I was sent to the article by someone who thought it good fun. I certainly did -- and being compulsive, I read each letter.

I didn't grow up with Pooh, and was unacquainted with the Milne canon until after college.

After having a child in school in litigious California, I shrink at the labelling given kids who aren't in the perceived norm--and how they are labelled, left to fail, and only then offered hard-fought help for something as minor as fine-motor development delay, which might have been eased by the teacher saying, No, hold your pencil THIS way. I saw young kids, mostly boys, not allowed to act their age and development, but getting labelled -- in Kindergarten.

What I see that is sad is that what was ordinary in C.R. or A.A. Milne's youth is seldom acceptable in Western Society once they enter school. Trust me, I would rather not have a classroom full of Tiggers -- one at home is QUITE enough, but he has an Eeyore for a mother (yes, that's me).

Mostly what the disapproving letters have echoed were the unintended consequences of an interesting conversation taken to its logical conclusions and made to fit a particular mould, em, style sheet. I certainly wasn't thinking of the pun involved when I gave my therapy team a tin of candied nuts, just the portion control and nutrition issues of gifts to a large group.