The Unintended Consequence of President Teddy

It started with a silly voice. A clumsy composite of Borat, The Meerkat and a generic relic of the Cold War.

Designed for nothing more than making the children laugh when the descended on me for a morning weekend cuddle. The voice would go on to find a body in the form of a small teddy bear owned and operated by The Youngest and thus ‘President Teddy’ was born.

A small, benevolent dictator bent on world domination, with a voracious appetite for sweet snacks and gender fluid flamingos, President Teddy (PT) became a world wide sensation (in our house) over the course of lockdown 3: the lockening. 

It was with some trepidation that I let The Youngest leave the house with PT for her teddy bear’s picnic today (mainly because there was no note from the teacher about it and Matty can be quite fluid with facts), but he was safely ensconced in her rucksack and I was pleased to see a plethora of bears on arrival at school.

I packed her off, wished her a good day and thought no more of it.

At pickup I received the pull from her teacher: “Mr Cramphorn, can I have a word?”

On the previous occasions when I have heard these chilly words, I have gone on to hear tales of a) Matty working when she wants to b) her not working at all or c) she’s garrotted one of the other girls with a skipping rope (all true), so you can imagine my concern and why I felt compelled to run through my list of stock responses: “It was like that when she found it. The other kid started it. What can I say? She’s good with knots.”

Her teacher then went on to tell me that each of the children had stood up to talk about their bear and that Matty, usually very shy in front of the class and groups of people, had suddenly burst to life as she began describing President Teddy and his adventures: “She lit up! She even started acting scenes out and doing the voice! She had us in stitches! It was like a different little girl!”

The teacher’s mask could not hide her delight at getting a little peek behind the curtain at the real Matilda and with her TA chipping in to corroborate her story, I could feel my own mask begin to stretch as a pride-stoked beam spread across my face. I showed them a clip of Matty lending her voice to PT and they laughed and shook their heads in disbelief.

At that point, the girl wonder herself, the closet performer appeared clutching PT inside of a paper bed she and a friend had made him. She saw me talking to the teacher and grinned her gappy grin, no doubt acutely aware of what the teacher was telling me.

It would seem that the power of talking to, through or about a stuffed animal is not to be underestimated.

The legend of President Teddy continues to grow…