While growing up in Australia in the 1950s we were introduced to a host of imaginary supernatural beings that were frequently visiting us and doing nice things for us providing we were nice. Now I know that this was just another way of well meaning parents trying to ensure that their children didn't go out and become juvenile delinquints.

The Tooth Fairy

Like all kids of the time, I got paid out by the tooth fairy when my baby teeth became wobbly and finally came out. I think that the going rate was six pence and we had to put the tooth in a glass of water beside our beds, and while we were sleeping, the tooth fairy would magically know of the event and make a visit to my room to replace the tooth with a shiny six pence coin. Just a bit ironic that we would immediately go out and spend the tooth fairy money on sweets that would surely have a detrimental effect on our newly growing teeth that we would need to keep for a lifetime.

Another point about the tooth fairy was that apparently he/she (are there boy tooth fairies and girl tooth fairies or are they all non-specific gender) could get into my room even when the windows were all tightly closed in winter. Perhaps squeeze under the door? And how did the tooth fairy arrive? Did he/she have to fly by themselves, with those angel like wings? Could he/she hover like a humming bird while doing the swap out of the tooth for the coin, or did he/she have to fly in and land on the table to make the exchange.

And more questions... who set the price at 6 pence? Sometimes it really hurt when the tooth wiggled and had to be pulled out by dad with a handkerchief over his strong fingers. Surely that should we worth a bit more? But no, only the standard price applied.

Where did the tooth fairy come from? No one ever asked where he/she stayed while there were no teeth needing to be retrieved. Apparently fairies just cruise around on the wind out of sight till called upon with a new job to be done?

And where did the tooth fairy get all those six-penny coins? Maybe they flew by the city first and took the coins out of the parking meters since that was the only place that I knew of that had lots and lots of six pence coins. Then he redistributed the wealth to the poor kids who were losing their baby teeth – a kind of anti local government fairy style Robin Hood for kids who were going to be gummy for the next year or so? It was a complicated world when you are only 6 years old, and no one else seemed bothered by these details.

Santa Clause

Santa was smart enough to arrange a ride powered by reindeers that apparently never had to poo like horses and cattle since no one ever found reindeer poo on Christmas Day anywhere at all let alone near the chimney, which we didn’t have. Maybe Santa could get under the door too, but that would be a trick since he was such a fat guy who had a strange smell about him as I remember from sitting on his knee in the department store.

Santa was keeping score too, seeing who was naughty or nice, and I was plenty naughty now and then, but those times didn't seem to matter on the scoreboard because Santa still turned up every Christmas. Guess I am not naughty enough to get myself blacklisted.

So when he turned up, did he get into my room with his entire bag of toys, leave just my lot there, and then take the rest away again, or did he leave the bag in the sleigh and just bring in my presents and then leave empty handed? And could the sleigh hover, or did he need to learn how to park it very quietly on the roof. It was tricky for us because our roof was made of corrugated iron and would have made a real lot of noise with that huge sleigh landing on there not to mention those six huge animals all thrashing around while they were waiting.

Jesus and the bunny

Then there was Easter and that wonderful Easter Bunny who left the chocolate eggs for good little boys. I was always told that if I wasn’t good the Easter Bunny would know about it and not let me have any of the stuff that I had been conditioned to want so much. It always turned out that this threat was as empty as the naughty or nice thing with Santa because we always got lots of chocolate at Easter time.

But there is even more confusion because I didn’t know how Jesus being crucified and dying just to save me... you know... the "serious" story about Easter, got somehow blended seamlessly with cute bunny rabbits and just where did these rabbits get all this chocolate anyway... and what was the point of making the chocolate into eggs? It is all very strange and I would have liked it just in bars like it was in the shops at all the other times of the year.

And then God watching all this as his creation (and it was good)

Of course, at that time, I was also being told that the almighty god in the sky was keeping a book on me, and every time I did anything wrong or not nice, another black mark was entered into that book too. And this book even recorded a black mark when I was thinking something bad, wow, there really was no escape from that level of surveillance. Perhaps Santa and the Easter Bunny naughty or nice checking was not as thorough as god and that was why their threats of leaving me nothing were never carried out. At least with them, all I was going to get was left without presents or chocolate eggs. God had a much more terrifying plan for those who turned out to be naughty and not nice!!

Of course Jesus was there to help me through and Jesus loves me, this I know, coz the bible tells me so. Since Jesus was apparently the nice one in the god stories, he will not let me suffer like that... or will god's threats turn out to be empty just like all the others?

Confused?

I wasn’t at all confused at all because all of this stuff just blurred together with lots of other admonitions and prohibitions and formed up what I now refer to as my childhood.

Overall it seemed that there was someone at every turn wanting me to be good and do this or that and always backed up with a threat for non compliance. Parents, other family, teachers, church ministers, scout leaders, police, and the biggest bogy man of all, god.

Thankfully we all grow up, and most of us have discarded all of these fairy stories but some people do like to keep one imaginary friend to talk to. That's okay if it keeps them happy as long as they don't keep telling me about him and insisting that I need to talk to their imaginary friend too.