Today’s topic for Throwback Thursday is toys and pastimes. The first question Maggie asks in her post is: “Did you have a lot of toys?” The short answer would be that yes, I was privileged to have quite many toys, but I must say I wasn’t so spoiled that I always got the latest trendy toy.
I probably shared this story before, but I played with toys quite a lot until I was at least eleven. By that time, my parents and teachers were looking into options for secondary schools and their opinions couldn’t have been any different: while my parents wanted me to go to mainstream grammar school, my teachers felt special education at their low-level secondary school for the blind, preferably residential, was in my best interest. My mother one day took me for a “mother-daughter walk” explaining the school’s stance and said that the reason they felt I needed residential special ed, was my behavior. That, in turn, she attributed to my having too many toys. The logic, I never quite understood, but it must’ve been something like my being so spoiled that I somehow felt entitled to display challenging behavior.
She went on to explain that, at the residential school, I would only be allowed one doll and one soft toy. She had given me a Barbie doll for my birthday earlier that summer, but told me she regretted it as soon as she received the school’s report. Needless to say, I always felt weird about playing with dolls from that age on, even though I continued to play with toys and dolls and everything until I was at least fifteen.
Fast forward some ten to fifteen years. When I was in my mid-twenties and diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, I felt it might help my littles (child alters) if we had toys again. I first bought a box of old Barbies for €70 on a marketplace site. That wasn’t a wise decision as, though the box did arrive, the Barbie dolls were in such bad condition I eventually threw them away. I then decided to buy a couple of new ones at a toy store, but the littles hardly played with them. They prefer soft toys.
Speaking of which, one of Maggie’s questions is whether you still have any toys from your childhood. I don’t, as they’re probably all at my parents’. However, I do still have my stuffed whale Wally, whom I got when I left the NICU at three-months-old. I still sometimes sleep with it.
Did you have many toys growing up?
A Multitude of Musings 
Your whale looks remarkably intact for something that old. I still have a few stuffed animals from childhood, but they weren’t ones I played with much. They were my Christmas bears that only came out once a year.
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Thank you for the compliment on my whale. I think it’s pretty awesome it’s still in pretty good shape indeed.
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I have a lot of toys but nothing from childhood. All the toys we have are toys we bought for the littles. We do have quite a lot now. Xx
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That’s great your littles have a lot of toys to play with!
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Astrid, it is amazing that you still have your whale and that it still brings you comfort. I think it is hard for a child to have a lot of toys then be asked to go down to such a few. Thanks for writing again today. I enjoyed reading your post.
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Thank you so much for commenting. I thankfully never went into the residential school and am pretty sure my mother’s comment about the one doll and one soft toy was an exaggeration just to scare me. My mother did end up “throwing away” a basketful of toys each time I had a meltdown from that point on (really she stored them in her room). That hurt me a lot.
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Parents often mean well but fall short on the delivery of their message. Thanks again for joining in.
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Agree, my parents were probably well-intentioned. Sadly, their well-meaning approach wasn’t always (or was usually not) very effective or affectionate.
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Wally is a cute one to hang on to!
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Thank you! 🙂
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Astrid, thank you for joining in. Your whale looks amazing for having been around so long. I never kept good enough care of any of my toys, even the ones I cherished.
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Oh, thank you so much. I must indeed have taken pretty good care of Wally. Then again, as far as I’m aware, I never chewed on it.
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Aw, I love Wally the whale! How cute.
I was lucky to have quite a few toys growing up. I still have a huge teddy that my grandad bought me as a child, so he’s had some wear and tear over the years! 🙂
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Aw, how lovely that you still have your teddy. My husband still has a huge teddy bear he got as a child too. I however got an even larger one for my birthday last year from my mother-in-law.
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This was very interesting for me. I also played with dolls and toys for a good while after the point when it stopped being cool. My parents never pressured me into stopping, which I appreciated.
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Thanks so much for sharing. I’m so glad your parents never pressured you to stop playing.
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