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   Flick ?? (flick@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 07:18:19 JST Flick ??

   https://spectator.com/article/meet-the-jellycat-kidults/

   One of the world’s most successful modern toy companies, ‘Build-A-Bear’, allows paying customers to design and make their own teddies. Adult ‘Build-A-Bear’ enthusiasts are a rapidly growing part of their market, but what are the adults doing with their bears, I wondered. Are the bears on the bed? Out and proud in the front room? Online, I found a group of adult Build-A-Bear fans discussing how they’d begin to cope if they couldn’t take their bears to work. The general consensus was that nobody could be expected to ‘regulate their emotions’ without a soft toy. ‘I take my Build-A-Bear Ninja Turtles in with me,’ said a 23-year-old shop assistant. ‘It helps me deal with my anger issues.’ Think of Sebastian Flyte as the patron saint of the 21st century.

   How are any of these overgrown toddlers going to grow up enough to have children of their own – to be the comforters not the comforted? The answer increasingly is that they’re not. Men over 65 are now more likely to get married than those under 25, and I only wish that was because the under-25s are having too wild a time to settle down. Where Boomers once had orgies, the kids now have ‘cuddle parties’, where you can go just to be held, in a safe space, by strangers. Held. Seen. What happened to these people?

   https://archive.ph/fyY9E

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     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 07:18:18 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to
     @Flick

     The general consensus was that nobody could be expected to ‘regulate their emotions’ without a soft toy. ‘I take my Build-A-Bear Ninja Turtles in with me,’ said a 23-year-old shop assistant. ‘It helps me deal with my anger issues.’

     Ok. I give up.
     Can someone please explain to me, how exactly does a soft toy help a person to deal with their emotions?

     I don't think I ever understood this. Not even as a child.

     How on earth is it even supposed to work?

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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:12:55 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick It's not the soft toy in and of itself. It's the concept of needing a prop to cope.
     I've seen it hundreds of times when I used to work in schools. It often comes from adults who like to position themselves as caring and compassionate. They collect children who may have problems and organise plans to help them to cope. These often take the form of *x needs a fidget toy to concentrate* and similar. The child can never be weaned off these because then the adults wouldn't be able to show how much they care.
     Then the children become adults, but they've never learned to manage themselves. They have zero resilience. So the childish behaviour persists as habit. It's a story they were told (you need your support squirrel as part of your self-care) and it remains a story they continue to tell themselves.
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     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:12:55 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • KeepTakingTheSoma

     @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick But how does it help one to cope in the first place?

     I can see a fidget toy doing something, as it's an active release for nervous energy. But what does a soft toy do?
     How does a soft toy help with emotions? Even if we are talking about a child?

     (Previously when asking questions like this, I've been accused of pretending to be stupid, but I honestly don't understand.)

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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:16:27 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick The phrase that the person used in the interview was telling - I need it to manage my anger. That sounds like something they've been told rather than something they've developed themselves. At least that's how I see it.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:17:55 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • EatKnitSleep2
     @EatKnitSleep2 @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick Agreed. Its the was the person in the article spoke that made me think it was something they've been told rather than something they've developed themselves as a coping mechanism.
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     EatKnitSleep2 (eatknitsleep2@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:17:56 JST EatKnitSleep2

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     @Gnomeshatecheese @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick I had a bear and a blanket that I wouldn't go anywhere without until I started school and wasn't allowed to take them. I don't have many clear memories if being very little, but I think it was like having a piece of home, and maybe even a piece of my mum, with me whenever I had to go anywhere new or nerve wracking.
     
     There's also something quite comforting about having a prop in your hands if you are a nervous person. I think this explains some adult habits (smartphones and cigarettes for example) as well.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:29:44 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick It's an interesting phenomenon I've seen over many years.
     I once worked at a YMCA which employed a lady with learning difficulties. Whenever her mentor from SCOPE came to see how she was doing, he would often tell her what she could and couldn't manage (you don't like loud noises do you) and she would repeat it as if a mantra. I have a friend with boys with some learning delay and it's fascinating listening to them talk about interventions at school. One told me that his TA says he's not allowed to have a diary because she is in charge of his timetable.
     Some support is needed for some people and I wouldn't wish to deny that to anyone, but I've become convinced that many adults who engage in such support are themselves addicted to controlling those in their charge and keeping them dependent instead of supporting them to gain some agency. It makes them feel needed and they can tell themselves how good they are. And we end up with children growing into adults who could be happy and independent, but are instead convinced that they need props to function because of a special label.
     It makes me sad. Perhaps I need a support squirrel.
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     EatKnitSleep2 (eatknitsleep2@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:30:42 JST EatKnitSleep2

