Would you be irked if a friend's child deliberately cut up one of the letters in your DC's copy of the Jolly Postman?

[DowagersHump]

I am a bit. I should get over myself shouldn't I?

I think "feeling irked" is a reasonable response , feeling murderous may be a tad on the excessive side .

It would annoy me for about ten minutes and then I would remember the book is a bit crap anyway and gets on my nerves so all would be well .

I do agree about the whole "No child of mine would ever do that" bollocks
Good luck to you , you will need it at some point .

My youngest who I would have bet the house on not being a vandalous thug once drew on my lampshade in my favourite lipstick , I have no idea why and he has never done anything like it again .............yet .

I'd be annoyed for a few minutes , then I would let it go tbh.

I wouldn't make a fuss about it.

Borntofolk. i agree, it's really nice to see a bookshelf and pull out the ones DD has loved at various stages and see them looking more than a little tatty because they went everywhere for a short period, read them with sticky fingers etc before she adopted the next one.

But she also has a couple that were more expensive and bought because of the artwork as much as the words, they're as much for me as her and they are about getting lost in a book that is special and cared for and can be appreciated on different levels.

I think DD can see the difference and it doesn't alter her enjoyment of either type of book

I agree with BorntoFolk - I don't agree with the whole 'books are special and precious' thing. What matters to me about books are the words inside, and the imaginative act of reading them, not their crisp pages. In fact, this is terribly rude and unfair, but I think there's something a bit petit bourgois about making such a fuss about books as objects - rather like having a complete set of Worlds Classics in the front parlour with the pages uncut.

Also think Pagwatch's point is a good one: while other people's children can be intensely annoying, none of us, or our kids, are perfect. 'MY child would never tear a book' reminds me of all the smug mothers of 14 month olds who boast about their children eat EVERYTHING. Fast forward a year, and they are fussy little buggers subsisting on white bread and butter.

kmd I brought MYSELF the Very Hungry Caterpillar colour your own book version. DD doesn't even know about it - I hide it. It is colouring therapy for me :)

Now if any brat ripped that I'd be well irked :)

You're right teatimesthree, it is very petit bourgeois. I come from a family where my grandparents had to leave school at the age of 12 to work so I've been brought up to treat books with respect.

dowagers

I love Paul M

I must tell this story. I've told it before but sod it.
I am pretty strict. We had just moved DS1 and DS2 into a room together and had spent several day painting it a beautiful blue.
The next day we walked in to see that DS2 had written his name in huge letters across one wall.
Ds2 has profound SN and had never voluntarily written his name before. DH and I immediately cried 'well done Pagboy. Great writing'
Ds1 just looked at us with a 'you have got to be kidding me' expression

Sorry dowagers, I knew that was really rude and snobbish. I don't know why I wrote it - I am hardly a member of the ruling elite myself. Perhaps I was seized by the spirit of all the out of character and outrageous actions on this thread.

think yabu - books are there to be used, played with , read, looked at etc etc.. Also maybe the kids were playing while they did it - maybe friends child has been cuttingletters out in school so seemed perfectly reasonable... Though if I was your friend and sensed you were upset I'd offer to replace but I'd be hoping you'd laugh and say no

:o Pag

Thank you, teatimestwo, that's very nice of you. :)

teatimesthree

nooneshoingtoeatyoureyes I love Shel Silverstein its so rare to find someone who's even heard of him let alone read poetry. I have 'the Light in the attic' and 'where the sidewalk ends'. :)
Op - yanbu especially with books like the jolly postman - but at least you still have the letter - I live in fear we will lose one someday.

I would be a bit cross. I do turn the page corner over to mark my place in a book, so I'm not OTT, but I hate to see a book mistreated. I would have replaced that book if my DD had cut up the letter.

I think a book is about more than just the words inside. To me a favourite book is like a favourite any other object, so I don't understand why it would be frowned upon to treat it carefully/be upset if it was damaged.

Scrappydappydoo - I agree, the only other people I've 'met' that have heard of him tend to be American's on LibraryThing. People don't know what they are missing.

Well I have learnt something today , I had no idea Shel Silverstein wrote childrens books . I only know him as part of the Dr Hook Medicine show .

I will have to have a look , are there any you would both recommend ?

Well, whatever the object was, if my dd damaged something at someone else's house, I'd expect to replace it. If it was deliberate, I'd tell dd off. If it wasn't, I'd maybe have a quick word about being more careful but not tell her off - I'd still offer to replace it though.

If it's yours and you damage it, you make a decision about whether it needs to be replaced or not. If it's not yours, then it isn't your decision to make, it's the decision of your friend. They've spent money on something, you damaged it, you need to replace it.

Books - well, I'm of the school that think they're special. But I also agree children need to be able to use them and mangle them when they are little (the children, not the books!) in order to learn how to enjoy them. I don't think it's a black and white choice between one school of thought and another as seems to be coming across. It's possible to do both! I have lots of shelves of books that dd can get down and look at and destroy at will, and a shelf of books that are too nice to let her ruin and that we look at and share together. That way the special ones stay special and she still learns to love using books. And gets really excited when we get one down off the high shelf as it represents a real 'together' moment.

Which letter was it? If it was the witch's catalogue YANBU. DS1 can't get enough of that one. "Little boy pie mix! Bonus newt!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha".

travellingwilbury definitely start with 'the giving tree' and then move onto to the two poetry books we mentioned. He's brilliant, funny and quirky in a Dr Suess type way. I've only ever known him as a childrens poet and writer!

Keep your innocence scrappy Polly in a porny was a favourite , and "I got stoned and I missed it"

I will have a look and get ordering .

Thank you

My five year old son wrote "Mumy and daddi geting marid" in felt tip pen in our wedding album.

He is now 39 years old and marid himself.

I still don't let him anywhere near felt tip pens.

I too would be very cross about this, we all love books in our family and though some are dog eared from being read so often,my children have always known that books are treated with care and respect, in fact same with their toys, can't bear kids that tip and muddle up jigsaws etc and never actually want to do them!!

Btw-books are important in our house but the jolly postman lasted five minutes. It is lovely but almost falls into the jigsaw book category for me-why ruin a nice tidy self contained thing like a book by putting lots of things in it that can get lost?

I only knew him as a poet and author too. I was 32 when I realised he had written the A Boy Named Sue song.

I can't recommend A Light in the Attic highly enough Travelling, it's fantastic.

It was only the crappy letter from the queen/king Stella :)

Ooh I love the jolly postman and all the bits and pieces to take out and put back. I'm a bit weird like that though. We also have a fabulous alphabet book once that has the most complicated pull tags and textured bits in it.

My final art project at school was a 3D linocut with loads of pull tags and lift the flap things. I'm a bit fascinated by paper engineering

Tbh, I'm much more interested in the book than the DC are

A "friend" of mine broke my walkie talkie doll when I was little. Dunno what she did, but it didn't walk any more after that. As an only child, I didn't like other kids "sharing" my stuff as they seemed so careless compared with me.

One of the things I've found hard with having small children is how quickly they can destroy your nice stuff. I have had to become more relaxed about it to avoid going nuts, but I still hate it tbh.