When Sharing is Uncool

Britanny is an only child. This means that she has all her toys to herself (save the dogs who occasionally are interested in the squeaking stuffed animals), and can do with them what she wants. Over the course of a day Britanny cycles through her toys, playing with them until she tires of each and every one. But Britanny has decided that there is a way to “recycle” her toys- after playing with each toy one by one, she decides to play with them together.  In this manner Britanny has exponentially increased the amount of play time she is able to get out of each toy. She can now spend hours and hours each the day playing with and stuffing different parts of her toys in her mouth without a care in the world.

It is my belief that Britanny would be utterly lost if another child was introduced to her toys. She lacks all knowledge that sharing even exists. In her mind, everything is a toy unless it is made blatantly clear that it does not belong to her. She believes that hair is a toy (both human and canine), that blankets are toys, that her hands are toys, etc. While her definition of toy may be vague, it must be understood that all she does every day is eat, sleep and play. Variety is not a word that would be used to define Britanny’s life. You could say that playing is Britanny’s profession, and as with every job there are things that need to be learned. When it comes to playing Britanny has got the “having fun” part right, now all she needs to learn is the sharing part. This might be a problem, because babies have no concept of sharing. Perhaps it is because they need to be taught it, but perhaps it is because we are not meant to be materialistic beings. Think about it- if we had no possessions to worry about, we wouldn’t be concerned with who was playing with the toys. We would just know that sooner or later they would get around to us- and there are certainly enough toys to go around! Britanny herself has enough toys to keep a small legion of children busy for a few days (which says a lot, since children cycle through toys rather quickly). That said, I am sure that as Britanny gets older and is introduced to more children her age she will have no choice but learn how to share. Its either that or become the biggest and baddest of them all- and let’s face it, schoolyard bully just doesn’t seem to fit her profile. So beware Britanny, there is lots of sharing in your future.