While attempting to reunite over 75,000 teddy bears left behind in their hotels, Travelodge discovered that quite a few did not belong to children. They got curious and in 2012 they set up a survey to find out more. Of the 6,000 adults who took part, 51% of adults reported having a teddy bear since their childhood, the average age of the teddy bears was 27 years, 25% of males said they took their teddy bear away on business with them and 1 in 10 men surveyed admitted to hiding their teddy bear when their girlfriend stayed over.
Personally I am not too surprised at this because until Tessie (my threadbare teddy) got too fragile to travel, she had been all over the world with me, packed into my suitcase next to my business suits and meeting papers! Wherever Tessie was, was my home and today she’s still with me, perched on a radiator and looking out the window.
And this is where we started with all this. Back in February we showed you a picture of Binky having a chat with Tessie and we asked you to post photos of your lovely old teddy bears on Facebook and Twitter. Today we have this wonderful gallery to show you.
So what does your teddy bear say about you?
According to psychologists, a lot of teddy bears are ‘attachment’ or ‘transition’ objects which we chose ourselves to sooth and comfort us as we move away from that first close contact with our parents. In the UK and USA 60-70% of children up to age 3 will have a teddy or special toy or blanket, selected by us to be ‘the chosen one.’
Many academic studies have been carried out into the comforting impact of teddy bears and no, possessing a teddy does not mean you are likely to have a personality disorder! Many police, firefighters and paramedics will routinely use teddy bears to soothe and comfort children and most primary and junior school classes in the UK will have a class bear or two. And even as sophisticated adults, connections to warm feelings and memories of childhood are somehow fast tracked through our teddy bear. According to the Travelodge survey 35% of adults reported snuggling up with their teddy at night.
If you feel inspired to post a picture of your teddy, pop it up on our Facebook page and we will run another gallery soon.