To want to promote a harmless but wrong belief?

[MostRidiculousDilemmaOfModernParenting]

Dd8 got a new fairy house toy. In the building instructions it said that after constructing the house if the key to the door disappears it means a fairy (presumably invisible) has moved in. So before going to bed dd told me about this quite a few times and about how curious she is whether the key will be gone by tomorrow morning. I thought it was in the hope that I'll get the hint and get rid of the key but then she said explicitly that she doesn't want ME to remove the key. So now I'm totally lost about what to do. Does she want to believe in fairies? Does she want to test whether fairies really exist?

As far as I know she does not believe in fairies. We still do the whole tooth fairy thing but I'm pretty sure she knows the tooth fairy isn't real. Same with santa.

I think she will be disappointed if I do nothing ie don't take the key but I also feel it's unfair to sabotage her experiment if that is what she wants to do.

YANBU: Just take the key and then lie about it. It's a bit of harmless fun and it's not worth disappointing her.

YABU: well, don't take it because it's a lie and it's wrong. She might not trust you again and you don't know what the implications are if she actually starts believing in fairies.

YABVVVU: stop overthinking this. Just go to bed and stop wasting people's time.
.

I'd have left it. Because she specifically told you not to take it, she is at the point where she wants to know the truth about whether fairies are real more than she wants them to be real. She has set up an experiment to find out, and I think you should let her.
If she seems very disappointed you can take it another time, or explain that just because the story about fairies and that house aren't true doesn't mean they don't exist in water, woods etc. That they are just not toys that you can lure if you buy the right toy from a shop...or sonething!

Don’t take it. Wait til she loses it. 😁

We did this when DD was about 4. Started off with a cute little letter "from a fairy". She wrote back. And thus began an 18 month correspondence with Blossom the fairy I couldn't get out of. DH thought it was hilarious. I couldn't see a way out, she loved getting these letters, I was trapped.

In the end, we moved house and the fairy had to stay behind. I'm not saying it was the reason we moved but it was definitely a happy bonus.

Learn from my mistake, leave the bloody key.

I'd take it and let her believe, she's only young still. I'm late 30's and, deep down, I still slightly want to believe in fairies!

My DS2 did this about Father Christmas on fecking Christmas Day!! He went on and on about it. Asking is he real, please tell me the truth, is he real. In the end I told him the truth. He went quiet for about 5 minutes then said “well that makes Christmas even more special, now I know you worked hard to buy all my presents” I cried, it’s just about the sweetest thing he’s ever said.

Glad you took the key - but deny if if she asks you! I used to write tiny handwritten notes from the fairies (when I'd forgotten to remove the tooth under the pillow!). My grown up kids have never been scarred !! It's lovely to believe in magic when you are young !

She wants fairies to be real, OP. That's what she wants. But she knows/ strongly suspects that they aren't.

Really you have to decide - your AIBU poll is pretty evenly split - there's no right or wrong here and it's just something that people have different feelings about.

I don't think that taking the key is going to do any long term emotional damage to your child.

But as she's already questioning, she'll probably suspect deep down that you took it, but she might enjoy playing along.

I never answered. I always just asked "Well what do you believe?" It let them gradually decide how much they believed. One day I forgot the tooth money (we always put teeth in a pot on the bathroom shelf for the fairy to collect) and so the fairy had to write an apology letter the next night. DD2 came to me a few weeks later and declared that she had decided it was me!

I spent years writing letters from the fairies to my dd...the Works is a brilliant source of tiny little bottles of glitter etc. She loved it. Went through an elaborate charade about them moving onto to another little girl when she was about 9. 😍

Take the key, keep the magic alive! You've got a year of magic left tops, let her be a kid and feed her imagination

Oh that’s beautiful.

I was a right brat about it when I found out. I cried for hours.

As someone crumbling under the weight of her mortgage that has just made me laugh/inhale my coffee thank you for that 😂😂.

I'd not take the fairy key right away, i would wait, maybe even for quite a while and then do it. It must take a while for fairies to find the house after all.

This is so lovely ❤️ but I did laugh at you dicking around with a horseshoe at 1am 😂

She’s 8, trust is more important than make believe at this age. She’s asked you not to take the key and you told her you wouldn’t.

She is 8
Truth better

Take the key - encourage her to think and question.

"Well, what do you think happened?"
"Do you think someone else may have moved it?"
"How do you know that?"

I see you’ve already done it, but I was going to suggest not taking the key. Leaving it a couple of days, and then if your daughter was disappointed, suggest tidying the fairy house and making it look prettier. Then take the key. LIFE LESSON 😀

Like @NoSquirrels said, just because she says she wants to know might not actually mean she wants to know.

We have gone with sort of gradually bringing them in on it with a nod and a wink. I still profess my strong belief in Father Christmas, and they humour me these days. I am pretty sure this doesn't make me untrustworthy in their eyes.

Maybe do something like ask what she thinks will happen next - will the fairy move on and leave the key behind again perhaps, or write a note - and then do that. Unsubtle hints are fine but I'd go with an air of tongue in cheek and playing along, rather than seriously announcing The Truth.

Let her enjoy the magic of it all, she's only 8 once. However I need an update of how you handled this mines 2 and I've got all this to come x

My daughters are 35 and 37. It's a family joke how I have never admitted Santa is not real. I still deny it whenever it comes up. Obviously they do know the truth but I believe in prolonging the magic for as long as you can. They will be adult with the mental load and humdrum that brings soon enough. Let them believe for as long as possible.

Yes

You won't even have to tell a fairy lie then either 🧚‍♀️

Oh this sort of stuff has me tripping over myself so much that I discourage the overall purchase of anything involving my participation.
Like the Elf, I've never brought an Elf... Somehow this year I still have custody of a bleeding Elf to ship off back to some other unsuspecting soul (relative who brought it) on 1st December.

I had to confess to being the tooth fairy because I forgot 3 nights in a row. I barely scrapped by being Santa last year and had to lie my way through the explanation of why Santas present was already in our house several weeks earlier and as per another PP, I suspect highly it's because my DD wants to believe these things!

So to conclude, my method is if she doesn't ask, I don't tell! 🤣

I'd have taken the key, then cursed myself with the fairy magic for doing so 🤣

Do you have a partner? I know you’ve taken the key already but it could have been an option for them to take it as she only asked you not to take it. I would get them to pop back in before you leave.

I would be worried of disappearing when I took the key out. It happened to me on our wedding day. As the golden ring slipped onto my finger, everything went dark and the congregation gasped as I vanished into thin air, only to reappear when I took it off again.

My son asked me about Santa in September while we were in a toy shop. I thought he just wanted me to confirm it as he was older than his sister. I casually said yes and to my horror he cried . To this day he slags me that I ruined his childhood and was insensitive to tell him like that. At 8 , I would definitely keep up the magic
She is on the cusp of being too old to really believe in fairies unicorns and a safe fantasy world. Life is tough nowadays she has plenty of time to discover thar.