I used to teach in a Jewish preschool. During one parent-teacher conference, a
father asked us if it was unreasonable to buy the same gifts for both of his
sons. He was puzzled by the exhibited
behavior or his son, who would grab the exact same toy that he had from his
younger brother's hands. The father's
reasoning for buying the exact same toy for each of his sons was that he was
treating them equally. Wasn't that a
good approach to parenting?
My answer to him was, I think, a bit of a shock. I told him that he should differentiate and
buy different toys for his sons, according to their particular needs and their
personalities. And then I told him that
I would explain why.
"People," I explained, "are territorial by
nature. It is part of human nature to be
territorial. We buy things and put our
names in them. We buy land and property
and call it ours. We own things that we
consider to be ours. These things become a part of our identity, of who we are.
It is totally normal for your son to want to have his own things. He should have a sense of what belongs to
him. It is too much to expect a five year old to share everything and to have
nothing that he can call his own. He
should have a safe place to store his things, a cabinet or container of stuff
that he should have the choice to hide away and not share when people come
over. And then there should be some toys
that he is prepared to share and use to play with his friends."
It is so important to acknowledge our individuality that is
partly expressed in our physical world by our possessions. While I don't
advocate being a collector of everything, I do understand that sometimes we
collect objects that are particularly intriguing and meaningful to us. Perhaps
it will be worth some money in the future, but for the time being, the worth of
our collections and material possessions is intangibly linked to our identity,
and oftentimes linked to our past.
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