Poor Abuse Ponies.... Makes me Wonder :(

[Englishgothgirl]

It really makes me wonder sometimes the amount of abused ponies there are out there, that have had manes / tails and sometimes limbs cut off.

The scribbling out especially on the face, eyes and over the symbols etc.

I'm sure not all of it is kids, but what children destroy their toys?

I cherished all mine!

Hell when one of my stuffed toys got ripped my mum would give it "stitches" and I would bandage it and look after it until it was "better"

I mean, I have a sea star sea pony who has had her eye bitten off I mean what the hell?

If a child's old enough to have teeth, its old enough to know better!

Rant over.... discuss.

[PinkRosedust]

Hah I wonder why kids do that, too. I took good care of my ponies and other toys. I can't imagine why kids would have fun ruining their toys. :/ If I wanted to scribble on something or cut something, I went and found paper...

I especially despise chopped off hair/forelocks. I CAN understand why forelock cuts are so common (assuming it was so the hair wouldn't fall in the ponies eye) but geeze, I always managed to find some way around that other than hacking it off...

A lot of ponies do still look cute with haircuts (and I like that it can give variety when I have doubles) but not when there is no hair left.

[Saoirse]

Perhaps a childs dog got her?

I know when I was little my mam would have went mental if I damaged any of my toys! I took real good care of them, I was friends with a girl who used to cut all her barbies hair short, and daddy bought her new ones all the time..I use to be so upset

[Rachel-Eyes]

I don't get it either. I used to become inconsolable when something happened to my toys. I had a hand-me-down Raggedy Ann that belonged to my mom and when her arm came off I screamed so loudly the lights of the neighbors houses turned on.

My cousin went through a hair cutting phase. She said she wanted to be a hairdresser, so her toys would often get cuts from her. I never let her "style" any of my dolls.

I was reading something about ten years ago, where a psychologist concluded that the reason adolescent girls destroy their Barbies is because they see it as a rite of passage into becoming an older girl. Except... since when did adolescent girls destroy their Barbie dolls? Huh? I was never aware that was a "thing." I never did that. Even as a teenager I had a certain fondness for my Barbies and never wanted to cause them any harm. I don't get it.

[BlackCurtains]

I'm sure there are plenty of kids like Sid from Toy Story. I never knew any personally... but I've known adults like that They ruin everything they own.

[Evening_Moonstone]

I can see some hair trimming, especially forelocks.  I personally would trim fur on my stuffed animals if the fur was covering the animal's eyes.  And I had a Turtle Tot stuffed animal with a tuft of long fur on top of its head, which I thought looked silly, so I cut it off.  And I just loved that toy.

I never cut Barbie hair or anything like that, but I had some with big snarls of hair from it being braided for too long.  Maybe ponies suffered the same fate?  Also there are outside circumstances... what if there was gum in the pony's hair?  What if a baby brother or sister got glue in the hair? I could see mom cutting off the bad/messed up parts so the toy would be salvageable, even if no longer in mint condition.  Or a pony was given to a child too young to understand - I know my sister and I chewed on all sorts of toys when we were little.

Or maybe the kid had doubles, or just decided that "this pony is a boy".  My best friend still has her childhood ponies, and had cut the hair short on all of her pegasus ponies - reasoning that long hair would get in the way if the pony was flying!

I have a rainbow pony in my collection who has only the green bits of her hair cut off - I wonder what happened there.  Another pony came to me with pierced earrings in her ears!  Of course, I also have a few that look like victims of tragic farming accidents - probably pet-related mishaps.  Sugarberry's head is cracked, and Magic Mirror is missing part of her face.  I'm hoping to make them into cool customs someday.

The scribbling I don't understand, though.

[BrightIdea]

I blame bad doggies! My brother went to the babysitter once with his toys and the dog mangled and chewed up the toys.

When I was little, the ponies were all about brushing and making them look pretty, not mangling, chopping up, or drawing on them, so I don't know where all of these sadistic children are coming from 

Yeah my parents would have gotten mad if I wrecked my toys. I was taught to respect and treat my things nicely because I was lucky to even have them.

I could maybe understand someone trying to put makeup on a pony, or thinking a little hair cut might be fun and then learning their lesson. Kids mess up stuff thinking they can reverse the damage, or that it won't be all that bad. Then they learn from that and treat things better.

[Yurusumaji]

I'm not sure what possesses anyone to damage goods they paid money for. Hubbs got a couple McD's ponies from a garage sale about a month ago and both of them have a huge letter S drawn right smack dab on their body between their cutie marks and necks. I don't know why they were marked in this manner instead of putting the S on, say, the bottom of the hoof. As a kid I always tried to keep my toys in good condition. Regular play wear took place, but I never purposely marked or maimed any of my toys. I never cut their hair or removed limbs. I never drew on them. I don't know why kids do this to their things.

I wonder if privilege has anything to do with it. I never damaged my toys because I grew up very poor and every toy I was given by my parents was a precious treasure that I cherished, because we generally only received toys for birthdays and Christmas. Any other toys we received were few and far between. Not getting new ones meant I had to care for my old ones.

