flea

I think we've lost Dillo's stuffed seal. I kind of knew she was misplaced, but I hunted everywhere tonight and can't find her. I can't even remember the last time I knew where she was. Did she accidentally get left in our old car? Could she be buried in his cubby at school? For some reason he really wanted her tonight, and cried and cried, "Sealy's gone forever."

Ugh.

Casper cut a doll's hair again last night, and she was upset that I got upset at her for it. As she put it, "It's MY doll!" It is her doll, but I find the cutting of dolls' hair, or coloring on toys, horrifying. I'm trying to wrap my brain around who's right here, and what I should do, since I think both of our viewpoints have validity.

As I explained to Casper last night, for me it is about respecting one's toys. I used the example of Sid from Toy Story. I can remember one time when I deliberately damaged a toy as a child - my sister and I used straight pins to poke holes in the breasts of the vintage Barbies we inherited from my mother, thus giving them nipples. I remember at the time knowing I was wrong (I was probably 8 or so) and have since read suggestions that girls are likely to damage Barbies in particular as a reaction against the patriarchy (stop laughing, it kind of makes sense!) The other times I can remember damaging something as a child were accidents, and very traumatic - I cut a triangular flap out of my hand-made smocked party dress by accident, while cutting princess crowns from paper (aged 6), and I pushed a rude playmate and her head went into the plaster replica of Greek horsemen from the acropolis that my mother had, breaking it (it was never able to be repaired (aged 8).

Casper sometimes draws on herself, and occasionally has drawn on her stuffed animals. Most of our markers are washable, so we discourage this drawing but have never freaked out about it. It's only recently that she has cut hair - in the last month she has cut the hair off a knock-off purple my little pony (basically a trash toy; I said that wasn't good but didn't make a big deal out of it), trimmed the braids on a Polly Pocket borrowed from a friend (which got a lecture about respecting other people's things and we went out and bought a new doll for the friend) and then last night she cut the hair of her 6-inch plastic Madeline doll.

Casper seems to feel that these are her toys, and she is free to play with them as she wants, and if that play involves cutting their hair, that's fine. The one thing I have impressed on her, twice now, is that if she EVER EVER cuts the Sasha dolls' hair (our special dolls from childhood, some of which she plays with in a special play space that isn't her room, and one of which I gave her at Christmas) they will be put away and she will never play with them again. I'm a little worried I'm setting myself up for deliberate damage with my vehemence here, and considering pre-emptively putting the Sasha dolls away until she is older. It would KILL me to see those dolls deliberately damaged.

Did you damage toys as a child? If you have kids, do they? Does Toy Story make you cry? What's your policy?