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SMNTY Classics: Why do kids love stuffed animals so much? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Never told to your protection of iHeart Radio. So for
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: today's classic episode, I want to ask, did you ever
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: get a gift that you were surprised how much you
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: liked it? Yes? Um, and honestly I love it today.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: It is my comfy that I have talked about so
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: many times on this show. Because he did not know
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I needed it, and then he handed it to me
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, and I have
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: worn it so much that I finally washed it because
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I started to smell. Oh
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: how did that watching experience go? It was good? It
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: was good. Yeah, just delicate that's Good's okay? Okay? Yes, Um.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: As I said before, they are not currently a sponsor,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: but marketing people there like, hey, look, I have talked
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a lot about this advertising though, because I have seen
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: so many people buy it. Yes, seen any any reference
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to whatever? Yes, I was going to say, I also
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: have one, and my mom I gave her one. She
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: loved it so much she bought like our entire family one,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: so we have a family of him. It's amazing. Yes,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: mine is, of course might be my pillow pet. B
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: which my dad got from the tractor store. He used
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to do that. He would go like the day before
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Christmas to the tractor's store and he would buy a
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: bunch of random stuff, and most of it, to be honest,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was not good. So my mom told him, you know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: she's not gonna I was in college at this point,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: She's not gonna like this. And then I just did.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I just latched onto it. And I recently,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I saw the news Scream movie at a drive in
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: with a friend and I was in my comfy and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I pulled out of a bag this pillow pet. My friend,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: who was an older man, was like, and I was like,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: this is my my friend. I'm gonna be scared watching
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this movie. You can't expect me to watch this without
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: might pillow bit. Obviously not. Obviously not. But I was
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: also thinking about this because I, I know, we talked
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: about this, Samantha, but sometimes something calms up in therapy
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and you're like, oh gosh, yes, that's exactly right. I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: don't know why it took me so long to realize,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: but my therapist says, I have like a fight or
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: fight response to sleep. So because I've had traumatic experiences
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: around sleeping, and it just makes perfect sense to me.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, of course I can't, that's why. But
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: when I try to describe it to people, it's as
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: if you're you're in a river and the river is
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: your exhaustion, your your need to sleep, and you're fighting
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to stay above the river because you feel like it
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: will kill you. So it's a dragging under feeling. And
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: so when I say I can't sleep, it's like the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: type of I can't sleep where it's like gasping awake
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: with your heart racing like every couple of minutes, and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you're so tired, and you want to give into that
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  Speaker 1: river and sleep, but you it's scary and you feel
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: like you can and there is this fight or flight response.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So I've been really working on that. But part of
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that has been the pillow pit, which I normally don't
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: take to bed, has come to bed as a source
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: of comfort. Yeah, yeah, so I am. I am working
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: on it, and I feel like I have made strides,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: like even just like realizing that it still happens, and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: it's still really frustrating, but it feels now I know
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the problem. I can try to start dealing with it. Yeah,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: But all this to say, I wanted to bring back
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: this classic episode on people loving stuffed animals, So please enjoy.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stuff
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Kristin Christine. When I was little, I
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: had this Koala air. It was about as big as
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I was, and I would frequently hug the Koala to
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the point where my mother had to constantly stitch it
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: up in the back. No, we were not using it
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to transport drugs. She just instantly had to sew the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: backup where it came undone. And in my mind, this
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Koala bear had a personality of her own. She was
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: kind of motherly, obviously very comforting. I wanted nothing but
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: to to hug her and carry her around, and it
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: was very difficult to get rid of that Koala bear
