I have written about this before, but when I was about six or seven, there was a small house at the end of my bed. I had constructed it from cardboard and sticky tape, and it housed various action figure toys, a Barbie and a teddy. The house was really constructed for the others, so the teddy didn’t fit in any of the rooms. At night time, he’d sleep outside: which, in the logic of my play, he didn’t mind doing as he was indestructible. He was a friendly alien.
I can remember the provenance of the action figures: getting them for birthdays and Christmas. One came from a cousin in Ireland. But I can’t remember anything about the teddy, other than that he predated all those toys. He may have once filled the traditional teddy bear role, but by then I was hypersensitive about anything that might be perceived as babyish. Yet I also didn’t want to let the teddy go: so, I got around the problem by recasting him.
What put this into my mind was that, recently, Daughter Number Four and Herself went on a weekend trip to visit an old friend and her family. But the night before, there was a crisis. Daughter Number Four had left her teddy behind in her cousin’s house, and it was too late and too far to go and get her. Actually, she’s not a teddy, but a rabbit in a woollen dress. Her name is Rabbit.
Daughter Number Four was not happy about this, bordering on upset. She’s had Rabbit since she was a baby, and Rabbit has slept with her every night since then. We did our best Jazz Hands to prevent it turning into a Major Drama, and she was eventually content to accept that I’d go and get her over the weekend. Rabbit would be waiting when she got home.
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Afterwards, when she was asleep, we quietly wondered if this might not be a good thing. Wean her off the dependence a bit.
But after that, when they had gone to Wales, I remembered that Herself still has her teddy. Actually, he’s not a teddy. He’s a donkey. Donnie the Donkey. He doesn’t sleep in our bed. But he’s got a special place in the wardrobe. He’s close by.
In the interests of research, I did a quick poll of sundry other children about this. Daughter Number Two had a teddy, called Teddy. It’s in an attic now. But her partner has a teddy, also called Teddy. This Teddy lives with them.
Daughter Number Three also has a teddy. Called – you’ll never believe this – Teddy. This Teddy still sleeps with her every night.
In scientific terms, a soft toy is known as a transitional object: it can provide emotional security to a child in the absence of a caregiver. But as that child grows into adulthood, those feelings don’t necessarily go away.
The teddy can still offer comfort and a sense of self, simply because the human owner has opted to invest the teddy with that ability.
To some, this might seem childish. But is it a bad thing? It’s not fundamentally different from having affection for a human or a pet. There’s always a danger that the soft toy could be lost, but other than that, a teddy is reliable. Unlike a person, it will never let you down. Our instinct that Daughter Number Four might need to be weaned off hers was perhaps misplaced.
I drove down to get Rabbit over the weekend, and, as had been previously agreed, I allowed her to sit in the front passenger seat – wearing a seat belt, of course – and sent on a picture to confirm her retrieval. And on the way home, I wondered about my own teddy bear. I probably just stopped playing with him. I can’t remember what name I gave him, though I could make a good guess.