I n the back of my wardrobe, there’s an old chocolate tin that rattles when you shake it. Inside are my two grown daughters’ once pearlescent, now discoloured baby teeth. Occasionally one of them will come across the tin, open it and recoil in disgust.
I find the teeth disgusting too, but I can’t get rid of them. They may look like the kind of souvenirs kept by a serial killer but, to me, they’re a tangible reminder of a time that passed so swiftly I struggle to remember it. I thought I was the only one with a secret collection of baby teeth, but when I asked other parents about it, the stories came tumbling out.
Melbourne film-maker and Deakin University lecturer Anna Brownfield admits she’s also holding on to her now 14-year-old son’s milk teeth. “I’m quite a sentimental person. Every time I look at them, it just floods my brain with memories of that time together,” she says.
Sydney publicist Jo Corbett has also kept the baby teeth of her two children, now 18 and 21. “When your kids are little, you just hold on to bits and pieces. I’ve got the first baby hospital band, the first birthday candle and hair from the first haircut,” she says.
View image in fullscreen ‘I like to gross them out’: Jo Corbett keeps the baby teeth of her two children, now aged 18 and 21. Corbett’s children are about as impressed with their mum’s collection as mine are. When her daughter Ruby recently discovered the box of teeth, she said, “What the hell, Mum? You’v.
