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[Meiko]

I was throwing away old stuff the other day, and among all the rubbish I found my small collection of My Little Ponies and Barbies. No evil comments, please! But it made me all nostalgic! And all their dresses and accessories! I remembered every one of them so well! I decided to keep them and because of it, because of the fact I can never throw away a significant amount of junk, my room will never be tidy

What are the things, toys and more, from your childhood you remember with more nostalgia? What are the things that give you the best flashbacks? What things you regret you had to throw away? What things you're saddened to not see in stores anymore these days?

[Pu the Owl]

Moomins, but I still like them!

[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by Meiko

What things you regret you had to throw away?

Well, the incident I'm about to share isn’t really totally about regret but it's something like that.

It happened to my sister when she was a little girl. Before I was born, my parents and sister lived in a small apartment and our uncle and his wife were staying with them for a couple of weeks. Now, my sister had this little castle playset that she really loved. She brought it over from Taiwan so it couldn't be found in the States. It was obvious my sister really loved it because, even now, she remembers what it looked like, what color it was, and how many towers it had…and my sister hardly remembers anything, okay.

One day, our aunt had mistakenly used or threw something that belonged to my mother away and our mom didn’t realize it until a couple of days later. Well, our mom has a tendency to blame us instead of thinking that perhaps other people may be in the wrong. So when she confronted my sister, my sister, obviously, had no idea what she was talking about and kept repeating over and over that she didn't do it. Our mom got fed up so she went over, grabbed the castle, and threw it against the wall where it broke. My sister was really devastated and our aunt finally said that it was her fault when she asked our mom why my sister was crying. Unfortunately our mom was too proud to admit she's wrong so she never really "made it up" to her and just pretended the incident never happened.

So, that's sort of a regretful story because my sister regretted she had to lose a toy she loved over something that wasn't her fault. Irritating but that's the way it is.

I get very attached to my items but a lot of my childhood toys were thrown away except for maybe some stuffed animals. Most of the stuff I owned were very generic; you can still find them nowadays (except maybe the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" action figures…I had one of them…Leonardo, I believe). Oh, and maybe some of the toys now are reproduced differently and look horrible…like the new "Strawberry Shortcake" stuff…how fugly are they?!

[Pu the Owl]

Why are adults always like that? Your sister's story... it's too sad!

[Berserker]

Yeah Meryl sad story indeed, my parents once threw away one big stuffed animal I had in the corner off my room. When I looked out of the window it was standing on the side off the road waiting for the garbagemen to come and pick it up....made me really sad. I still blame them to this day, all the s%&^ that I have put my parents through I say to myself....serves them right.... They really had it coming...

I mostly favoured my he-man, mask and GI-Joe toys. One guy in our street had this mad amount of star wars gear, including the emperor's battleship, 2 at-at's etc. play days at his pen always ruled

[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by Panuru

Why are adults always like that? Your sister's story... it's too sad!

I know, it always breaks my heart when I think about it. She's actually not a very sentimental person but when she thinks about that toy she always seems a little blue.

Originally Posted by Berserker

Yeah Meryl sad story indeed, my parents once threw away one big stuffed animal I had in the corner off my room. When I looked out of the window it was standing on the side off the road waiting for the garbagemen to come and pick it up....made me really sad. I still blame them to this day, all the s%&^ that I have put my parents through I say to myself....serves them right.... They really had it coming...

LOL, your last few sentences made me laugh really hard. But your story is very, very sad too...your situation is a like a total nightmare for kids everywhere, seriously. Coincidentally, your story reminds me of another sad incident that happened to my sister when she was a bit older, though it's not as bad as the first. My sister had this stuffed animal, a shaggy doggy, that she was pretty attached to. Our mom (yes, I kid you not, it involves her again) wanted to clean the dog because it was actually just kinda dirty...not unbearable or anything but our mom hates anything that has a speck of dirt. -_-;;; So she put it into the washer and when it came out, the dog was all tattered. So, my sister decided to throw it away herself because it was pretty much ruined. Our mom isn't to blame though because her intentions were completely innocent this time but still...

EDIT: Ahhh...all the nostalgia is actually bringing up bad memories instead of happy ones, LOL!

[Pu the Owl]

Ah, I'm so sorry for your stuffed animal Berserker! That was something really mean to do to a child

Meryl yes, your mother's intentions were innocent, but your sister is not very lucky when it comes to these things, or so it seems!

I have a similar memory of broken toys, too. Not directly involving my parents though. I was 5 and it was my birthday and I was very happy because I received for presents some toys I've been requesting for ages. Since adults in these cases are always morons, and my parents were no exception, they invited all their friends with their children to a little party to celebrate. The children invited to my birthday party were all older than me. They were not my friends, but as I said they were there only because they were the children of my parents' friends. They started playing with my NEW toys, the ones I got for my birthday, not letting me play with them and pushing me away saying I was too young and young girls are annoying. Since those were not their own toys, they didn't give a damn and they broke them all. As you can guess, I did not enjoy the day: I didn't like these kids and I saw them breaking my new toys before my eyes without being able to say anything. Adults only wanted to be left alone and couldn't care less. After everybody left I went to complain to my parents because all my presents were now just trash, but while I was waiting for some sympathetic word and a promise to be avenged somehow, I got scolded for complaining.