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: when we had to have a garage sale. What was
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the Koala bear's name? You know, I don't remember. I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: don't think I know. I don't think it really had
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a name. I had other animals that had names, and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I had a blank ee named Blankie. There was very special,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: But I don't know that the Koala bear had a name. Yeah,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I believe I've talked about my most beloved stuffed animal
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: on the podcast before. It was a papa lump of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a duck named Duckie. You and I both shared a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: creativity with names fairly in our childhood, and I took
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Duckie everywhere until I lost Ducky and that was a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: sad day. But Ducky did everything with me, and she
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: had flying powers. And Mom washed her when she got
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: dirty in a pillow case because that was how you
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: washed puffal ups, and for some reason I thought that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: was pretty nifty. But we've talked about dolls before on
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: stuff Mom never told you, but we wanted to talk
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  Speaker 1: more about stuffed animals in particular because for you and me,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure so many of our listeners, stuffed animals
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  Speaker 1: are an integral part of childhood, and they have a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: rich history and also equally rich psychology undergirding why there
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: is this appeal the purpose that they serve not just
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: for being cute and making for adorable stories in our adulthood,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: but also why a mom can't take a stuffed animal
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: from her kid and wash it, why that causes trauma,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and why you can't just replace it with a new
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: stuffed animal, because they will know, I tell you, they
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: will know that those stitches are not the same in
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the back. Are you speaking from experience Koala trauma? No,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, no Blankie trauma. I mean every time my
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: mom washed Blankie, it was like you're gonna kill her.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: But then gradually he got warmed back up to Blankie. Yeah. Sure.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And then there was the time that I'm pretty sure
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: my father just got rid of Blankie and made me
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: think that I lost it. He was already playing psychology
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: games with his small child. He didn't tell you that
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  Speaker 1: blank You went up to the farm where your old dog.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Eventually they let blank You loose on the farm to Rome. Well,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: let's look at a brief history of stuffed animals, because
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it is a European trend that traveled to the United
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  Speaker 1: States and it got its start in the late nineteenth
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  Speaker 1: century with a German seamstress named Marguerite Steve. I have
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: one of her teddy bears. Oh yeah, not not a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: not a like an original one. But I get ahead
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of myself. Continue well. In nineteen o three, Steve's nephew
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: created the first soft bear for his aunt and he
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: came up with this idea from sketches of animals that
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: he would do at the Stuttgarden Zoo and Steve's factory
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: at the time produced all sorts of toys, and the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: first plush toy that she tried to make was an
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: elephant that doubled as a pin cushion. But this concept
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  Speaker 1: of the stuffed bear was revolutionary at the time because
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: it took the plush aspect of the rag doll that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: was already very popular for kids and rejiggered it for
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: an animal, figuring, yeah, something that people could live now.
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  Speaker 1: My mom is a flight attendant and goes to Germany
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  Speaker 1: and when I was about twenty five, she brought me
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  Speaker 1: home one of these these Steve Bears or have you
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: pronounced her last name. And the thing is you know
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: them because they sew a button into the ear indicating
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  Speaker 1: that they're they're the genuine article. And it as a
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: twenty five year old, I was like great, a German
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  Speaker 1: teddy bear for me in my mid twenties. But now
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: now thanks to the podcast, you know how special that.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I know how special it is. And so did George
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: borge felt Uh. He was an American wholesaler who saw
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  Speaker 1: the bear at the Leipzig Toy Fair in nineteen o
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  Speaker 1: three and ordered three thousand of them, And by World
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  Speaker 1: War one, Marguerite had sold millions in the US, Germany
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  Speaker 1: and England. Yeah, it didn't take long for borge Felts
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  Speaker 1: bears to cause a bit of a craze. Even before
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  Speaker 1: World War One, we have the bear market surge when
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  Speaker 1: the toy bear, which was originally sold as a zoo souvenir,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: became this huge novelty on especially on the Jersey Shore boardwalk.
