I’m asking you, too, Caregivers.
I don’t think 12 months could pass without me stumbling across at least one article about adults who still sleep with a favourite soft toy. The research, they will say, shows that a third of adults in the UK still have a stuffie in the bedroom and how this shouldn’t be considered shameful and that it actually has psychological benefits. These articles will usually give personal stories from adults who have that one tatty green frog stuffie they could simply never give away, being such a trove of memories and emotion.
I raise an eyebrow, wondering if there are enough littles in the country to significantly alter the statistics, or even if the numbers are so high because of the number of littles. I have spent many a night losing the battle for bed space with my little girl’s stuffie collection. I then proceeded to compound the issue by buying her even more. As vices (and kinks) go, it’s fairly innocuous in spite of the impending stuffie storage crisis.
This is not to say that you need to be an avid soft toy collector in order to consider yourself a little. There are many out there who do not fill every available corner with mute friends. But even with these individuals I have found it usual for them to have at least one treasured stuffie into whom they can pour their cares and through which they can feel connected to the past or perhaps the one who gave it to them.
My own teddy bear is Toby Bear, though I don’t remember giving him that name. He’s always been Toby. He’s 34 years old now and has been in the wars a bit. When I was a child he would always sleep with me, no matter where I was. Other soft toys went in and out of favour, but Toby was constant. When I first got him he had shiny brown plastic eyes but with time, washing and the thousand-fold attentions of a child, these came loose, dangled and fell off.
I was staying at my grandmother’s house the day his second eye came completely off. How I cried. “He’s blind,” I wailed, and I felt it was the sorry, painful truth to the pit of my young stomach. My grandmother, hearing my misery, asked what the matter was. I showed her my boon companion, still smiling stoically below unadorned, artificial fur where his eyes had been. “We shall have to give him some new ones, then,” she said. “What colour were they?” “Brown,” I sniffed. She went to a corner and came back with wool and her crochet hook. She sat down in her rocking chair in the kitchen and began to perform a miraculous surgery.
My grandmother doesn’t remember this now. Neither does she remember the songs she used to sing us to get us to sleep. She doesn’t remember who I am or how to dress herself. She gets distressed easily. Dementia has taken her life and left her heart to beat. Grandma cannot tell her stories now, but when I see Toby looking back at me I can hear her singing.
Further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/12/still-have-childhood-teddy-psychological-power-toys-we-keep
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-guest-room/201407/more-just-teddy-bears
I don’t think 12 months could pass without me stumbling across at least one article about adults who still sleep with a favourite soft toy. The research, they will say, shows that a third of adults in the UK still have a stuffie in the bedroom and how this shouldn’t be considered shameful and that it actually has psychological benefits. These articles will usually give personal stories from adults who have that one tatty green frog stuffie they could simply never give away, being such a trove of memories and emotion.
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| @Pinkles_art |
I raise an eyebrow, wondering if there are enough littles in the country to significantly alter the statistics, or even if the numbers are so high because of the number of littles. I have spent many a night losing the battle for bed space with my little girl’s stuffie collection. I then proceeded to compound the issue by buying her even more. As vices (and kinks) go, it’s fairly innocuous in spite of the impending stuffie storage crisis.
This is not to say that you need to be an avid soft toy collector in order to consider yourself a little. There are many out there who do not fill every available corner with mute friends. But even with these individuals I have found it usual for them to have at least one treasured stuffie into whom they can pour their cares and through which they can feel connected to the past or perhaps the one who gave it to them.
My own teddy bear is Toby Bear, though I don’t remember giving him that name. He’s always been Toby. He’s 34 years old now and has been in the wars a bit. When I was a child he would always sleep with me, no matter where I was. Other soft toys went in and out of favour, but Toby was constant. When I first got him he had shiny brown plastic eyes but with time, washing and the thousand-fold attentions of a child, these came loose, dangled and fell off.
I was staying at my grandmother’s house the day his second eye came completely off. How I cried. “He’s blind,” I wailed, and I felt it was the sorry, painful truth to the pit of my young stomach. My grandmother, hearing my misery, asked what the matter was. I showed her my boon companion, still smiling stoically below unadorned, artificial fur where his eyes had been. “We shall have to give him some new ones, then,” she said. “What colour were they?” “Brown,” I sniffed. She went to a corner and came back with wool and her crochet hook. She sat down in her rocking chair in the kitchen and began to perform a miraculous surgery.
My grandmother doesn’t remember this now. Neither does she remember the songs she used to sing us to get us to sleep. She doesn’t remember who I am or how to dress herself. She gets distressed easily. Dementia has taken her life and left her heart to beat. Grandma cannot tell her stories now, but when I see Toby looking back at me I can hear her singing.
Further reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/12/still-have-childhood-teddy-psychological-power-toys-we-keep
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-guest-room/201407/more-just-teddy-bears