In 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.
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’ve got human remains here!” Corbett isn’t put off. “I like to gross them out,” she says.
Holding on to teeth, bones, hair and other “human remains” is a practice that crosses cultures and thousands of years. In the 19th century, the English journal Notes and Queries records that throwing teeth (along with salt) into a fire was a widespread practice in the UK and western Europe, as was saving teeth in order to be buried with them – the idea being that you’d need to be able to account for all your bodily parts at the pearly gates.
In the 19th century, Queen Victoria commissioned jewellery made from her children’s teeth and marble replicas of their feet and limbs and popularised mourning jewellery after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Keeping physical mementoes of people we love feels ancient and elemental; maybe it’s our modern unwillingness to be open about it that’s strange.
When it comes to holding on to your children’s teeth, stashing them in a box in the wardrobe is clearly for amateurs. Online marketplace Etsy has dozens of listings for jewellery made from teeth, with many bespoke pieces created from the teeth sent in by customers. It seems if you want to memorialise your children’s teeth, jewellery is the way to go.
Some of the most interesting pieces are made in Australia. Sydney fashion designer Hayley Smith turned to jewellery-making when she couldn’t find the unique accessories she wanted for her runway collections. She now makes delicate signet rings, crown rings and pendants from human and animal teeth, as well as a range of jewellery made from hair and ashes for her label Serpent and the Swan.
In Melbourne, former cemetery groundskeeper Jacqui Williams understands better than most the intense emotional connection people have with teeth, both their own and other people’s. She launched her studio Grave Metallum Jewellery following a friend’s suicide. The desire to understand more about the rituals and culture of mourning inspired a fascination with objects of memorialisation.
“Many people have a grave they’ll visit or keep ashes. I make a tombstone you can wear,” she says. “It’s a piece of someone you can carry around with you every day.”
Williams makes a range of jewellery using teeth, including baby teeth. Getting tips from her dentist, she taught herself how to bond and cure damaged teeth and has even made a pair of wedding rings for a couple who wanted to include a tooth in each ring.
Wodonga accountant Rinelda van den Berg contacted Williams to commission two rings, one for herself and one for her then five-year-old daughter. “When the first tooth came out, I was a little heartbroken because she was growing so fast. I wanted to memorialise that moment in time.”
Having only one child, Van den Berg feels every milestone intensely. “All of her transitions are the first and last for us. Setting them in jewellery makes them last that little bit longer.”
Williams doesn’t have children but says if she did, she would absolutely keep their teeth. “It’s history; it’s proof that they existed.” Instead, she chooses to collect her cat’s teeth and whiskers.
Unlike Queen Victoria, who kept her children’s baby teeth on display in a satin- and velvet-lined gilt casket, my children’s baby teeth are destined to stay in their chocolate tin. No one in the family cares to see them, and my daughters have no interest in inheriting them. My little rattling box is meaningful only to me. I like to know they’re there but, when I die, they will probably be tossed into the bin.
Until then, I’ve found a secondary use for them. When my daughters head to my bedroom to look for something, I tell them ominously: “Don’t mess around in my wardrobe because you never know what you might find.”