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  Speaker 1: And in nineteen o six there was an ad published
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: in the magazine Playthings that said, any child without a
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: teddy nowadays is quite out of fashion. And speaking of fashion,
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  Speaker 1: people automatically love the bears. Motion wanted to dress these
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: teddy bears up. And there were all these patterns that
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you could buy for making different clothes and outfits for
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  Speaker 1: your teddy bear. Um And by nineteen o seven they
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: were a hip fashion accessory for chic urban women, kind
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of like how we would see women carrying around tiny
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: dogs today teddy bears back in the day. So I
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: should get that teddy bear out of my closet at
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: my parents house I don't know that it would be
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: as on trend in two thousand thirteen, but you could
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: certainly try. But Caroline, though I'm also speaking ahead of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: myself because I'm calling them teddy bears. Oh yes, about
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the teddy part of Teddy Bears. Yeah, the Teddy bears
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  Speaker 1: part of toy lore. It probably originated with Morris Mitchum,
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  Speaker 1: a New York storekeeper and later founder of the company
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  Speaker 1: Ideal Toys, which I still I believe it is still
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: around um. In nineteen o two, he saw a newspaper
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: cartoon showing Teddy Roosevelt, the President, sparing a baby bear
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  Speaker 1: on a hunting trip. Mitcham asked his wife to turn
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  Speaker 1: the bear into a doll, and he got permission somehow
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  Speaker 1: from Roosevelt to name it Teddy's Bear, and sold handmade
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: cloth bears from his candy store. And like I said,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: this was all coinciding with that teddy bear crazed happening
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  Speaker 1: and bear. The fact that it was a bear and
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  Speaker 1: not a different kind of animal was also a distinctly
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  Speaker 1: new concept because it merged the fierce with the cute. Because,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: as Gary Cross, author of the book Kids Stuff Toys
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in the Changing World, of American childhood notes. Uh, bear
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  Speaker 1: seldom appeared in nineteenth century toy catalogs, but when they did,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: they looked mean and we're apparently designed to scare children.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Why would they be sold in toy catalogs. Then it's like,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: finish your dinner or I'll stick the bear on you.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it was something for Victorian era man caves, I'm
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: sure did not exist for the billiards room, a scary
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  Speaker 1: little stuffed bear. Well, during World War One there was
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: actually a ban on German imports in England, and so
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: British soft toy companies flourished during this time, companies like
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the British United Toy Manufacturing Company, which produced a number
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of plush animals during this time, starting actually back in
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties, but moving onward. And I did not
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: really know the origins of one beloved toy, the sock monkey.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Did you have a sock monkey growing up? I did
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: not have a sock monkey. I did, but I wasn't
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: a big fan of it. I was like, you don't
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: look like a cool toy. But it turns out that
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: actually the stock monkeys origins are kind of hazy. Apparently,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: when socks would get worn out, moms would take these
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Warren socks and turn them into toys for their kids.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: And in two Nelson Knitting Company got wind of this
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and began including a sock monkey pattern with every pair
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of socks, so when they wore out, moms could make
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that stuffed animal. And these were the socks with the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: red heel, which became the monkey's mouth. And speaking of
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: very popular types of toys, like we have the the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Teddy bear and then the sock monkey. On the heels
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: of the Teddy Bear is popularity. This is in between
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Teddy Bear and the sock monkey. Some toy manufacturers who
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: were like, okay, President Theodore Roosevelt had his Teddy Bear.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: You know what we're going to try to do. We're
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: going to try to make stuffed possums super popular in
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: honor of President Taft, who apparently, when he was visiting
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Atlanta where we are right now, ordered possum and quote
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: unquote taters at a dinner. I'm sure because he assumed
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that hey, Southerners eat possum and taters, and it caused
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a bit of a new sensation. And so these toy
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: manufacturers were like, we've got the next Teddy Bear. It's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a stuffed possum in honor of Taft, because we all
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: know how adorable possums are. Obviously it did not take off,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: but it is it's hilarious that that one stuffed animal
