A mother of a toddler asked Rahima about dolls, gnomes, fairies, and toys for young children:
"I am a little confused about some of the Waldorf toys. I am very interested in Waldorf education and raising my daughter that way. I am reading You are Your Child's First Teacher. I really like the book, but I'm confused about a few things. The author states (for a toddler) that "chartreuse ponies with silver hair" aren't appropriate because they don't represent true nature and beauty. I'm assuming she is talking about "My Little Ponies" or something like that. However, I notice on a lot of different Waldorf doll sites they have mermaids, gnomes, goddesses with pink hair, etc. How are these any different? I'm trying to "skim down" my daughter's toys and keep toys that are Waldorf appropriate, but I'm confused on this issue. She also talks about a "floppy stuffed rabbit" but these don't seem that different to me than the beginner waldorf dolls that don't have much of a shape. I know that tv is a problem, but she also sites Barney. I'm not a fan of tv, but her argument with Barney is also confusing to me. He is an imaginary figure, much like gnomes, woodland fairies, etc. I would appreciate any advice on this issue. I find the author has great insight, and I'm just trying to start thinking in the "Waldorf direction."
Rahima replies:
In trying to explain the difference between imaginary figures such as "My
Little Ponies," and "Barney" and imaginary figures such as representations
of woodland fairies, gnomes, mermaids etc., I would first comment on the
materials and the sensory experience for the young child: the soft plastic
trolls with chartreuse hair are no better for the young child than the
ponies! And I'm sure everything on a Waldorf site doesn't automatically get
the "Waldorf purist seal of approval!"
However, the philosophical underpinnings are that fairies and gnomes, for
example, actually come from people's experiences of elemental forces that
help the plants to grow or the minerals to form. These "sightings" or
"sensings" occur cross culturally, although we are pretty steeped in the
European tradition of how these "elemental beings" are talked about and
represented in visual form. There is a kind of "truth" in how they are
represented in paintings or knitted figures, because they person rendering
them is trying to convey certain archetypal truths. For example, fairies
are elementals in the realm of air-kind of like the unseen butterflies that
help plant growth. Have you ever heard of the Findhorn Community in
Scotland? Not Waldorf; they raised outrageously big and beautiful
vegetables in a very severe area of Scotland by consciously working with the
elemental forces they called devas or growth forces-I visited there in 1979,
and it was for real. Gnomes are pictured as being almost all head because
they foster the formation of crystals in the earth (thinking is very
crystalline in its purity, it's ability to cut through things, and it's lack
of association with the fluid forces of vegetative growth.
Fairy tales were collected in written form for the first time in the 18th
century by folks like the Grimm brothers from oral traditions. Steiner says
that they are actually carry-overs from a time when most people could see
into the supersensible world. It is as if they were reporting what they
were seeing. Our consciousness has moved on, but there is a way in which the
archetypal character of the fairy tales present moral tales about the
journey of the human psyche. They speak especially to young children, for
whom the door has not yet slammed shut, keeping them walled off in the
material world.
So there's a way in which we can ask, "Is a character true?" Is it trying
to represent, in an archetypal fashion, something from our collective
unconscious. Mermaids, silkies, and other "mythic" creatures are found in
the tales of seafaring village folk from the coast of Ireland to the shores
or Norway and into the Mediterranean as the Sirens in Ulysses saga. How
have these translated from verbal descriptions into artistic renderings,
into Waldorf dolls, and do you want your child to play with them?
A purple dinosaur, on the other hand, is the product of someone's
intentional imagining, purposely trying to take something that physically
exists or existed (a dinosaur or a pony) and make it into a caricature of
itself by giving it an impossible color or form. And then it becomes a
cartoon or caricature of the human being by being able to talk and wear
clothes.
So the guiding question might be, does the representation (toy or doll)
bring the child more deeply into a relationship with reality (true
representations of the physical world, or archetypal representation of the
unseen realms as they have come to us in our culture? Or are they products
of the modern adult imagination, which relate to an older child who is
better equipped to appreciate cognitive dissonance, humor, caricature,
sarcasm, etc.?
With regard to the form of the doll, the very young child really only
relates to the head, so the large-headed knot doll with a soft and
relatively unformed body/limbs is quite enough to relate to and cuddle with.
As "Waldorf doll" for the older child is not at all floppy-even though the
limbs are stuffed with wool, they are very formed for putting clothes off
and on, sitting vertically, etc.
