I want you to think back to your elementary school days. Days filled with grass-stained knees and dandelion crowns and games of sand-man at the playground. Now, I want you to picture the stuffed animal or baby blanket you held close as you fell asleep all those years ago, the one you clutched tightly when there was a thunderstorm outside that seemed like it would never end. Do you remember when you stopped sleeping with that stuffy? When you put that blanket away in a memory box or in the back of your closet? I think most of us were in such a hurry to grow up and be teenagers, that the second these comfort items became ‘uncool’ (most commonly around middle school) we discarded them. Maybe you missed it a lot at first, but eventually that blanket or stuffy drifted to the back of your mind, just as it gathered dust in the back of your closet.
My mom didn’t care about my newfound desire in high school: to sever myself from anything that might have been deemed childish. She loved to get me little stuffed animals to celebrate various holidays throughout the year, like Valentine’s Day or Easter. Secretly, I loved it too. There was something so special about seeing a little stuffed bunny sitting on top of my Easter basket or a little penguin holding chocolate on Valentine’s Day. My mom, being the fancy-home-decor-loving woman she is, always got me stuffed animals from the brand Jellycat. Jellycat is an English company that makes stuffed animals that are unbelievably soft (I can’t find another stuffed animal that stands up to a Jellycat). Some of their stuffies are also little food items or household objects, like an avocado or a teapot. For years my Jellycats sat on my bookshelf and windowsill, and the joy they brought me felt like a little secret between me and them.
When I moved to Queen’s in my first year, I left them at home, and my room felt a little less joyful in their absence. Why was I so scared of having a stuffed animal in my dorm? Why didn’t I line my bed with the various Jellycats my mom had gotten me over the years? I think it was this insatiable urge to seem mature and grown up, one that had plagued me for years starting in high school. An urge that I think most young people feel at one point or another. It wasn’t until I moved back into my childhood bedroom during the pandemic in 2020 that I started to let go of this desire to be a full-fledged adult. I started sleeping with one of the stuffed bunnies my mom had gotten me all those years ago.
In the confines of my childhood bedroom during that first lockdown, I was forced to acknowledge my inner child. Spending so much time surrounded by memories of my childhood helped me realize that my younger self, the one who I had spent so long trying to out-grow, was still inside me. She was calling out to me, wanting to be comforted in the ways I had discarded so long ago. She wanted the simultaneously mundane yet overwhelmingly comforting feeling of falling asleep with a soft stuffed animal pressed against her cheek. When I finally listened to her, it was like something inside of me was unlocked. Something as simple as cuddling with my Jellycat bunny brought both my 19-year-old self and my 8-year-old self a sense of joy and freedom. Why had I ever cared what people thought about stuffed animals? Something so small that could soothe me and make me feel better just by sitting propped up against my pillows far outweighed the judgment of others.
I started lining up my Jellycats on my bed and rotating which one I slept with at night. I started reconnecting with other joys from my childhood that I had long discarded, like reading fantasy books and writing stories. My Jellycats were the first step on my journey of honouring my inner child. When I stopped placing so much value on the judgment of others, I started rediscovering what had brought me joy all those years ago. When I was younger, I loved collecting bottle caps, playing Just Dance on the Wii, and hosting lemonade stands. I loved swimming and singing and dancing, playing at the park and playing pretend. I started figuring out ways I could honour that kid who was still inside me, begging me to dance until I couldn’t stand, and write until my hands were cramping. I took an adult ballet class for beginners. I started a blog.
To this day, my favourite way of honouring my inner child is collecting Jellycats. I have 17 of them now. In October 2021, I bought a raccoon Jellycat that has become my favourite stuffy that I sleep with every night without fail. In true childish fashion, I even named him Raccoony. He’s been around the world with me, from the Scottish Highlands to the Canary Islands, from the bustling city of London to the picturesque seaside town of Manarola in Italy and the beautiful Greek island of Santorini. Now I can appreciate the simple comfort and joy this stuffed animal brings me, even when I’m backpacking Europe by myself, thousands of kilometers from my loved ones. I loved having him at hostels and hotels, and I couldn’t have cared less about what people thought of me for cuddling him to sleep.
Jellycats have become more popular recently thanks to TikTok and other social media that have been sharing the various cute food and object stuffed animals. Seeing the growing number of people buying Jellycats and sharing them on social media fills me with so much happiness. I think it’s a sign that, as a generation, we are actively resisting the urge to grow up so quickly that companies and social media so fervently promote. It’s a sign that, more and more, we are honouring our inner children and taking care of ourselves. So, if you were looking for a sign to do a little impulse shopping, maybe take a look at a Jellycat stuffed animal.