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: legacy of poor poor Taft would have been just the possum.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: But moving onward, in nineteen thirty a Millns Winnie the
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Pooh became a plush toy, and that's something that's gonna
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: come up very briefly when we talk about why kids
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: like Christopher Robin, the fictional Christopher Robin are so attached
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to toys um. But then in the nineties plush toys
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: were scarce and mostly handmade, and then in the post
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: war period there's more of a focus on safety, especially
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: in the UK with the introduction of the British Safety Standards. Yeah,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: glass eyes on toys were replaced by plastic which were
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: held on with a newly developed locking system introduced by
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Wendy Boston Place Safe Toys. And moving forward, the nineteen
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: fifties is when American firms started contracting much of their
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: stuffed animal work to Taiwan, Korea and China. So those
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: old stuffed animal makers in the UK and Germany sort
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of started losing out. Um, and so that that gives
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: you the early history of stuffed animals. I mean, the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: fascinating thing about stuffed animals is that the bear has
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: remained so lasting throughout, you know, generations of childhood's. Yeah,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: actually I have a bunny right now. My mom gave
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: it to me a couple of years ago when I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was sick, and I was like, that's cuddly. I keep it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: We're not too baby is looking. We're not even gonna
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: touch on things like beanie babies or how stuffed animals
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: have become obviously more electronic in recent years, with things
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: like furbies and so forth. Let's just stick to that.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Let's stick to the classics. Caroline Bear, the Teddy Bear. Um.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: But what is it with stuffed animals? Why are we
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: drawn to them in the same way you mentioned having
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that beloved blankie when you were a kid. Um, and that,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: along with stuffed animals and dolls, are referred to by
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: psychologists as transitional objects. This idea was actually first introduced
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three by Dr Donald Woods Winnicott, a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: prominent pediatrician psychoanalyst, in his paper Transitional objects and transitional
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: phenomena a study of the first not Me possession, and
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: clinical psychologist Steve Tuber sums it up thus lee He says,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the baby knows the teddy bear is not mom, but
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the baby can get a certain satisfaction. It is neither
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: mom nor totally just a stuffed animal. And Alicia Lieberman,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: who's an infant mental health expert, goes on further to
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: say it's a bridge between the mother and the external world,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: learning to deal with other people outside of your immediate realm. Yeah.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: But when Dr Winnicott, who was very much of the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Freudian school of thought, first theorized this idea of the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: stuffed animal or blanket as the transitional object, he first
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: linked it to early oral eroticism, saying that children start by,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you know, putting their fingers in their fists, in their mouths,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and then they transitioned to you know, these objects, whether
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: it be a stuffed animal or a blanket, that they
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: then um put in their mouths. And in that paper
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that you mentioned, a study of the first not meet possessions,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: he includes this rundown of child patient study has their
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: transitional object and whether or not they had a good
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: or bad mother. Yeah, and there was one. It was
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: something like stuffed donkey to attach to the mother, like
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: symbolizing the type of objects symbolizing, you know, the the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: closeness of attachment to the maternal figure. Thankfully, psychology has
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: loosened up a little bit because when a god wasn't
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a huge fan of these attachment objects, because it's basically like,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, you need to cut ties with the mom.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Get in the real world. And yeah, no, those attachments
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: were pretty much believed to be unhealthy and reflective of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the mother's failing until the nineteen seventies. But on the contrary,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: we know now that they're not a problem. A two
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: thousand study in the Journal of Consulting in Clinical Psychology
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: found that kids who had their beloved blankets with them
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: at the doctor's office, for instance, experience less distressed as
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: measured by blood pressure and heart rate. So I bet
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: since I've been fighting off a cold, I could really
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: use my blankie. Yeah, it might make you feel better.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And because as kids get older, these transitional objects, especially
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: stuffed animals, take on distinct personalities that help fulfill those
