"Not Seeing" Is Believing

The Real Life of Imaginary Friends

By Mark Stackpole

Christine Louise Hohlbaum has spent a lot of time cleaning up after the Cat in the Hat. Dr. Seuss is required reading in her house, so it is no surprise that her daughter, Sarah, developed a kinship with Seuss' most famous character. So much so, in fact, that he became Sarah's imaginary friend and a member of the family.

"He has been blamed for a lot of messes found in the living room when no one was looking," says Hohlbaum, author of SAHM I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe (Wyatt-MacKenzie Pub., 2005). "We clean up after him, including the children. It's a wonderful way to take pressure off the kids while identifying what they should have done that is, to clean up after themselves in the first place."

Their friendship began when Sarah was 2 years old, following a hayride during which a costumed version of the character jumped out of the woods and scared her. A week later, she began talking to him in the hat and glove section of a local department store. She has been talking to him ever since, and he even made the trip when the family made a major move from Somerville, Mass., to Paunzhausen, Germany.

For 7-year-old Sarah's part, she identifies the mischievous feline as her best friend. "He comforts me when Mom sends me to my room," she says. "And he plays tricks when she's not there!"

For Lauren Fuller, a public relations professional from Paramus, N.J., it was Nini, LouLou and Johnny, 10-inch-tall mini-friends she now believes were based on The Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore). "Thinking back now, it is interesting to me that each had such defined roles Nini was pretty and popular, LouLou wore glasses and liked to read books and Johnny was the rebel," she says.

It should come as no surprise, then, that rebellious Johnny eventually ran away, causing Fuller a great deal of emotional distress. "My grandmother told me that I ran to her in a panic," she says. "She spent a good amount of time looking for him, and when she finally sat down, I started screaming because she had sat on him." The family stories about Nini, LouLou and Johnny have clearly lingered long after the trio themselves departed, which they did after the birth of Fuller's younger sister. She believes that they were a product of her being an only child and wanting to have a constant set of playmates. When she was no longer an only child, the imaginary friends were no longer required.

Want to see more?

• Living Next Door to Batman: Toddlers and Imaginary Friends
• Once Upon a Time... The Importance of Pretend Play
• Talk about it!