Vox Publica OLD

The value of things

I fear that my daughter doesn't value enough her toys and possessions and that this is completely my fault. You see, when Mika was small I made a point to let her know that anything she lost or damaged could easily be replaced. I simply did not want her to be heartbroken, much less traumatized, by the loss of some cherished toy. That worked too well, as her response to such losses now is “we need to buy another one.” I express my agreement and sometimes - when she doesn’t forget - I even comply.

This perhaps foolish behavior is, of course, rooted in my own childhood. When I was a young kid I had a precious toy monkey. As my mother continues to remind me, buying such monkey was a huge sacrifice for her, it cost a whole month of salary (the disproportionate cost of children toys in Argentina is a subject for another essay). She, clearly more than I, greatly valued it.

The details of the event are hazy in my memory. I remember how my grandmother used to take me, perhaps every day, to an area behind the tennis courts at the Estudiantes de La Plata club where they had a couple of swings (why there, I have no idea). One day apparently I insisted in taking this toy monkey with me and apparently I left it behind. As one can expect, it wasn’t there when we came to look for it.

My mother responded as she often does, by giving me a huge guilt trip about it. At such a tender age, my desolation at the loss had more to do with hurting and disappointing my mother than with missing the actual toy, though I can still feel the pain of that loss. For years, whenever I would go into that area I would look for the missing monkey, my hope not fully defeated by my anguish.

That was the first (or second, I also lost my mother’s doll at my preschool, yet another traumatic event that still aches me) of many losses. In the years to come, not only was I to leave behind toys and clothing (that P.E. jacket in second grande and then again in fifth grade), but also books, purses and a myriad of keys and sun glasses (I’ve taken to buy the latter at the 99-cents store, so that I don’t have to feel bad when I lose yet another pair). When I was in college I took to wearing my room key around my neck, but that didn’t prevent me from losing my meal card two or three times - and going hungry for a few days while I put together the $25 replacement charge.

Losing my passport in Turkey led me to a pleasant cultural experience when I visited the local police station to make the report. The super-efficient Turkish police actually had it - they had picked it up within moments of my dropping it at a central bus stop. They regaled me with teas and conversation, while they laughed at my folly. Losing it again in Mexico had much less pleasant consequences. I couldn’t get it back, and the Mexican authorities kept me overnight at the Mexico City airport, from where I’d meant to take a plane to Tijuana, to see if I indeed had the legal right to go to the United States. On the plus side, the cost of replacing the green card I’d lost along with my passport, is what finally compelled me to become a US citizen. A few years later, I’d lose my US passport in Peru and learn about the difficulties of getting US-size passport pictures in that country (I finally got one by a makeshift photographer outside of the consulate). At that time, I was able to get my passport replaced in a hurry thanks to the intervention of my congressman, but I wouldn’t count in being able to do it again.

My propensity for losing things was my main reason for telling my fiancé to forgo an engagement or wedding ring - I’d already lost a precious ring my favorite aunt had given me (it had slipped off my finger while putting laundry to dry outside a 4th floor window in an apartment in Cairo, and fell into a pile of garbage from which I could not get it back), and I didn’t want to risk this happening again. Mike did buy me a cheap colorful ring during our honeymoon in Guatemala, and needless to say I have no idea where it is.

With the passage of time, I have made my peace with losing things. I don’t buy or carry anything that I can’t afford to lose, and make a point of not becoming strongly attached to any material possession.

But I’m not sure if this is an attitude I should be teaching my daughter. I don’t want her to be careless, of course, but I also recognize that little children will forget and lose things. At her age, her focus should be on having fun, not in making sure she brings back everything with her (that should be my job, and we already know how much I suck at it). And I don’t want her to be in pain when she does lose something that is dear to her. So I’ve taught her that we can alway buy another one of anything. Now I wonder if that was a good lesson.

A few months ago she was very attached to a baby doll that we’d bought at Habitot. My husband would check that she had it whenever we went anywhere, but it still managed to be left behind at a hotel in Hilo. We were about an hour away from the hotel by the time she pointed out the loss, and were simply not willing to go back to get it. She was somewhat distraught by its loss, but quickly accepted that we’d get another one next time we went to Habitot. She did insist that we take her there as soon as we returned from that trip, and I indeed bought her another baby doll. A few months later, she pays only occasional attention to it.

But I’m left with the question of whether I’ve done the right thing. At 2 or 3 years old, is it really better to have love and lost a toy than to never have loved a toy at all? Am I interfering in her creating critical relationships with inanimate objects that will teach her the beauty of unconditional love (I mean, who can you love or be loved by more unconditionally than a toy?). Am I preventing her from learning how to properly grieve and making it more difficult for her to recover from losses in the future? As I write this, I rather think yes and yet, grieving over lost toys has certainly not made me into an emotionally well-adjusted individual.

Ultimately, this is just another example of how difficult parenting is, how the best intentions can lead us to dramatically mess up our kids, and how whatever choices we make are likely to be the wrong ones.

I don't know if it's too late for Michaela to start valuing her toys more, but I think next time she does lose one she values I may be less prompt to tell her it can be easily replaced.

Posted by marga at March 21, 2005 6:07 AM | TrackBack