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: roles as comforter and imagining friends like you did with
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: your Koala and as I did with Ducky, who really
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was one of my BFFs at the time. Did Ducky
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: have a personality? Yeah, she was kind of sassy um,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: but a little dim and she could only fly after
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I gave her flying powder, usually in the form of
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: litten iced tea that I would drink obviously for her obs. Well,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean talk about as kids get older.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: As many as twenty five percent of young women report
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: taking a transitional object to college. That's coming from Dr
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Barbara Howard, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at John's Hopkins.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So the need doesn't go away. We we still have
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: it when we get older for some people. There is
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: a travel Lodge survey that was reported on by Live
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Science and some other media outlets in October of two
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve, and they surveyed six thousand British adults and
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: found that thirty five percent of adults admitted to sleeping
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: with stuffed animals. And it's not just women, because there
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: is a gender difference. As kids age, boys usually toss
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: off their transitional object, their stuffed animal, their beloved blanket,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be, sooner than the girls do. Likely
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: because of socialization. Um. But twent of men in this
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: travel lodge survey reported that they take their teddy bear
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: with them when going away on business because they found
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it comforting. And on a related note, one intense single
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: men surveys that they hide their teddy bear when their
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: girlfriends stays over. Yeah, and fourteen percent of married men
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: said they hide it when family and friends come to visit.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So there you go. Yeah, I mean I do think
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that there is uh like, socially we think that it's
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: like less okay for a guy to hang on to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: this stuff. I mean, that's still a minority of men
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: who are hiding their stuffed animals their lovees well and that,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: but that's also self reporting that maybe the maybe the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: numbers artificially low. Who knows, um. But to get a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: little more into the psychology of why we would hang
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: on to something like that for years and years and years,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: it's this combination of essentialism and an endowment effect, which
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: is the idea that objects are more than just their
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: physical selves. You know, that rabbit that you have is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: not just a stuffed rabbit filled with cotton. It is
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: a gift from your mother. Maybe something I'm not I'm
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: not trying to put it like, I'm not trying to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: endow your rabbit with me. Are you trying to say
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that I talked to it at night? Because I don't.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: But as an example, you're you know, if you were
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: practicing essentialism, your rabbit would not just be a rabbit,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: but maybe a symbol of your mother, who you don't
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: get to see all the time. And then with endowment,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: we place more value in things when we feel ownership
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: over them. So even though that rabbit might not cost
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: so much, if you were to lose it, you would
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: probably be sad about the value of it because it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: linked to your mom. I know, again, only using your
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: rabbit as an example, I would have totally been sad
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to lose the koala. She was She was totally a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: mother figure. Yeah, it would have been irreplaceable. Yeah, for
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: children with those beloved stuffed animals. It doesn't matter whether
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: you have the exact same koala that was sitting next
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to it on the store shelf. It's not the one
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: that you know, that's right. Yeah, And even even when
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: you know you mentioned that boys cast off those those lovees,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: those those stuffed animals earlier than girls do. They still
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: know where they are, uh. Nineties six study from the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry found they
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: talked to middle schoolers and they found that while of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: girls and twelve percent of boys still use their security
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: object at the age of thirteen or fourteen, seventy of
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the girls and percent of the boys still knew where
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the object was. They're still like, yeah, it's still under
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: my bed. Yeah. And even in adulthood. There was a
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: study which found that people experienced stress just cutting up
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: pictures of beloved objects, which I can imagine. I mean,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: they measured their heart rate and uh there the amount
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: of palm sweat and found that both increased as they
