Did You Appreciate Your Toys?

[Broken Irishwoman]

This probably seems like a stupid thing to ask on a toy forum, but I am genuinely curious, because... I didn't.

The thing is, we would really love to start a family, and we both love toys very much. Ponies, obviously, but also Sylvanians and other sweet things. I would be delighted if our children would play with all the Sylvanian stuff we have, but if they are anything like me, they will not appreciate it and possibly ruin it, too. I didn't ruin my toys on purpose, but I wanted to make them "better". I was flighty and had all these horrible, "uncute" interests. To illustrate my concern: Most of my barbies ended up as Chuckie or other monstrous things, for example. I was a weird child, seriously. Nothing like the Broken Irishwoman I am today. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I was the way I was...

So what about you? Did you actually play with your toys the way they were meant to be played with? I'd like to think that there are also normal kids in the world, who actually like cute families and want to imagine a peaceful, loving family life when they play with them.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

I think I appreciated some of my toys better than others.  Growing up, my dad was in the Air Force so we moved every 2-3 years and we would have a garage sale every time we moved so we went through our toys and got rid of the ones we didn't really like anymore.  I don't think I intentionally destroyed any of my toys but my Baby Frosting shows that I once took a pen to him (I always saw that one as a boy-probably because it was green and not pink or white) and even though he has pen marks, I still loved him and plan to keep him forever.

As far as play goes, my brothers' GI Joes used to ride into battle on the My Little Ponies and after playing in the dirt, they'd have a pony spa day.  When I played by myself they had adventures like in the cartoons, meeting up with my stuffed animals and other toys.  I also used them to put on puppet shows.  So I guess I played with them like they were "supposed" to be played with--like toys.

[BubbleTea]

I cherished my toys. I was actually very protective over them and would get angry if another child ever damaged them. I was not a sharer
 
Sometimes I'd cut hair though. I'd happily snip away at tails in order to make them more suitable for the show ring. 

[poniesthatsparkle]

I always tried to take care of my toys, but they usually ended up getting broken or worn out eventually. I did cut the hair and fur of several toys, but my ponies managed to make it out without even a single hair trimmed.

I think the only toys of mine that are still in decent shape are my Care Bears. But even some of those were chewed by the neighbors' beagle.

[LightheartRose]

My dad was in the military too, and we also didn't have a lot of money. It was pretty well drilled into mine and my brother's heads that if we intentionally destroyed a toy, we would be unlikely to get another and if we didn't keep track of them, we may not get a replacement. In fact, the only time I remember getting a damaged toy replaced was when someone stepped on one of my Transformers and broke her. It was an accident, so it was no big deal. (Yes, I totally did own Transformers, LOL. I was also sick with bronchitis at the time.)

As a result of this, we still had the vast majority of our toys. In recent years, we've been giving them away to deserving children or charities. We treated our toys like treasures, and there's still many we won't part with.

[MerryAnvil]

My sister and I were both pretty appreciative and careful with our toys, especially our ponies! We never wrote on them, or put makeup on them, or gave them haircuts, or played roughly with them. Well, that's not quite true...my sister did cut one toy's hair because she was mad at me and I'd given her that particular toy, but she instantly regretted it and cried for hours afterwards. We enjoyed giving our ponies gentle baths after we'd played with them outside, so they never became stained or anything like that (I was a weird nerdy child who actually got on the internet and researched pretty much anything I became interested in, so I found out about tail rust at like the age of seven or eight and groomed my ponies with care accordingly).

My sister was about four when she got her first pony, and despite being three and a half years apart, we were each others' best friends and were inseparable. As such, we loved playing 'family' with our ponies/other toys. I usually played the daddy figure, or else the sort of...caretaker-type character, and my sister often chose to play the baby ponies. It was sweet! Sometimes we'd take our ponies to a 'drive-in movie' (aka use toy cars to drive them to the living room in front of our TV and watch the G3 movies with them while munching on popcorn) or take them to the local Friendly's in our bicycle baskets, where we treated them to ice cream. I have very fond memories of our stories that we made up together.

[LadyMoondancer]

I think if you want your toys to remain pristine and unsullied . . . don't give them to a child.  Some kids are gentle on their toys, some kids are rough on their toys, and some kids are gentle on some and rough on others.  I was very gentle with My Little Ponies, but I cut up a bunch of antique doll clothes.  (I wanted it to fit my plush dogs and it didn't fit well because it was made for baby dolls, so out came the scissors . . .)  I cut the hair on some dolls and I put make-up in an antique doll's hair "to make her more colorful."  (It never came out.)

