Personal
stories:
Dealing with other people's 'stuff'
Some years ago I was trying to encourage my son to get rid
of some of his toys to make way for the the things that he
would be getting for his birthday. The main items which were
bugging me were two large toys: a castle and a tree house.
He was really too old for these toys and never, ever played
with them. I couldn't understand why he didn't want to let
go of them.
One day (about a year later) I decided to remove the items
and I gave them to his younger cousin. My son was really really
upset. This obviously blew over and some years passed.
A couple of
months ago my teenager revealed why he had been so upset:
he had been playing with these toys at night time but didn't
want to say because he thought that everyone would think he
was a baby for still playing with them. That touched my heart
and really brought home to me how important it is to respect
other people, their wishes and their things.
When I was a girl I had a a small foam armchair in the shape
of a dog in my room. I had set myself the challenge of doing
headstands on it. I was frightened of going upside down but
it felt easier doing it on the armchair as it didn't hurt
my head so much. My younger sister joined in too and we used
to spend hours literally doing headstands in my bedroom after
school. The armchair which had originally been a pale yellow
started to get very dirty, the eyes fell off and so did the
nose. It got a bit ripped. But we loved it. We giggled and
had fun. I was very proud because at last I was learning to
to headstands. My mum however just saw a very dirty, manky
and unhygienic thing which had to be removed. One day, without
warning, we came home from school and the armchair was gone.
We were so, so sad. I'd forgotten about this until my son
told me about his toys!