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: were cutting stuff up, which I can imagine if I
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: were to cut up a picture of Duckie. Even now,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I feel very weird about it, kind of kind of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: blasphemous in a way. Um. But some researchers have looked
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: into the issue of childhood and neglect, playing into attachment
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: to sufed animals, wondering whether or not kids use stuffed
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: animals as tools to get through traumatic events, especially um
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: parental neglect, because they are those transitional objects. Psychologists would
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: say between uh, being very close with um a mother
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: in particular, but as you're being weaned from the breast. Uh.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And there was a paper that we found published in
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: March two thousand and twelve in the journal and Throw
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Zoos called childhood neglect attachment to companion animals and stuffed
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: animals as attachment objects in women and men, and their
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: hypothesis was that childhood neglect would be positively related to
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: attachment to stuffed animals. And that was not supported. Like
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: basically saying, okay, if you were very attached to a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: stuffed animal does not mean that we're likely neglected as
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: a child. I was definitely not neglected, and I was
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: super attached to a lot of stuffed animals. Well, that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: all so supports though the study finding that women are
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit more attached to both companion animals, the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: pets and stuffed animals compared to men. But I wonder, though,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: how much of that really is the socialization factor if
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: we were just all allowed to carry our our Linus blankets. Well,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that's interesting too that you bring up Linus, because three
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of the primary examples I can think of in literature
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: slash pop culture of attachment blankets would be a Milns
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Winnie the Pooh owned by Christopher Robin, and then in
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Brideshead Revisited, you have a Loysis, the Teddy Brear that's
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: taken along to college, and then you have Linus. Yeah,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the boy. It's all these boys with their attachment objects.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: That's true. Side observation m okay, well, so what do
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you do when you've lost your kids stuffed animals? Freak out? Blank? Yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you freak out because you're like, oh my god, my
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: kid is never going to recover, he's never gonna stop crying.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I need to find that thing. But it turns out
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that anxiety is really more the parents uh than the
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: kids overreacting, and that parents might actually inadvertently encourage attachment
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: to a particular object when they freak out. Stephanie Pratola,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: psychologist in June, told USA Today that kids can pick
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: up on parents frantic reactions to a lost item and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: not so surprisingly. The Internet has also stepped in with
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: resources for finding lost lovees. There are sites such as
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: eBay that has uh do They have special uh segments
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: set up for long have a special area like it's
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: called toy box or something. There's also lost my Love
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: e LLC and plush memories. Yeah, they kind of hook
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you up with people who will send you a toy.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: If you get on there and you're like, my kid
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: lost her purple dinosaur, some other mom in Ohio can
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, I have a purple dinosaur that my
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: kid doesn't care about, and we'll mail you the purple
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: dinosaur and all will be well with the world. Um.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: But one thing, speaking though, of gender, Even though the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: studies that we found indicate, like we said, that girls
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: tend to form stronger attachments or and longer attachments to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: these transitional objects, but I want to know, in terms
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: of naming, whether what role gender played in that, whether
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: or not For instance, uh, kids were more likely to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: name Stay a lion with a masculine name, whereas we
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: might name a pony with a more feminine name. Who
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't able to find anything about that. Just kind of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: wondering how, since kids are forming these strong attachments around
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the same time that they're really forming gender identities, whether
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: or not that's reflected onto their stuffed animal. If it's
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: like our stuffed animals ourselves, you know, yeah, I mean
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: maybe it makes sense. Doesn't say anything about or or
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I mean just like for for me, you know, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: named my duck ducky. But she was a girl. But
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: then again, she wore a dress, now that I recall,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, my koala was a girl. And I don't
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: think koalas are very gendered, are they or are they?
