Positively Parenting

By Tara Lindis

During a recent weekend in Singapore, I took my twenty-two month son Fyo to a play gym, where at the end of his hour of fun, they gave him a sticker. He stuck it—the sticker of a blue car from the Pixar movie Cars—on his shirt. He seemed to forget about it, until we walked down Pagoda Street in Singapore’s Chinatown. We ran into a couple, from Houston, Texas we learned, with fifteen-month old twin girls. Fyo started the conversation, as he saw the girls and walked over to them. As we talked to the parents, Fyo took his sticker off his shirt and put it on one of the girls. We all commented how sweet of him to share unprompted, then he took it back and put it on his shirt, then again he took it off and gave it to one of the girls. We finished talking to the parents, and wished each other luck on our respective travels. Fyo took his sticker back and put it on the one of the girls a last time. The family turned and continued on their way.

Fyo looked at the disappearing twin stroller and suddenly burst into tears as he pointed in the direction of his lost sticker.

My husband and I hated that this was one of those rough lessons that kids learn about sharing, that sometimes, sharing actually means giving something away. I also hated that because he is just twenty-two months, this will probably be one of those lessons that occurs a few times, and each time ending in tears and a sense of something lost.

My hesitation about sharing at all costs might come from my own experience of this lesson. I remember clearly the day, as a five-year-old, I “shared” my favorite bear with a girl on the school bus, and never saw the girl or the bear again. I also remember my mother clearly saying that giving my bear away wasn’t what she had meant when she said it was nice to share things.

What I hate about this life lesson is that it seems the only way to learn that some times sharing means you end up losing things, is to go through it. This is not one of those things I can protect my son from—or me either—as I still lose books through loaning and have lost who knows how many sweaters and odd pieces of clothing to a friend who needed something to wear. Yet, I also remember being the unexpected recipient of such sharing; when I complimented a friend on her bracelet and she took it off and gave it to me, saying that it was more me than her, and that if she gave it to me; she could get something else she liked.

That is exactly what my husband and I did for our son. We told him we would get him a new sticker. Because we were in Singapore’s Chinatown, we knew we wouldn’t have to walk but twenty feet before we would see stickers. Sure enough, we found ourselves in front of much shinier and much puffier stickers. But Fyo instead reached for a small Ernie doll, so we bought it for him. Granted, it wasn’t an actual Ernie of Sesame Street fame, as the stripes on the shirt were wrong and his tag called him Elmo, but we decided Fyo had learned enough hard lessons for one day… and copyright infringement didn’t need to be one of them.

Tara Lindis has taught English Literature and Composition classes at community colleges in Denver, Colorado, and has spent the last year living in Singapore and Bali, writing, and raising her soon-to-be toddler son. She blogs at www.taralindis.com.

Read more of Tara's blogs:

What Warm Nights Lead To...

Sharing Some Thoughts on Sharing

Wanting the Bath