[happy_doughnut]

What sad stories.

Sometimes I wonder if our parents were so "different" during their childhood that they seem to think that our "clinginess" towards toys (things that are ours) is silly or absurd, hence why when they throw them away or something of the like, they don't think it's a big deal. Hm.

Anyway, I must confess that the only thing I have from my childhood is my Super Nintendo, the original controller, and the very first game they bought me for it: Zelda (LttP).

I used to have some other things, like more videogames (for the SNes), stuffed animals, a Sailor Venus doll/AF (this was one of the two actual dolls I had, I think--I never liked dolls much), a little tea set, and some other things like that.

I also had some more special things: I had a box full of dried flowers that I loved, some notebooks where I had "sketches" (back from when I wanted to "make clothes" ), some medals and awards I got in grade school, and a jewelry box where I kept all of the fantasy jewelry that my family gave me because they knew I loved those things (and still do), so they would often give me them as gifts.

And, as you guys probably know, I'm a very sentimental person, so I got really attached to these things, especially the latter group.

I kept these things from since when I was really, really young to until when I was 13 or so.

Around this time, a distant relative of ours and his wife and baby needed a place to say, and guess who go kicked out of her room? Yep, me. I remember I only got like a 2 day's notice, which went something like: "Brenda, so and so is coming to stay here for a few weeks, so I need you to put all of your things in boxes and keep only what's essential because we're going to let them stay in your room."

!!

Naturaly, I asked her where, you know, *I* was going to sleep, since we didn't have a spare room, and she pointed the living room (I ended up sharing a room with her, though, which, in hindsight, was worse...). I had to put just about everything away, except my clothes and books and my PSO and other things like that.

I packed them, thinking that they were going to go inside the garage, but they went into a storage house instead, where they remained there for what seemed like forever. And then, to make it worse, my dad decided that those were all things that were completely unnecessary, so he ended up not bringing anything back! I bet he sold them.

Hello! It was just my stuff! Of course it wasn't necessary--to you!!

The only reason my SNes was salvaged was because my nephews had it at the time.

So, that's really all I have from back when I was a child. It sucks.

I have all the things people have given me since I was a teenager, though, and some of them, like the letters written to me by a good friend, make me get all warm and fuzzy inside when I read them.

Oh, the better times. =\

[Berserker]

I'm not gonna have children, cause I'm starting to see a pattern here...having kids will transform you into a complete and utter bastard...

These are all sad stories, well at least we all seem to have suffered some kind of parent-terror.

Like Meryl said, it's bringing back lots of memories, but I guess not the ones Meiko had in mind with this thread...

[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by Panuru

Meryl yes, your mother's intentions were innocent, but your sister is not very lucky when it comes to these things, or so it seems!

Hehe, yes that's very true...which is probably why she became a not-so-sentimental person.

Your situation, Panuru, really pissed me off...those stupid little brats! It's too bad you couldn't beat the sh*t out of them. And the way your parents reacted is exactly how my parents would probably react too. Actually, parents in general are just pretty stupid and unfeeling.

happy_doughnut: Another stupid parent thing...I'm sorry that you lost all your stuff. I don't know why your dad couldn't have put it in the garage, I mean it's not like your stuff was going to take up the whole friggin' space, sheesh. T _ T But it's good that at least you didn't lose your SNES!

Originally Posted by Berserker

I'm not gonna have children, cause I'm starting to see a pattern here...having kids will transform you into a complete and utter bastard...

LOL, yeah, it's like you have to take some kind of pledge before you enter parenthood otherwise you could never be one.

[Faile]

Such sad stories. I used to be a fiend for nostalgia, but I seem to have let go recently. Or rather maybe I've just started to forget. I do sometimes wonder where my most cherished items are; the complete winnie the pooh (I saw this recently, I'm sure. I kept letters and things in it too a couple of years), an old tattered and well travelled soft-toy frog (I believe he is near too). After experiencing the splitting of parents and their divorce, I guess I too split from my childhood at an early age. It's hard to think about a lot of things from then now, but such is life. The one thing I promise myself is that if I ever have children (not that I think I will), I'll not make the mistakes my parents made. But then again, they're are just as fallable as any other human, and that was always shown to be true just when you need them to be industructable.

Oh, and the moomins totally scare me! I could never rest if a moomin was near!

[Pu the Owl]

Originally Posted by Faile

Oh, and the moomins totally scare me! I could never rest if a moomin was near!

