Do you let little ones play with 'natural' feathers?

[singingcactus]

I think the whole feather thing is a similar thing to the spider thing. We start off as kids with no fear or regard for crawling things or germs, but we hear the (let's face it) women in our childhood lives freaking out at spiders, feathers, licking lamp posts etc so it becomes ingrained in us to freak out when we see spiders, or toddlers picking up feathers, or licking lamp posts....

I blame the mothers and favourite aunties for the internal argument lol.

I tend to let them collect the nice looking ones....which rapidly turn ratty looking in their sweaty little palms.

[Mouse]

but we hear the (let's face it) women in our childhood lives freaking out at spiders,

At the weekend we had the outdoor fire burning and I asked my boys (both on their 20s) to get some wood out of the shed. Both of them refused in case there were any spiders in there! Admittedly there were lots of spiders, but I just flicked them out of the way so they didn't end up in the fire.The boys genuinely can't stand them and have actually been known to scream if there's one near them.

I'm not at all bothered by them, so I really don't know where they get their fear from - certainly not from any of the women in their lives! My other son doesn't freak out about them either. He was moving a spider a few weeks back and it bit him, so he's not so keen on moving them with his bare hands now, but certainly isn't frightened of them. I know the fear is normally learned, but I don't know where the older boys have picked it up from.

[mama2three]

licking lamp posts ???

[Maza]

licking lamp posts ???

That's a new one for me too!

[clareelizabeth1]

That's a new one for me too!

New to me too.

My biggest problem is my ds likes to drink puddles.