The Soul of a Toy
And the Magic that Makes Them Real
My three-year-old disappeared when we arrived at our vacation house last week, only to pop up later with a purplish plastic dinosaur he’d found.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“This is my friend, Brian.”
Unbeknownst to me, it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Dorian toted Brian around the house as we unpacked and out to the beach when we went to soak our feet in the salt water just as the sun was finishing its descent on the horizon. It had been a loooong day in the car.
Later, after I tucked him into bed, I heard distressed cries from Dorian’s bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” I asked peeking in.
“I need Brian!”
So it was that I found myself combing the beach in the dark, searching for a horn-faced dinosaur. Fortunately, I found him. He was among the last things I saw before falling asleep and the first thing I saw in the morning- him and the blonde child holding him under my nose.
“Brian is going to bite your hair. Rarr!”
The fated friends were inseparable from thenceforth. Brian tagged along for Dorian’s adventures, his meals, his bath time, and spent each night tucked under his chin.
It made me wonder, what is it about particular toys that seem to steal a child’s heart? Ever-fickle, children pass over play things until a random affinity strikes for one, drawing them in, and forging an emotional attachment that is difficult to break. According to pediatric psychologist, Richard Passman, up to sixty-percent of children have a so-called security object of some sort, be it a stuffed animal, a blanket, or other obscure toy.
Experts have coined these ‘transitional objects,’ and believe them to help children cope with changes or unfamiliar environments. I see this dynamic in my pediatric patients. They bring all manner of lovies into surgery, and even the most quiet of them become gregarious when asked about their little friend.
“Who is this? Can so-and-so hold your hand while you breathe into this mask?”
Much as they do each evening, the dolls sit as sentinels by their child’s head during the operation. When it’s over, we decorate them with the same bandage or cast the same extremity in a plaster matching the patient’s.
It has been suggested by psychologists Bruce Hood and Paul Bloom, that children perceive their attachment objects to have an “essence” of sorts. Something that is uniquely theirs and cannot be substituted. In a widely-cited study, they invited a group of children to a testing site and asked them to each bring a toy. Some brought so-called ‘attachment objects’ (criteria being having owned the object for at least a third of their lives and that the object was slept with regularly), or if they had no attachment object, they brought a favorite toy.
The children were presented with a “copying machine,” which was in reality two boxes decorated with bells and lights. The examiners demonstrated various objects being duplicated (an illusion created by putting an identical object in the other box). The children were delighted, but when the experimenter suggested they copy their own toy, the responses changed between the two groups.
Those with a toy of average significance were enthusiastic to copy it and a majority preferred the newer version over the original. Those with attachment objects were much more reticent. Several refused to allow their toy to be copied, and those that did overwhelmingly preferred the original over the reproduction. These children grew distressed and had to be debriefed after the study, the copy machine’s illusion revealed so as to reassure the children that the toy in hand was the original.
The researchers concluded that there is a unique quality to an attachment object, a je ne sais quoi that is impossible to replicate. Akin to a clone of one’s cherished pet or child, though identical, it’s still not the same.
It is almost as if being loved conveys upon the toys a soul.
It calls to mind the wisdom that the Old Skin Horse related to the Velveteen Rabbit:
“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
No statistic exists for the number of adults who still have their transition objects, but anecdotally many endorse having kept their cherished objects and many sleep with them still. Security blankets and stuffed animals are likely more prominent in the adult world than we think.
I don’t have one, but I can relate. When recalling movie scenes that have torn out my heart, Tom Hanks’ loss of the anthromorphised volleyball named Wilson in Cast Away is among the most potent of tear-jerkers.
By the end of the vacation week I had to make a decision between abandoning Brian, or kidnapping him. My sister-in-law offered to leave her cutting board at the house in recompense. In the end, we brought Brian home. It’s a slippery slope, but in this case, I determined that he belonged with the boy who made him Real. His ownership had somehow already been transferred.
Perhaps we need such things in life? Some method to feed our base instinct to love and treasure? Perhaps this is the bit of magic that makes not only our childhood friends Real, but us as well? Maybe, much like Tom Hanks’ character, this is the sort of thing that helps us survive?
Sure, he was isolated and stranded on an island alone… but aren’t we all from time to time?
Originally published at https://facingmonsters.com on July 23, 2020.
