The Saga of the Menagerie of Stuffed Animals and Their Eternal Zoo Keeper

Once upon a time there was a little boy, whose mother waited most of her life to have him.

This mother wasn’t overly sentimental, having given away almost all her toys before she left for college. Her own mother was sad, and said it looked like no one had ever lived in her room after she left.

So, when this mother was 19, her mother gave her a stuffed Pooh Bear. Maybe it was the mother’s wish to return her daughter to childhood.

Because it was Pooh, she loved and cherished the bear, as Winnie the Pooh and his entourage were her and her sisters’ favorite book characters when they were children. Also, after a year away at college, the 19-year-old might have needed permission to remain partly a child.

Twenty-two years later, she became “this mother” — who is me.

My mother, the one who bemoaned my moving out and discarding all my toys, showered my son with stuffed toys. At Easter he received stuffed rabbits. At Christmas he received talking Elmo. On Valentine’s Day she gifted him Teddy Bears holding big hearts.

Before he was born, my sister gifted us a musical stuffed giraffe. The music the giraffe played was often the only thing that could calm his colicky cries in the early months. I used the “singing” giraffe to help soothe him to sleep many nights. It’s head slowly turned as the music played, and his newborn eyes would follow.

He and I watched the children’s show Wishbone together, starring the dog detective. Naturally, I had to get the talking Wishbone when it came out. He and Elmo could then converse.

Wishbone, he of television fame. Photo by author.

My son also had Barney, the purple dragon, because that’s where he learned the song “Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Do Your Share”. We sang it together from when he was 18-months old until he was three, as we put all the rest of his stuffed animals away. By then he was doing it himself. And thank goodness, he finally grew tired of the T.V. show, whose character’s voices and songs made me want to throw more than a stuffed toy into the T.V.

As he grew, there was a Buddy doll that looked like him. My son is half-Black. Buddy is a toddler-sized Black doll, whose skin tone and hair look remarkably like my son’s. He loved it, and I loved it, too. It was difficult to find representative dolls in the early 1990s.

When he was in elementary through middle school, I bought him stuffed lions for his birthdays. He is a Leo. They often became mine after he was too old to enjoy them. I never got too old to snuggle “My Wion” as he had named his first one.

When he was older, my sister gave him a near life-sized stuffed black leopard. It adorned the end of his bed until he left for college.

Before that, there were alien dolls, Bugs Bunny, and a talking Michael Jordan doll, all from the movie Space Jam. My son is a basketball player, and has been since age four. “Let’s Play Some Basketball” in Jordan’s voice, was his favorite phrase.

What is it about stuffed toys that appeal to us? Is it nostalgia, anthropomorphism, a return to childhood, a need for comfort, or all of the above?

Once my son left for college, I was exactly as lonely as I thought I would be. Toy Story wasn’t wrong. The mom in Toy Story struggled to see her child go. The “child” struggled to discard his toys. Who wouldn’t struggle letting go of Buzz Lightyear and his Cowboy friend, Woody? The character’s solution was to give them to his little sister, who was thrilled to give Buzz and the gang a new life.

My son doesn’t have a little sister. He was born when I was forty-one. On his way to college, he left with me his stuffed toys, remote-controlled cars, leftover Pokemon cards, and discarded sports equipment, while, of course, taking all his basketballs. He was off to play basketball in college after all.

The first couple of years, I kept everything, exactly where he left it in his room. The way my mother would have if I’d left anything in mine when I went away to college. Then I received a job offer less than an hour from where he was in school, starting in basketball games nearly every weekend. I was driving over two hours back-and-forth every game day. I accepted.

Which meant, packing everything in the house he grew up in, along with discarding things I wouldn’t have room for in my new home. I’ll spare you all the agonizing over what to keep and what to donate.

I did keep a large plastic container full of — you guessed — his stuffed toys. From Shamu to the talking Taco Bell dolls, from Buddy to four Winnie-the-Poohs, one of which was my original one from my mother. From a dancing flamingo my sister gave him for Valentine’s Day, to the Wishbone who no longer talks.

I think I hoped to pass them along to a grandchild someday, even though many were like the Velveteen Rabbit, disheveled from being loved too much. Some I simply couldn’t part with because of all the memories of his childhood they brought back. I suddenly understood my mother’s feelings.

I lugged that huge container of toys through three moves. The latest was here to Santa Fe, where I’ve lived a year. The toys became a factor again, when I recently helped my son move out of an apartment we had shared in Austin, Texas to his new one in Los Angeles, California.

My townhouse has little storage, but my son had some things he couldn’t fit in his car for the long drive, so I took them home with me. In trying to free up storage space, I pulled out the large container of toys.

Now what? Try to shove them under the bed or someplace else? My son is thirty-two now, and is not as sentimental about them as I am. If at all. There is no grandchild on the immediate horizon, and as I discovered, the toys were mostly stained, missing a shirt, or unable to talk anymore.

So, I am in the process of finding new homes for them. A few, including Buzz Lightyear and “My Wion” went to donations. Some, including all but one Winnie-the-Pooh I’ve posted for sale. Vintage toys do have a certain monetary value. Although how MY BABY’S toys could be vintage is still impossible for me to comprehend. When did that happen??

I’m down to four. The musical giraffe, because it was the first gift I received after learning I was, against all odds, pregnant. Elmo Wants To Play, because he can still talk and MAYBE there will be a grandchild one day, and the most recent Winnie-the-Pooh of all the vintage Poohs, for the same reason. Also a Tigger who has springs for legs and still bounces, which would delight a future, possible grandchild, but also, who could get rid of a bouncing Tigger?

Only four of so many furry bringers-of-joy over the years. Oh, and Buddy, because, of course I will keep Buddy. My toddler’s look-a-like.

One final item remains. A pillow my mother gave me when my son was born. It says, ignore housework and organizing, “I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.”

Mother always knew.

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This post was previously published on New Choices.

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