Sure, it's good to teach kids to treat their belongings nicely, BUT . . . toys are also there as "practice" before kids get ACTUAL really nice belongings.  With the expectation that, yeah, some things are going to be wrecked.  I think it is unrealistic and frankly unfair to expect a kid to never cut something up or draw on it.

Also:  I think it's admirable to want to share your own toy interests with your child.  But do keep in mind that your child is going to have their own interests, probably based on whatever is popular in their grade at the moment.  Imagine if, when you were a child, you wanted MLPs but your parents continually gave you Buck Rogers stuff because they loved Buck Rogers when they were little.  I think I would've found the first couple Buck Rogers things interesting, but then grown increasingly sad that I never got the stuff I actually wanted.

[Beldarna]

We didn't have a lot of money so the few toys I had was very well cared for. I did write on and cut the hair on a fakie and I did cut the fringe on Milky Way but that was all. The minute the fringe was off I realised it would not grow back and I was devastated.
I did have a friend as a kid who got everything she pointed at, I remember seeing a commercial for a Barbie and I mentioned I wanted her to my friend. Next time I was there she had the Barbie and did not allow me to play with her. (No she was not a good friend but the only one I had at that time.) Another time I went there, the Barbie was missing a leg and had been chewed on by their dog and friend didn't care. She also had a Fizzy I dreamed of saving.

When mom was a kid there was a fire in their apartment complex and she lost all her toys except one doll and the dolls crib. Mom kept that doll and crib in her bedroom when I grew up. As she knew the hurt of loosing toys she never made us get rid of ours, but to keep and decide for ourselves what we wanted to do with them when we were old enough to choose. Hence why all my treasured childhood toys are living in my library/ponyroom today.

[Shaz]

I wasn't intentionally rough with my toys, but they did take on a very 'loved' appearance. I still have my favourite childhood beanies and they all have untidy fur, scratched eyes, no tags etc. Some have stitches where they've been repaired, some have some paint or glitter on them where they 'helped' me with painting or whatever. They're not collector's pieces but I love them more than I could ever love pristine versions because they have so many happy memories associated with them. I definitely appreciated them (and still do!) but that doesn't mean I just kept them neatly on shelves!

It's also worth bearing in mind that kids are naturally a bit more heavy-handed/clumsy than adults. My girlfriend loved her childhood ponies and would never have scribbled on them or anything like that, but they did get broken sometimes, e.g. Little Flitter's wings came off as a result of enthusiastic 'flying'. But that just meant she got to play Hospitals, with her dad and his supply of superglue as chief surgeon!

I also have to say that I loved playing with my parents' childhood toys when I was little. They always seemed really special to me! But of course I liked to have my own toys too.

I had to laugh at the idea of playing happy families type games with Sylvanians. It's what they're designed for, but my childhood Sylvanians had the most insanely soapy storylines with people cheating on their spouses and single parent families and people living in poverty and all sorts . (I think the 'poverty' storyline came about to explain why not all the families had proper furniture, because I was still saving my pocket money to buy it. I used to have notebooks with 'Plans to Improve Life in Sylvania' and lists of what I needed to buy. I was a very odd child .) But I'm sure there are some children who play a more idyllic version of Sylvania!

[EnaRocketQueen]

I was usually good at looking after my childhood ponies. They nearly all got given away so I hope many of them are with collectors now.
The soft toys I had were much more shabby because I used to take them out of the house with me a lot. One that I still have went absolutely everywhere for years

[banditpony]

A toy is meant to be played with, not necessarily handled with white gloves. So if a toy develops wear and tear-- then that's most likely because it WAS loved and played with.

A toy that isn't appreciated is most likely shoved in a corner and ignored.

That said, I got my curious side out on mcdonald toys because I knew they were cheap. So my friend and I deliberately do damage to those toys to kind of see what would happen. Although then we got banned from eating McDonalds but it wasn't that big of a deal since I didn't like the food.

[LightheartRose]

A toy is meant to be played with, not necessarily handled with white gloves. So if a toy develops wear and tear-- then that's most likely because it WAS loved and played with.

A toy that isn't appreciated is most likely shoved in a corner and ignored.

That said, I got my curious side out on mcdonald toys because I knew they were cheap. So my friend and I deliberately do damage to those toys to kind of see what would happen. Although then we got banned from eating McDonalds but it wasn't that big of a deal since I didn't like the food.

