In a recent discussion of temperament, my perception of myself was challenged. I’ve always thought of myself as having Owl/Tigger tendencies based on the characters written by A. A. Milne. According to this friend, I’m really Rabbit. Rabbit is not my favorite from the Hundred Acre Wood so I needed to learn more about his character in order to refute this assessment. It turns out that I am more of a Rabbit than I’d like to be. As I started naming off friends who shared the temperament of Kanga and Roo, Pooh Bear, and the rest, I realized that I knew only one person that I would consider a “Christopher Robin”: Mom.
Perhaps you remember the stories of these characters. They are an important part of my childhood and the growing up years of my children. I imagine Pooh is the most famous with an exuberant Tigger bouncing in just behind. Pooh’s peaceful, easy-going sidekick is Piglet. There’s the mother, Kanga, with her tot, Roo. Moping Eeyore, know-it-all Owl, and bossy Rabbit round out the characters.
Christopher Robin is the only human, the boy whose family owns the 100 Acre Wood. In the temperament studies of these characters, he embodies the best of all the temperaments: the friendliness of the sanguine, the decisiveness of a choleric, the level-headedness of a phlegmatic, and the reflective nature of the melancholic. See more here.
I hadn’t thought about it until recently but Mom’s always been the Christopher Robin. In my family of origin, we each had our place in the character dynamics. Mom was the friend to us all, full of common sense, kindness, and wisdom. If one of us (figuratively, of course) got their head stuck in a bee’s nest in search of “hunny,” Mom would come running to save us. If the wind was blowing our house out of a tree on a blustery day, Mom would be there to help tie down the furniture. If one of us lost our tail, she would tack it back on.
Many of Mom’s rescues weren’t as dramatic as those Milne wrote for Christopher Robin. All we had to do was call her and she would come to help. I can’t begin to tell you the many times she consoled me or assisted me or gave me good advice. The last one would fill a book!
At the end of the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh, there is a sweet dialogue between Pooh and Christopher Robin. Even here, Mom’s story is told:
Narrator: And so, we come to the final chapter, In which Christopher Robin and Pooh come to the Enchanted Place and we say goodbye.
Pooh: Goodbye? Oh, no, please, can’t we go back to page one and do it all over again?
Narrator: Sorry, Pooh, but all stories have an ending you know.
Pooh: Oh, bother.
Narrator: Yes, the time had come at last. You see Christopher Robin was going away to school. Nobody else in the forest knew exactly why he was going or nobody knew where he was going. All they knew was it had something to do with twice times, and how to make things called A-B-C’s, and where a place called Brazil is.
Christopher Robin: Pooh?
Pooh: Huh?
Christopher Robin: What do you like doing best in the world?
Pooh: What I like best is me going to visit you and you saying, “How about a smackerel of honey?”
Christopher Robin: I like that, too, but what I like best is just doing nothing.
Pooh: How do you do just nothing?
Christopher Robin: Well, it’s when grownups ask, “What are you going to do?” and you say “Nothing.” Then you go out and do it.
Pooh: I like that; let’s do it all the time!
Christopher Robin: You know something, Pooh? I am not going to do just nothing anymore.
Pooh: You mean, never again?
Christopher Robin: Well, not so much they don’t let you. Pooh, when I’m away not doing nothing, will you come up here sometimes?
Pooh: You mean alone? Just me?
Christopher Robin: Yes. And Pooh? Promise you won’t forget me, ever?
Pooh: Oh, I won’t, Christopher Robin, I promise!
Christopher Robin: Not even when I’m a hundred?
Pooh: How old shall I be then?
Christopher Robin: Ninety-nine, silly old bear.
Narrator: And there they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that Enchanted Place on the top of the forest, a little Bear will always be waiting.
I may be more like Rabbit than like Pooh, but I won’t forget her ever, not even when I’m a hundred.
