From the Bearpit


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BEARLY THERE
You may be wondering why this column is called From the Bearpit. There are three reasons, none of them sensible! (1) The concept of a room of some sort seemed in keeping with the aims of The Family Room. (2) My home resembles a bearpit most of the time (untidy and full of activity). (3) My life has been overrun by teddy bears for as long as I can remember.
I certainly had bears when I was a child. In fact, I didn't like dolls very much; I greatly preferred soft toys. For some reason, when I started living with my now-husband, our flat seemed to fill rapidly with bears. My childhood companion, Peter, a much-loved panda now in terminal decline, lived out the end of his days carefully wrapped up in a cupboard box to shield him from the light. Graham and I bought each other teddy bears for various occasions. (For his thirtieth birthday I bought him a mobile of a pink flying pig, but that's another story!)
The children had to have bears. When Tamsin was born, my mother trekked out from Australia with three changes of clothes and a suitcase full to the brim of stuffed Australian animals. This baby was going to be aware of her other cultural heritage, like it or not! And we bought her a special teddy bear in Henley-on-Thames, an aristocratic English town near our rather more suburban home. He is called Henley and still looks aristocratic, if a little worn around the muzzle after five years of eventful life.
It wasn't until Tamsin was two that Max came into our lives. It was Tamsin's second birthday. We gave her her presents, then threw our luggage in the car and went off on holiday for a week. On the way to our rented cottage in the beautiful Lake District of northern England we stopped off for lunch in a branch of Ikea, a Swedish chain of home ware shops, which has a decent café. During a casual stroll around the tempting armchairs we noticed a bargain box of teddy bears just waiting to be bought. Max said that he fancied looking after a little girl and staying in a cottage for a week's holiday, so he came along with us. He is like our third child these days.
Max and Tamsin were inseparable from the first moment. He's rather large, at least as big as a two-year-old, and very soft and huggable (and machine washable and tumble dryable!) He travels in the car (strapped into a seatbelt), guards Tamsin's door at night, has tea parties with her, dances with her and sometimes snuggles up into bed with her if she is particularly in need of a cuddle from a large soft bear.
It amused Graham to set Max up with various activities at night for Tamsin to admire in the morning when she woke up. Max built models out of Lego, did drawings, read books. Graham claimed that this was intended to excite Tamsin's interests in toys she had not played with for some time; I wondered whether it was really a chance for Graham to play with Tamsin's toys. For a long time this caused much amusement - little cries of 'Oh, Max, what have you been making while I was asleep?' Recently, however, Max fell out of favor. He was no longer allowed to guard her door at night, and he was told off when he tried to play with her toys. Max, it seemed, was no longer Tamsin's bear.
This worried us a little. Tamsin had, on the whole, always appeared to believe in Max's abilities. She seemed to relate to Max as though he was a person. If she was going to reject him so comprehensively (she threw him hard out of her bedroom on several occasions), what would she do to a real-life friend who offended her? Besides, Max had given nearly three years of selfless service, and we didn't think he deserved this rejection.
We tried to jolly the relationship along, but without success. Eventually, Graham dragged out from her what Max had done to offend her. 'He played with all my toys without asking me,' she explained. Oh dear, was a lesson in manners needed?
Max sat down that night and wrote a heartfelt apology to Tamsin on the computer. (It's amazing what big furry paws can do). Tamsin was over the moon to discover the letter the next morning, signed with his paw print. (Why isn't there a paw print on the clip art, Graham wanted to know). She accepted the apology most graciously, and Max was welcomed back into the fold. An emotional reunion took place. He is now allowed to guard her door again, has been out for a trip in the car, has danced with Tamsin and slept with her. All is right with the world again.
It taught us a couple of lessons. Manners do matter, even in stuffed toys. If you encourage children to believe that their toys are real, you must enforce standards of behavior that you would expect from real people. And everyone should have computer skills, even toy bears!
Children's play is such an important part of their lives. We are encouraging Tamsin and Angus to use their imaginations, and hopefully to develop rich fantasy lives with their toys and books. We should have realized earlier on that encouraging this could backfire if we weren't careful. Tamsin has a book called 'The Velveteen Rabbit', in which a toy eventually becomes real because he has been loved so much. It sparked off a conversation about what was real and what wasn't. Her definition changes all the time, but it made her think. I believe that an active imagination and an ability to think about challenging issues are some of the most important skills we can teach our children to use and appreciate.
Max was genuinely humbled by the affair. He will ask permission in future before playing with someone else's toys. I hope that Tamsin will also be enriched by this experience, and think twice before making free with a friend's toys. It takes children a long time to learn lessons of sharing and thinking of others. Everything we can do to ease the path will help them in the long run.
Judy Edmonds was born in England, grew up in Australia and is married to Graham Peters, a fifth-generation Australian. From 1990-1999 they lived in England - it was meant to be a two year working holiday but it took on a life of its own. They returned to Australia in May 1999, and are enjoying readjusting. Judy worked as an academic librarian until the birth of Tamsin in 1993, and since then has been a full-time mother to her and to Angus, born 1996. She is now embarking on a new career as a freelance journalist. Her writing can be found all over the Internet now, and she is the owner/editor of an Australian parenting EZine, Chloe & Jack.