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: They're cuddly, they're cuddling, cuddly, So it was a girl.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But my glow worm, I actually, I
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: actually did get in trouble in preschool or kindergarten. I
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: had a glow worm, which, if you recall from the eighties,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: they had those squishy bodies but that really really hard
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: face and and Carol was tormenting classmates by hitting some
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of them with the glow worm. The glow worm have
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: a name. Shoot, probably I can't remember any of these names.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: It's kind of tormenting me. Well, the close things out
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: on this episode about stuffed animal, how about ending with
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: some totally ridiculous advice or stuffed animal symbolism. Yeah, you're
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the website. Your tango is trying to give some perspective
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to men on what it means if a woman that
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you are seeing has a stuffed animal in her house
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and if she does what type is it, because oh,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: that has so many hidden meanings. According to this, the
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: woman that you really want to date, um, she should
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: probably either have no stuffed animals. A classic teddy bear
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: or maybe a raggedy old one does seem like the best.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: They say that a woman with no stuffed animals, she's practical,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: she's no frill. She'll probably offer to go Dutch and
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: buy books from a secondhand store, and she probably enjoys
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a homemade dinner just as much as a forest restaurant.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: But if she has a cheap collection from the drug store,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: she's cheap with questionable taste and has cheap x is. Yeah,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: and watch out for the women whose beds are covered
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: in stuffed animals. They probably don't get a lot of action, gentlemen.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: She's probably a neat freak from if she has a
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: lot of free tam on her hands. Oh what bizarre
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: things we assume about people. Yeah, I would say check
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: yourself if you are cross checking the internets for information
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: about what someone stuffed animal collection means about them. Yeah,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are probably other ways to tell if
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: someone is mentally stable or not. Yeah, by just asking
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: them a series of questions on the clipboard that you
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: carry around on your dates. Yes, exactly. Um, well, we
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: want to hear though about people's stuffed animals, what they
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: meant to them, and also for adults out there, do
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: you still keep stuffed animals? And if you do, why
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: haven't you gotten rid of them? What do they mean
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: to you? I think right now all of my stuffed
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: animals are at my parents house, but my mom has
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: been very vigilant about holding onto them, and I don't
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: think I could ever really throw them away. I would
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: feel weird throwing them away just be has the meaning
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: attached or because they have little personalities. I guess the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: meaning attached, it would be it would be weird, it
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: would be I think it would be weirder for I
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: would feel like I was breaking my mom's heart. See,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: my mom is like get rid of everything. Every time
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I see her, she's like, you know, you still have
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: some stuff in your closet at our house, right, except
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: she's also giving you stuffed rabbits stuff. She's also giving
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: me stuffed rabbits. I don't know. I'm getting mixed signals.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Sally Sally, Well, write to us about yours or your
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: children stuffed animals. Please share share any and all memories
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: this has evoked. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: where you can send your letters. You can also send
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: us a message on Facebook or a quick shout out
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast. And now back to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: our letters. Yeah, here's one from Jennifer about our crying
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: at work episode. She says, I don't see the issue
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: unless it's someone man or woman who cries constantly, mainly
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: because that brings into question the validity of their tears.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Manipulative crying is never appreciated. But I don't see any
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: problem with crying in general. Holding it in or acting
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: like we're too tough to cry I can be very
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: harmful emotionally in the long run. Your comments and suggestions
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: made it seem like there's still a general stigma against
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: crying at work or in public in general, which I'm
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: not sure there is. Perhaps that was the case for
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: earlier generations, like you said, but I really think this
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: current generation actually appreciates honesty of emotion. I don't see
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that it freaks people out, as you put it, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: rather help people realize that everyone is human and that
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: we all have bad days. I don't know, I have
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: to say that crying at work freaks me out. Even
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: when it's me, it freaks me out. But thanks Jennifer. Well,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I've got an email here from Dave and he writes,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I'm a man, and up until recently, I've spent a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: lot of time crying in the office, sometimes at my desk,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: but when I got really bad, two or three times
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a day in the bathroom. And there's something that you
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: didn't mention, and that is that there may be something
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: wrong with your brain. I cried so often because I
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: just couldn't cope with my responsibility at work or at home.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Six weeks ago, I was diagnosed with a d h
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: D and now take medication for it daily. My situation
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: at work improved very quickly, and I haven't had to
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: run to the bathroom and cry since I started taking
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the meds. Other people may be clinically depressed, has severe
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: anxiety or other health problems. A brain disorder or a
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: chemical imbalance often isn't something you can think or positive
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: talk your way out of. I'm not saying that medication
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: should ever be the first choice, and that you should
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: resort to medication if you're feeling a little sad, but
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: if you find yourself crying uncontrollably, and it's happening every day.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: You might want to talk to your doctor, so again.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You can send your letters to mom Stuff at Discovery
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Facebook, where we're
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: always up to lots of fun, and Twitter at Mom's
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast. You can also follow us on Tumblr, It's
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never told You dot tumbler dot com, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: if you'd like to visit our website during the week,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: It's how Stuff Works dot com. Or more on this
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
• 33:03
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