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     @KeepTakingTheSoma @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick I agree that is odd. And has a definite therapy speak ring to it.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:35:35 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • EatKnitSleep2
     @EatKnitSleep2 @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick I'm all for individual agency. I worry about adults who appear to live as children and why they haven't been helped to mature. I can only hope that they make it soon.
     We seem to live in a society that treats children like adults and adults like children. We should protect children while we help them to mature so they can eventually take responsibility for themselves. If adults will not take responsibility for themselves then they risk putting their lives into the hands of those who might seek to control them.
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     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:37:14 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     • EatKnitSleep2

     @EatKnitSleep2 @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick That makes sense as an explanation.

     Personally, I've never been one for props, I think. I do like fiddling with things, but I had to learn early on to relax and sit still if I had nothing in my hands.

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     EatKnitSleep2 (eatknitsleep2@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:37:24 JST EatKnitSleep2

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     @Gnomeshatecheese @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick I just switched to different props as I aged!
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:37:24 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • EatKnitSleep2
     @EatKnitSleep2 @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick I confess to taking a photo of my late partner with me whenever I'm involved in an amateur drama production. We did many shows together and I like to think that he's there even though he is no more.
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     KeepTakingTheSoma (keeptakingthesoma@spinster.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 08:38:11 JST KeepTakingTheSoma

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • EatKnitSleep2
     @Gnomeshatecheese @EatKnitSleep2 @Flick We learn to adapt as we mature.
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     HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 03:12:50 JST HebrideanHecate

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma

     @KeepTakingTheSoma @Gnomeshatecheese @Flick Got to keep their grifty jobs going somehow or other.

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     HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 03:13:03 JST HebrideanHecate

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma

     @Gnomeshatecheese @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick That and as an excuse for terrible parenting, and also sharp elbowed middle classes like it as a way to grab things unto themselves and enable their kids to get more help re exams and then it means those who do need it lose out as not enough to go around. Covers up for my kid is a lazy, spoiled little basket, won't work, scream they are whatever and need assistance, then still often find it doesn't work, because kid is said lazy etc and just refuses to do any work.

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     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 03:13:04 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     @KeepTakingTheSoma @Flick

     I've become convinced that many adults who engage in such support are themselves addicted to controlling those in their charge and keeping them dependent instead of supporting them to gain some agency.

     You know, now that you said it, I think this is happening a lot with the explosion children's diagnosis for this or that "neuro" condition. I do think the diagnosis criteria have been expanded to include people who are just unusual, not actually pathological, and could do fine with maybe a bit of extra help. But it seems that a lot of them are effectively being held back by the diagnosis and the accompanying interventions. Thus forming a self-affirming prophecy where these kids are first told they have a Condition, then told it will hinder them, and finally encouraged to use crutches to get through life, because they "need" them. And then of course the kid grows up believing their Condition will hinder them and that they Need the crutches provided.

     You're right, it is sad.

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     The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 03:13:13 JST The Dread Slender Gnome

     in reply to

     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     • EatKnitSleep2

     @KeepTakingTheSoma @EatKnitSleep2 @Flick At some point, being childish became cool. And quirky.

     That was a huge cultural mistake.
     Not in the sense that everyone has to be serious all the time, but in the sense that indulging in all kind of childishness as an adult became cool.

     (See also the concept of "adulting" as something unusual one has to make an effort for.)

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     HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)'s status on Monday, 16-Feb-2026 03:15:43 JST HebrideanHecate

     in reply to

     • The Dread Slender Gnome
     • KeepTakingTheSoma
     • EatKnitSleep2

     @Gnomeshatecheese @KeepTakingTheSoma @EatKnitSleep2 @Flick Himself says there was a girl in the school here some years ago who went down the rabbit hole of that Japanese perv shit, started dressing like a doll and then dropped out of school, he has no idea what happened to her, all her mother did was titter and look vacuous when anyone tried addressing it all.

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