What are your family's feelings about your pony obsession?

[dragonfly]

Family or closest friends. I know it's a sensitive topic for some and we've discussed before. But I'm curious to see in a poll what the results are and this can be a support thread for people whose IRL family isn't supportive or accepting.

My family is and has always been supportive of my pony habit. They don't totally understand it, but whatever floats my boat. I get ponies and pony stuff as gifts; if they see a pony they'll pick it up for me. And of course, they tease.

So I'm lucky.

[Leave a Whisper]

My daughter collects too, most of my family is indifferent. My aunty thinks its cute.

[DazzleKitty]

They are okay with it. My mom and dad don't like how I spend so much money on them but they do understand they are an investment. My brothers are the ones who actually take me to the MLP Fair. If that isn't support, I don't know what is. My boyfriend is very supportive and says if we move in together we can have ponies all over the apartment. My friends and coworkers are always bringing me pony gifts. I often find pony stuff on my desk at work randomly. They know me well.

[northstar3184]

I keep my collection secret. 70+ ponies in two dresser drawers and my family has no clue they exist. 

[HelloGoodbye]

My family is very supportive of my ponies!  I often get ponies for my birthday or Christmas from my parents or my brother, and my Mom once even helped me put together a bookshelf for my ponies to be displayed on!  For a brief time my brother was into G4, mainly the cartoon, but he did buy a couple of toys.  Once he was no longer as into it, he gave me the toys (mostly blind bags) so that was nice.  I feel very lucky that my family not only puts up with my various collections (ponies, Breyer Horses, anime merch/figures, etc.), but encourages them!

[Miniature Sheep]

I tend not to bring up ponies around friends and family because it's not really a topic any of them are interested in, which is fair dues. I just bore them about cartoons instead.

[SpaceButtPonies]

They know, they don't care what I get cause honestly its my money in the end lol. What's nice is they don't make fun of me

[NigheanRuadh]

My family is very supportive.  My husband has gone with me to get ponies and has gone to get them when I couldn't (the day after our baby was born).  He has bought some wall shelves to display my collection, although we haven't put them up yet.  He also bought me a G4 Rarity brushable just because it made him think of me when he saw it in the store.  (I collect G1, but it was a pony, so it reminded him of me.)  My mom recently brought me the accessories and sets that I had left at her house when I moved out 13 years ago, and she kept an eye out for pony stuff while we were thrifting together.  My sister-in-law has sent me links to pony lots that she's seen on sales sites.  And my midwife (not family, but she's been in our house a lot) loved seeing the ponies in various places and thought it neat that I have a collection of them.  (She's about my mom's age.)  So I have a lot of support. 

[Artemesia's Garden]

They are ok with it. My sister had kept some of her own and will buy me ponies for Christmas and birthdays

[shabbychicdee]

i clicked the "They would judge so keep it a secret but that is my parents and siblings (i come from a large family)
and im the youngest of six, so some of them would think its odd, weird, juvenile and make fun and laugh at me or think im wasting my time, wasting my money.
my mum knows as she saw them all one day while staying with us, i gave her my G3 Lulabelle which she loved. then when she stayed last time she kept asking about them, where they all went (as i have them stored away) she was kind of giggly, i have a feeling she told either my brother and/or my sister that live by her about my hoard of ponies, my addiction to pastel plastic things. 

my family family (husband and 2 kids) are great of course.......they have to be, they live with me my hubby is all good as long as they don't come out to the living room or take over or over spend on them which is fine with me, my kids know and yell out when we are out at the shops "DO YOU HAVE THIS ONE MUM, ARE YOU GOING TO BUY IT" 
I just hope they don't tell their teachers at school. i like to keep it personal. i told 2 close friends once, one thought it was awesome and the other laughed at me. 

btw my husband does have a field day making up silly names for them so kind of making fun of them. ...but he is a funny guy

[Sukey]

My husband is supportive as he also collects toys- just not as much as I do.

My dad makes remarks about my collection sometimes- they are in my living room. Mom is a little bit more accepting. I think at first she thought it was really stupid and a waste of money. Maybe she just doesn't say as much anymore, because I have been collecting for 17 years and probably figures what's the use.

[zombienixon]

I honestly don't know which one to pick. For the most part, this is something I want to keep secret from pretty much anyone else that isn't into MLP.  However, because I had my entire collection (which at the time was around 50 blind bags and a few brushables that fit on the shelves on my computer desk) completely visible in my room, and was kind of hoping that people just wouldn't go in there if I wasn't there, it was seen by my sister when she went in to feed my cat.

I also told my Mom about it when she said she went into my room to see my cat. She didn't seem to mind, and there was a time when I would mention it to her, but that stopped entirely about 2 years ago, mostly because I preferred not to have her know about it.

My sister is the only person in my family that I am okay with knowing about my collection. And also the only person who I would want to get me any kind of pony stuff. She's pretty supportive and it makes getting gifts for me a lot easier for her.

Even so, I try to keep her from seeing my entire collection just because of how big it's gotten. About the only people I want to see that are other collectors.

