Or is sharing over-rated?

[noobydoo]

Maybe I should be posting this in parenting however, I would like to use mums net as a sounding board and also for a broader discussion.

I spend half my life telling my 3 and 2 year old to share and the other half telling them not to grab toys. I sound like a broken record. However, I have now come to the conclusion that maybe sharing (although not grabbing) is an over-rated concept.

I keep on asking myself but why do people need to share? How often am I expected to share my stuff with others? I seriously can't think of a really good explanation or reason for sharing. The best one I can come up with is the story of Rainbow Fish - who actually IMO bought his friends by giving each of them a shining scale.

So what do other mums netters think of my reasoning (or am I just stingy)?

We were on holiday recently and on our way we took the boat over to France. We had the children at the kid's entertainment bit and there was one bot of about 5 who kept following and trying to grab DS1's camera the entire time (one of the vtech things). Dad was in earshot and sight and did nothing to try and intervene. This went on for over an hour and eventually we decided to leave because DS was getting upset.

When it comes to situations like this there is no way I encourage sharing.

You do need common sense-that is one thing that you don't share as in special teddies etc. You do share if it is goes on a swing etc

I'm with brdgirl and sunnydelight, I'm generally pro-sharing as an way I;d like to see society run.

For an argument in favour of sharing, at a big, species/society level, you can do worse than to read up on "The Prisoner's Dilemma" and, if possible, for people who have extrapolated that out into how societies and species might operate.

A problem, of course, arises when you realise that, actually, teaching your children to "share" might also be teaching them to "lose individually for the good of the species/society as a whole". Basically, if you have a society of sharers, and you are one of a small number of grabbers, you will do very well as a grabber. And, as adults, I'm sure it hasn't escaped our attention that this is the situation that would appear to prevail in RL. "We" pay our taxes, contribute to the public good by keeping within the law, picking up our litter, helping one another out, sharing abstract things and practical things (within reason). But it would appear that there really are those who amass vast sums of wealth by doing really rather dodgy things, taking advantage of tax loopholes, squeezing the juice out of the public goods, and not sharing what they've grabbed.

It must cross our minds occasionally that it might be in our children's best interests to teach them the (individual) usefuleness of grabbing - or maybe that should be "strategic grabbing" - grabbing occasionally, so that the system of sharing continues to operate (which of course makes stragetgic grabbing effective and possible). We don't want the system of sharing to collapse - what a nightmare - but occasional grabbing is really very effective.

As it is in the playground, the playroom, with toys, so, it seems for society.

By the way, all the above was explained to me by my child. I used to, and still do, insist on sharing, on helping others. And I will go on doing that. But, alas, my ds is a "wide reader", and I do remember that, during one discussion on the value of sharing, he interjected with the concept of strategic grabbing ....

... the joys of parenting.

for good or ill, he does continue to share, by and large. He's a teen now.

There's also a perspective on sharing that is kind of Buddhism-influenced.

Sharing teaches you not to get too hung up on material stuff, and to work out the difference between "me" and "stuff". It's a good innocculation against consumerism.

I guess true Buddhism would be heading towards the "there is no you/me" ... which is a bit heavy ...

But ...

I do think that it skips over the very real way that we sort of trust bits of "ourselves" to material objects - both as "monuments" in which we embed memories (using them as keys or memory sticks for our identity-giving past) and also as sort of "place-markers of the self" (I am gatheringlilac; my teddy belongs to me; I am a person who likes this teddy).-

I don't think you can skip over the importance of "belongings" so easily. They do matter. And it's an important part of mothering, I think, to be able to recognise, acknowledge and negotiate that alongside your child.

I still have nightmares about having to share with my DS (little sister)Nothing was ever the same after she had used it. She always pressed too hard with my felt tips and ruined them. She would turn the corners of the pages on books. I hate sharing. My DD asked to borrow my jacket, so I kindly bought her one. Actually I could not bare the thought of it.

Food is exception eating a bar of chocolate and not sharing it is wrong.

There's a good line in "Frasier" that would suit you, NuttyProfessor. Frasier and Niles are co-writing an article on sibling relationships and they end up brawling, and shouting at each other. frasier shouts: "You stole my mummy." And Niles shouts: "After you, everything was chewed meat."

I know I'm over-posting but I just wanted to throw this into the mix: Isn't there something very unsharing, ie. kind of top-down, un-negotiated imposition of power, about just telling your child to just "share", without thinking about the individual situation, or discussing it with them?

Is it, perhaps, a bit lazy to just trill out "Share, sweetie" without talking it through with your child?

I'm throwing that in because I do kind of remember that kind of stuff when I was out and about with little ones.

BeingFluffy - You are slightly wicked and I have loved reading your responses.

I live in London too (although not Kensington) and I have experienced the same sort of thing that you have. Grabbing and the expecting DS to share - it really gets to me. Up until about 6/7 months ago I was really hot on sharing but I just gave up because I noticed my attitude seemed unique. I trained DS to say "please can I share with you" only to be confronted by a grabby child who refused to share communal toys. Now both my boys argue all the time over toys so I have given up completely.

I agree that generally sharing sweets etc is good, but hate it when someone has the option of their own sweets/ pudding/ bar of chocolate and declines it and then proceeds to hassle you for some of yours;
"fine so you don't want a bar of chocolate, but I only get to eat 2/3 of mine, why not buy your own bar and just eat 1/3 of it?"
I didn't let random strangers share my kids' stuff when they were small any more than they would now hand over their ipod to a complete stranger as a teenager, or I would hand over my kindle to a stranger.
(I would hand it over if someone was thinking of buying one and wanted to see what it was like, but not if they asked for their "turn" on it, that would just be weird)
I read "my life in orange" by Tim Guest and one of the things he hated about living in a commune was not having any personal stuff that he could look after and not share and have damaged.