I agree you there! You should see the Transformer I mentioned... she has worn out joints, chipped paint, and is just a mess to behold. But she was loved. No, she's not collector's material, but she was one of my favorite toys. The same with a bunch of my Barbies and stuff. Yes, they're still in good shape, but a Collector wouldn't buy them!

[nessa16]

I was very careful with my toys. They were loved and have normal wear but that’s it. I had a collector attitude somewhat as a child, especially with my American Girl doll. I would cry and grieve any lost or damaged pieces or items that I let go and later regretted.

My mom was always trying to get me to get rid of toys but I stood firm on certain things like my ponies. There are still many things that I did let go and really regret. I don’t understand why my mom was like that either because she resented my Grampa selling of a bunch of their toys instead of letting them keep them. She did save a few things like her Midge and Alan dolls, baby doll, and a metal kitchen cupboard. She would let me look at them but not play with them and I knew they were special to her.

[Taffeta]

I valued my toys because when I was small we had times when there was really not a lot of money. I remember my sister and I had some toys handed down from our cousins (fun games, mostly from my male cousin, my female cousin didn't seem to have as interesting taste xD) and also some donated by neighbours (like a couple of railway sets I used to run down the path in the garden we had when we lived still in Birmingham).

There were often toys I wanted that I never had because of cost - Crimp & Curl hair salon was one of them, the Ghostbusters HQ was another (the latter I made my own from a box xD). I used to make a lot of things for my toys because the actual sets were too expensive. I had a few pony sets from new when they went on sale (Dream Castle was apparently the last one in Boots following Christmas 1986? And I had it for my birthday that year as a result).

Ponies only ever came at Christmas/birthday or with Christmas or birthday money or if I saved up for a very long time. They were also often bought by grandparents. Other toys similarly. I only had a limited amount of money so had to choose carefully and from what was there in the store. Choosing a new toy - and increasingly it became a new pony - became a very special event to the point I remember choosing a lot of them and that most of the time the one I went to buy wasn't there...I would always go home with a pony, though, because I'd saved up for one and pony displays changed. I learned to love the ponies I had rather than stamp my foot and whine over the ones I couldn't find.

I never cut my ponies' hair. I cried when my mother had to cut a tiny piece of Stargleamer's tail to untangle her from Songster after the two of them had an unfortunate Christmas day meeting.

I wrote my names on their hooves and doing so meant two that strayed found their way back to me (Snowflake was almost stolen, Sky Rocket I left lying around inside school. It was a tiny school and I was the only kid with my name so everyone knew they were mine).

BUT my ponies did sometimes do things like go on nature trail walks or swim in puddles, or abseil out of windows or stuff like that. They would also sleep over at friends' houses because we'd do a night swap so we got to play with each other's ponies for a bit, and one of my friends managed to wash the curls from Strawberry Fair's hair. My Mountain Boys - 2 of them - got cracked hooves and someone deliberately broke Wild Flower's earring (never found out who, but it wasn't in my bag so someone must have either taken her out to play with her behind my back or done it on purpose) and those things upset me. However it didn't stop me from taking ponies to school or playing with them fully.

 I played with them but I looked after them as much as a kid can. I never did anything to actively abuse them.

I really liked doing their hair, too.

Other toys, pretty much the same. I would be really upset if a toy got damaged badly and needed repairing, even if it happened in normal play. I remember one of my parents accidentally broke one of my ghostbusters by messing with the arm too much and it had to be glued back on. I also ran a toy train off the dinner table when I was about four...my mother warned me if it fell off the table it would break..and I had to see if she was right...and she was...and there were tears. It was a thomas the tank engine wind up train thing and my mother, after scolding me for being stupid, wrote to the company and got a replacement face - but he always had a broken front set of buffers after that xD.

I think I valued every toy I had because I didn't get new toys every week. And I was absolutely ok with second hand.

I tried hard to keep the accessories for things safe but lost a few bits and pieces over the years.

I also played with my Mum's childhood dolls (much more interesting than the dolls available for my age range, my mother was a kid in the 50s xD) and my Dad's puppets (sometimes, when he let us...they're very precious to him).

[katrine2309]

I loved my toys! I didn’t harm them intentionally and I never cut them or drew on them. I wanted them to be as mint as possible, but I still played with them. I took them outside, and on boat trips to the beach. I loved my ponies, keypers, sylvanians and my stuffed toys. My playmo sets and my Barbies. I really, really took care of my toys- but my sister was a little bit more reckless so I used to “save” her toys by kidnapping them and hiding them under my bed. She always found out though, and I got seriously yelled at by my mom