I doubt the rest of my immediate family would judge, but I still prefer to keep it from them if I can.

[Shaiyeh]

My parents pick up ponies for me if they find them at fleamarkets (and they know the generations, how to tell hasbro from fakie etc and know I'm only interested in g1 and g2), so they're totes supportive. CLose friends are,too. One even recently bought me a g1 retro mug, bless him.
My fiancé is totally fine with it, too, and has a couple ponies of his own, one Muffin pony (what do we call her these days? Bubbles? ? haven't been on here since last year) and a BaB Rarity.
The only people who have been rude about it are people that no longer are in my life tbh, if they can't accept me and my interests as is, then they're not really a friend IMO. (especially when they themselves have super geeky interests, like warhammer or action figures, haha)

[Taxel]

This one is a kind of weird question to answer for me because it varies so much. I ended up picking one of the unsupportive answers because it has the most affect on me.

My boyfriend is completely supportive of all my collections (MLP, toys, and dolls). He didn't like when the pony display was a chaotic mess because I had no way to organize them properly, but I didn't like that either. Now that I have actual furniture and not just boxes everything is much nicer so he doesn't mind at all. He doesn't mind any of the stuff I keep around my computer in the living room either, and if we had a say in decor I doubt he'd mind some stuff chilling on display in the living room. He's bought ponies and dolls, including extremely expensive ones, for me as gifts. He even has a couple of his own, like a custom Jack Skellington pony and a SHG Harley.

My basically MIL though.... she's very.... weird. She's supportive in the sense that she'll buy me pony/doll things for holidays, but in general she's extremely unsupportive. Any time I acquire a new possession, even a 1in tall figure, gets a lot of complaints about "omg where will you put it?!?!? there's no room!!!!!!!" when she'd never notice if the figure was on boyfriend and I's bookshelf or not. And she's tried to pressure me to sell them in the past. But with the very expensive doll I got for my birthday, she fawned over all the very expensive clothes and was saying how cute they all were. She was very encouraging about (eventually!) having them all, and she said she'd buy a really really overpriced piece for Christmas so I was stunned. Aside from that, she actively discourages my collections.
She just really really hates actual, tangible objects I guess? She doesn't mind my boyfriend's video game collection (on Steam) in any way and is very encouraging of him buying more so its very weird. Its completely backwards from anyone I've ever known, especially older people.

The rest of the family is mostly supportive!

My boyfriend's uncle buys me pony or doll things, he doesn't even care. He'd buy whatever I put on my Christmas/birthday list as long as it was a reasonable price. He's never said anything about it either way though really? So he's like, very chill supportive.

My aunt is super supportive! One time when I went down to visit we all (aunt, cousin, granny, aunt's friend) went to a flea market and every single person was on the lookout for ponies She was really excited when we found some. On another trip she bought me a G4 when we went to Target to pick up some groceries. She probably would've bought all of them but I was too chicken to let her! She sent one of those hand airbrushed t-shirts from like, Fairs and stuff a few years back for my birthday. It has a generic pink G3 and my name on it. This year she found someone locally to paint some fakies for me! And when she found out about my expensive doll she was really excited for me. So she's just amazing.

My granny is also supportive! She's passively collected dolls for basically her whole life and enters an AG-size doll outfit in the Fair most years. She has a small collection, mostly from other countries in traditional outfits, and she seemed really relieved when I ended up liking dolls too so they'd have someone to love them. She's bought me a couple things here and there, but mostly she buys me the practical gifts I need. I talked to her a lot about the expensive doll because I was excited to share it with her, but she thought I was hinting x.x So I can't really gush about them to her I guess cause she took it the wrong way!

My great aunt (granny's sister) is also very supportive, at least of the dolls. She was also really relieved and gave me her childhood doll collection last time we visited. She doesn't buy gifts really, but she collects both dolls and teddy bears so I think she gets it and doesn't mind my ponies either.

For the most part, my close friends are collectors or at least doll/pony admirers too so they get it Those that aren't don't really seem to mind, although I wouldn't call all of them supportive really? Mostly they're like, happy, polite neutral.

[TwistedRiver]

For the most part I am very lucky to have a supportive family, but then they've realized by now that it's a part of who I am. I have almost never gotten rid of a pony since I started getting them when I was five and I've continued to get more. My sister Hannah also collects (Hannah66665) on here, and both of my parents used to collect dolls to an extreme so they get my pony/doll collection pretty well I think. My brothers vary between uber-supportive to semi supportive to tease me endlessly about being a woman in her late thirties collecting toys made for little girls but I really don't care much.
I've actually made custom ponies for one of my brothers (the semi-supportive one actually), and both of my sis-in-laws, and thought about ideas for customs for my younger brother (uber-supportive one) and maybe even my parents if I could come up with the right customs for them. My oldest brother will never receive one because if he took the time to think about it he'd appreciate the work and creativity that went into it but I don't think he'd get that far and would just be all 'why'd you give me a toy for little girls?"
I feel really really bad for the people who's families aren't supportive though because it's really hard for me to fathom what that would be like.