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Home > Blogs > Adventures in Motherhood > Archives > 2010 > March > 23 > Entry
No harm in needing a little help from our (imaginary) friends
Spoiler alert: If you still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy or leprechauns, do not read this!
Some parents worry about children who have imaginary friends. I’m not one of them.
Just like Big Bird, as a child, I had my very own snufalufagus to play with. My parents were fine with it. After all, when “Snuffy” and I were busy playing, they were free to tend to my colicky baby brother.
As adults, we know that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny do not really exist. But that doesn’t stop us from teaming up with them to bring about good behavior from our little angels during the holidays.
Santa always has my back - at least until the boys learn from an older child on the bus that Santa looks a lot like ones parents.
The tooth fairy has yet to make a visit to our house, which is fine with us because based on inflation rates times 20 teeth times three kids, we can’t afford her.
I did some homework on where this little fairy came from, and apparently, she has evolved. Per wiki.answers.com, “Some believe that the tooth fairy evolved from the tooth mouse depicted in an 18th century French language fairy tale. In ‘La Bonne Petite Souris,’ a mouse changes into a fairy to help a good queen defeat an evil king by hiding under his pillow to torture him and knocking out all his teeth.”
Must have been too traumatic for children, hence the evolution to a dainty fairy.
With all of the kind, loving imaginary helpers we parents have (I even invented the “binky fairy” who took Nick’s pacifiers), I overlooked those pesky leprechauns who show up every March.
Noah came home from school last week, exasperated, saying, “That leprechaun messed up our classroom again today!”
Instantly I was transported back to my days in elementary school when the leprechaun would leave a trail of papers, crayons, and tipped over chairs for us clean up.
We never did catch the little guy, or find the pot of gold - Noah didn’t either, but he never gave up trying.
I recalled the St. Patrick’s Day pinching tradition and told the boys to make sure they wore green.
Noah was horrified at the thought of someone pinching him.
Oops. “You won’t get pinched hard. It’s all for fun!” I said pinching myself for bringing it up.
(Dear parents whose children were pinched by my son(s): I’m sorry.)
There is no harm in using a little imagination.
Childhood is fleeting and it can be a scary world - but those fun moments when our kids find that hidden Easter egg is worth a pot of gold.
Email this contributing writer at Motherhoodcolumn@yahoo.com.
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