Imagine That!

I had imaginary friends when I was a little girl. (The more current term, in educational circles, is now  “imaginary companions.”) I don’t remember them, but my parents told me about them, and Mother wrote their names in my baby book. Linda and Lulu. Maybe after the comics character Little Lulu? I don’t know. But I did have an actual friend named Linda, so maybe when she wasn’t around, I just conjured up an imaginary Linda to play with. Anyway, all I know about them is that once, they got left behind on a bus.

Because I don’t remember them at all, I can’t tell you how I felt about the bus incident. In the retelling, a few years later, my parents seemed to have been quite concerned. All I know is, if they were my imaginary friends and I left them behind on the bus, possibly I was done with them.

JoAnne, as a preschooler, never seemed to leave home without at least one (and she certainly never left one on a bus; as far as I know; but that might be because when she was three and four years old, we had a car). The best imaginary companion story in the family does involve JoAnne. She came wandering into the kitchen one morning with a stuffed animal. She was holding out its tag, which had writing on it. “What does this say,” she asked Mother. Mother looked and said, “Made in Japan.” That afternoon, JoAnne came and casually introduced Mother to the newest invisible family member, Ginjapan. Ginjapan was an entrenched part of JoAnne’s play for quite awhile, joining Good Petey and Bad Petey, and several others, whose names I’m not sure I ever knew. At any given moment, when you walked through a room where she was playing, she would be having lively conversations with dolls, stuffed animals, and/or the air around her. (She had a close friend who also had an imaginary companion, whose name was “Corduroxl,” [just guessing about the spelling.] And I don’t remember if, when JoAnne went over there to play, she took Ginjapan and one of both of the Peteys with her to keep Corduroxl company.)

Ginjapan, or maybe Corduroxl

Here’s the interesting thing: When I was teaching and had brought up imaginary companions in one of my Child Development classes, I asked JoAnne about her imaginary playmates. She said, “Yeah. Good Nancy and Bad Nancy.” WHO?? “Good Nancy and Bad Nancy. Good Nancy and I would play on our porch (the porch of the house where we now live), and Bad Nancy would run around the neighborhood and do all the stuff I wanted to do but would never dare to do.” Apparently, that Bad Nancy was pretty bad.

“And what about Ginjapan? And Good Petey and Bad Petey?” She doesn’t remember them. I, on the other hand, had never before heard of the Nancys.

Here’s what had happened: As a little girl, JoAnne (and I) played freely and openly with our imaginary companions, including them in family conversations and activities. By time JoAnne was 4 1/2 or 5, she was keeping her imaginary friends private. I don’t remember doing that. I suppose I just imagined myself doing mischievous things I would do, if I thought I wouldn’t get caught.

When I did bring up imaginary companions in the Child Development class, I was met with astonishment and, well, horror. The response was very negative. One student said, “If I ever talked about imaginary people in the house, my Mama would have taken me straight to the doctor!” So, I had to go and do research to take back to the students, to reassure them that imaginary companions are considered positive inventions, for a variety of reasons. One student finally admitted that her daughters liked to play school, and they had imaginary playmates when they did this.