[Evening_Moonstone]

Oh gosh, I forgot to mention the scariest pony I ever found.  Baby Surprise was tucked into a bag of baits, and when I pulled her out of the bag I almost dropped her.  I think a little girl tried to "make the pony pretty" with makeup.  She had marker drawn on for lipstick, eyeshadow, and blush.  With the white face and green hair, Baby Surprise had become Baby Joker.
I gave her to a friend who loves comic books, and she enjoys tormenting her husband by hiding Baby Joker all over the house!

[hathorcat]

My ponies were treasured...I used to groom them to perfection and then take them to dog shows - my mum and dad showed the dogs and I then got to have my ponies judged! Even as a little girl I couldnt imagine ever willingly damaging them - in fact I remember falling out with one of my friends as I thought she had dared to bring down the Lullabye Nursery and play with it! Shocking!!

However...other than the Sindy/Barbie Massacre of 1988 caused by an over enthusiastic dog...I admit I was terrible for trimming Sindy and Barbie hair...my mum and dad would just replace the doll though so perhaps the fact I seemed to be under the impression her hair "grew back" didnt stop me from getting those "safe" My Little Pony scissors back out again.

Kids are kids - I think there is a line between destruction and being allowed to play with their toys as they wish. But everyone is going to have a different opinion on that - personally as long as we are not talking Sid from Toy Story I dont see the outright issue in it and I think such ponies have probably had a rather adventurous life! But those are just my thoughts. Mind you in my house I am sure my mum was more upset about the day I decided to colour rainbows on her hallway "artex" [gotta love the 80s] than colouring in my toys. 

[Desert Rose]

I've been wondering the same thing, especially when it comes to the Nirvanas. Almost every Nirvana pony you find on Ebay is in such horrible shape it makes me wonder how the kids of those countries were brought up

My mother taught me from a very early age to be very carefull and respectfull of my things because it takes a long time of working to earn enough to buy it. To destroy it just because is very ungreatfull and disrespectfull. Not to mention a waste. And she's absolutely right about that.

With that beeing said I think a lot of kids can get abit scissors-happy at some point. My mum loves to remind me of the story about me when I was about 3 years old, I had a tape-player on my desk and I wanted to bring it with me to another room. However the plug was still in the wall and my tape-player wasnt budging. So my solution was to cut the cord off since I figured it was stuck. When my mum realized she went absolutely balistic since not only should you not go around cutting things up, but that could have been downright lethal. Needless to say I never used scissors again on anything other than paper

[Zombelina]

I'm not sure either why some kids ruin their toys.  I guess 'ruining' means different things to different kids--some just see it as modifying them, or it's their way of making them pretty?

My way of making my ponies pretty was keeping them as pristine as possible, lol. I treasured all my toys and took really good care of them. I remember being so upset when my flutter ponies' wings broke, I was sure I'd done a TERRIBLE thing I would've died rather than cut hair or scribble on any of my ponies and I freaked out over normal play wear too... A smudge? Oh nooo...

I was a neurotic child, though. Still am  As long as the toy was loved, it's okay by me.

[Englishgothgirl]

I agree, there is a line between childish playing and "sid" destruction.

For example I have a few ponies with, rather neatly actually, shorn hair which could be just stylish.

But my poor baby sea star with her bitten off eye, was quite obviously done by human teeth

[Gingerbread]

My parents would have half killed me if I had willfully damaged any of my toys. I never, ever drew/cut/mamied any of my toys, ever (apart from a loathed Barbie whom I decided to make more *ahem* anatomically accurate in the chest area )
I would buy all the really sad-looking toy horses and MLP from bootsales and look after them cos I felt sorry for them. My most cherished horse toy was a Happytime who was cracked and held together with electrical tape, spent all my money (£1!) on him at a bootsale. Parents weren't best pleased but I loved that horse so much!

[Fräulein_Kim]

I was always very good to my toys and most of my childhood ones look pretty mint even today.
Heck, my Chief is still bright white and we used to play outside all the time, so I must have washed him afterwards I guess.. My parents even paid attention to that I sat them on the radiator for the night after taking a bath with them. So none have issues with mold nowadays, tho some had slight cases of tail rust. :7

HOWEVER, I did cut my peppermint crunch and moonjumpers hair. Yep. Not a mohawk, but a short bob for PC and a tied-up pixie cut for MJ.
PC was the tomboy in my herd and MJ was a pixie-pony. So I figured it would suit them better that way.. I had no intention of 'destroying' them, I just wanted to 'modify' them to look more to my liking.
Needless to say, my parents still FREAKED! xD;;

..to this day tho, I have left them with the haircuts I gave them. Sure, I could rehair them, but somehow I like them that way. Memories.

So what I mean to say is: It's not always that the kids want to destroy them.. maybe they just want to modify them but not all of them are talented enough to execute it well. :7