Hi
I’m Vernon. I’ve been around awhile, and seen a fair bit. Please don’t be put off by the fact that I’m a teddy bear. Give me a chance.
My first ever ‘teddy tip’ is about how people can benefit from the company of a teddy bear.
There is a myth going around that a person outgrows a teddy bear. That only someone immature carries it after they are a little kid, much less a grown up.
I assure you, this is a myth. Recent polls have shown that far more grown ups take a teddy to bed than was thought. A third of Britons admitted it. I don’t know about other countries, but I’m sure other countries would find similar results.
This makes a lot of sense. Grown ups live very stressed lives. They worry about bills and sickness and stuff that …. well, if you think of it that way, it could be a grown up might need the bear even more than the child!
Recently, we discovered a bit of fascinating ‘teddy’ history that we had been ignorant of. During the World Wars, British soldiers went into battle with teddy bears! Yes, really! They had eyes set high on their head and were called ‘soldier’ or ‘sweetheart’ bears. They were made by a company called Farnell, for the supply of teddies from the heretofor primary ‘bear maker’ was Steiff in Germany. And since Germans were who they were fighting, no more teddies were coming from them.
So if it wasn’t immature for a soldier to carry a teddy into battle with maybe an picture of their family, a letter, a small Bible (I’m guessing here) than surely it’s okay for everyone else! Are people in the twenty first century too wimpy for teddy bears? Are Americans so insecure that their teddy bear would seem inappropriate.
I sure hope not.