Queen of Rambles

I did something totally out of character that proves I’m a mother. You’ll laugh when you hear it and wonder how I became such a curmudgeon, but a curmudgeon I am so this little thing was a stretch.

I bought my kid a teddy bear.

He has stuffed animals. He doesn’t have stuffed animals galore like some children because he’s just not that interested and neither am I. I bought him a stuffed dragon a few months ago because we are the Fantasy Freaks. I’d thought that would be the end of my stuffed animal buying days forever.

Then we were in Safeway. They had the Valentine stuff out and my eye was drawn to a strangely-hued pink elephant and something snapped and I had to have it for Erik. I felt it’s soft fur and really had to have it for Erik. What boy doesn’t need a super-soft, cuddly, little friend?

I handed it to Erik and he was fascinated with the texture. The deal was sealed, except for the creeping doubt that this could be it–his lovey for the next twenty-eight years. Does a boy need a neonish pink lovey?

No.

I’m all for gender equality and breaking down stereotypes and boys playing with kitchen appliances, but when the rubber meets the road I’d prefer my first grader not be heckled and jeered and beat up because his mom was obsessed with a pink elephant.

I looked around and found a little brown bear that was just as soft and cuddly and bought that instead. It has a pink heart and a pink bow-tie since it’s a Valentine’s bear, but at least it is not that wonderfully obnoxious shade of pink. Perhaps my child will avoid the pink elephant beatings. He’s going to have enough challenges in his life. He’s got that spot on the back of his head and he’s got the weird mom who won’t let him eat junk food, play video games, or watch most cartoons. I’ve got to give the boy some chance at happiness.

I was never beat up as a child and I wasn’t the one who was always made fun of, but I had very few friends and I was chosen last at recess and PE. It’s not fun being the outcast. It could have been a lot worse and I was lucky that I was strong enough to generally not care all that much. I retreated into the world of fiction and made lots of friends. Too bad they couldn’t talk back. That doesn’t mean I didn’t spend my fair share of childhood in tears, but at least no one ever wanted to fight me. There was always one or two girls who were really odd and didn’t know how to stay out of the line of fire, so they became the main targets of heckling instead of me. I really don’t want that for my son. I don’t know what we’ll do if he is into socializing and girls and all the dangers that come with that type of peer pressure, but it can’t be any worse than having no friends at all, can it?

My long time readers are probably wondering about Ron since we’ve been friends since childhood. We were never in the same class at school and we rarely hung out together on the school grounds. We were more neighborhood friends. I guess I am exaggerating things a tad bit. I had friends in 1st, 2nd and 6th grade. I also had friends in junior high and high school but I just didn’t really like any of those friends. I finally found a kindred spirit at the end of my sophomore year and she moved at the beginning of junior high.

How on earth did the topic of teddy bears lead us down this path?

I really don’t know why I don’t like stuffed animals. I loved them when I was a kid. I slept with a whole zoo until I was in junior high. I’m just a weirdo, but that’s nothing new.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 29th, 2007 at 7:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.