That's interesting... how could you be terrified by a creature resembling to a hippo? Or is it just the general "Moomin" atmosphere, not the creatures themselves, to be scary in your eyes?

[Faile]

I think it's definitely the atmosphere and the general "feel" of them that unsettles me. The warped familiar aspect of it. It's like Lovecraft in that's it's a slightly distorted echo of our world! Arrgh!

[Pu the Owl]

Originally Posted by Faile

It's like Lovecraft in that's it's a slightly distorted echo of our world! Arrgh!

Very true! You said it so well! If you look at the Moomins from this perspective, they definitely have a "disturbing" feel to them.They're not like average children books, with anthropomorphic animals etc. They exceed that. But without completely going off limits. Add to it the Scandinavian touch, the Scandinavian way of perceiving natural elements, the personification of Nature and its mysterious aspects. It's very peculiar.

[Meiko]

Such sad stories! I had some other kids destroying my toys now and then, but never intentionally! Never happened with my parents or relatives! At least from what I remember, so if it happened I think it must have been some unimportant incident.

Why do you think parents are often so little interested in their children's attachment to their most treasured toys?

[Faile]

Originally Posted by Panuru

...If you look at the Moomins from this perspective, they definitely have a "disturbing" feel to them...

For me, I guess it has a lot to do with growing up with Winnie the Pooh, too, by way of comparison. Whereas that seems very normal and happy to me (for the most part), the Moomins has an air of darkness. Then again, I did cry after reading the last Pooh story as a child and it still makes me sad today, it conjured sadness in me at an early age and probably created and informed my sense of melancholy that I can seem to carry with me. Just look at Eeyore too, though he was never really tragic, merely disaffected. Hmm. How odd! I wonder if anybody has ever carried out a study in to the effect of different stories on the later-lives of children.
It feels quite odd to be talking of childhood as if it was a long time ago too. I can't believe I'm now twenty three...

[Hylas]

When I was little I was envious of my brother's Lego

[Pu the Owl]

Originally Posted by Faile

I wonder if anybody has ever carried out a study in to the effect of different stories on the later-lives of children.

That would be really interesting... But you know... biographic sources say Hitler was a great Winnie the Pooh fan. Story teaches you that after all one can never know what is really gloomy and what is cheerful and what influence both can have on a human mind

[merylsilverburg]

It seems like the popular opinion (not accusing anyone here, btw) is that the "Winnie the Pooh" series is "funny" or "happy." It kinda bothers me because I never felt that the series or any of the characters were happy, cheerful, funny, or even cute. I mean, yes, their physical aspect can be described as cute but their personalities, situations, and so on never came across to me as "Hahaha, that's sooo adorable!" or "Heeheehee, that's hilarious!" All the characters have flaws and little oddities to their personality; which may or may not be part of their charm as overall characters. But for me, I felt they were kinda annoying (no offense to fans!) because Pooh always wants honey and thinks of nothing but it and inconveniences people to get his hands on it. And even though he seems to care about Piglet, I feel like he doesn't treasure him as much as he claims. There's other things too. Also, I always felt the series had a sort of depressing air about it.

I hope I made sense and didn't offend anyone.

Originally Posted by Meiko

Why do you think parents are often so little interested in their children's attachment to their most treasured toys?

Good question. I think it may have something to do with adulthood and the worries of adulthood; family, jobs, money, bills, etc. With all of these in mind, the attachment to "silly" material stuff like toys is just either nonsense or immature. They've been away from such a thing so long they've forgotten what it feels like because the material goods they care about pertains to what ranks as important as an adult, like money and so on. At least that's what I think...

...of course, this is not saying that all parents should allow their kids to store everything until it accumulates so much it takes up a part of the home.

[Pu the Owl]

It's true: all characters in Milne's stories have their oddities and they seem pretty much obsessed with something, not really going deep into anything else. I don't see it as a limit though, in fact they are supposed to be like this because they are toys, and humanization of toys cannot make these toys act 100% like humans or actual living beings, as that would make them appear even less realistic and coherent. Milne reflects on this, making their obsessive attitudes become a strong point. Pooh knows he has no brain and that he can only care about honey. The others know they're only toys and can think the way toys would think. They do not pretend to be anything else than stuffed animals, apart from Owl who indeed is regarded as ridiculously pretentious from the author's point of view. BTW, I think the "all cute and adorable" side is simply amplified by Disney taking away most of the irony, to make it be more accessible to nowadays easily distracted public, while it was on another level in the original works. Also, when you read the books, you can notice how the fact the characters' personality is so very simplified at first glance is a very powerful way to convey emotional impact without the need of trite sentimentalism, which anyway would be out of place in such context. Making their personalities be more complex or troubled or the events more complicated would have made the simple poetry and wisdom they succeed in delivering quite ridiculous and lacking depth. It's the details that accompany the naivete of the situations to allow content to stand out.