Entries Tagged 'Materialism' ↓

As I flipped to the “smacking my gums, adjusting my spectacles” “easy listening” station in the car earlier today, I realized it had now become the “24 hours of Christmas songs, all day every day” station. Oh. Well. Ok. So I jammed out to a little “Feliz Navidad” while I pulled into the Publix parking lot. T. was quiet (but that’s nothing new after a busy day of Kindergarten). The boys and I walked hand in hand across the parking lot, past the Salvation Army guy ringing his bell, and into the store. The monstrous, floor to the ceiling display of Santa, Mrs. Claus, presents, candy canes, and the rest went unnoticed by me while I yanked out one of those damn “car” grocery carts (you know the kind, the ones for kids that knock every box of cereal off its display within a 12 yard radius). But all of this mid November Christmas hoopla did NOT go unnoticed by my oldest boy.

“Mommy. Where are the Thanksgiving decorations?”

“Wha…?” The cart had almost knocked over a display of flowers and I was focused on maneuvering this “son of a biscuit” cart out of the way.

“Mommy, there are lots of decorations and songs for Halloween. And lots and LOTS of decorations and songs for Christmas. But what about Thanksgiving? Why don’t we decorate for that?”

“Um, heres a can of yams on display, what about that?”

“And lights on houses?! Or blown up Turkeys?! Why don’t we get those?”

He’s right. Why does Thanksgiving get the shaft every year? All halls were 100% decked everywhere we’ve been recently and Thanksgiving is still a week away. Not a Pilgrim or cornucopia to be seen.

“What kind of Thanksgiving songs are there, mama??”

Oy. I guess I can’t explain how badly big corporations want us to get excited about Christmas right now. Ranting and half crazed, they are spreading Christmas cheer all around us hoping to coax maybe a few more dollars out of our pockets. Hoping maybe we’ll fan the dying embers of our economy with one more toy for junior. Lord knows, I am certainly one to get caught up in the “gotta make Christmas perfect” fervor.

And don’t you think they HAVE decorated a little earlier this year? I wouldn’t blame them. We need some tidings of joy around here. We need some cheerful spending and a jollier economic confidence. We need to forget about this whole damn mess we’re all in.

But I guess I can’t explain that to him.

“That’s a good question, hon. Stores really don’t make as much money decorate as much as they do for Christmas, do they.”

I am wondering if Turkeys cost more money than they did, or if gifts were given, or if there was same insane hype to make that day perfect for your child - I wonder if there WOULD be decorations as far as the eye could see. Orange and yellow lights strung up, pumpkin pie songs on the radio, or even a “Santa-esque” Pilgrim rising up out of the pumpkin patch to deliver toys to every little boy and girl… oh wait, I am mixing all my holidays up royally now.

“Hey! You know what? There IS a Thanksgiving song! I’ll play it for you when I get home!”

“Yay! OK Mommy!”

And this is what we played over our ravioli tonight.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOOxcEIdTA8&feature=related]

(“My brother likes to masturbate with baby oil”. WHOOPS. Earmuffs son, tra la la la la la, fiddle dee dee… Let’s put on “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” instead…)

It all started out with the best of intentions. When T. turned five last week, his grandmother sent him a crisp $20.00 bill to spend on whatever he would like. What a sweet and smart gesture! A true acknowledgement that he was a big boy – five! – and old enough to have his own money. T. and I agreed that he could take his money to Toys R Us where he could buy a special toy all by himself. So, today, holding onto some left over birthday cheer, we headed over to the recently opened Toys R Us up the road. When we got out of the car, he was absolutely fired up. He jumped up and down beside me, his $20.00 held tight in his hand. And I was excited too, I thought that he might get a good lesson about money and how to spend it. This would be fun!

Walking into Toys R Us still holds the same magic for me as it did when I was a kid. Like something out of a dream, bright primary colored toy boxes were laid out before us, as far as the eye could see, from floor to ceiling. My heart still skips a beat when I pass that wonderful candy pink aisle packed with every kind of cool Barbie stuff. I remember standing in that aisle with my own birthday money, carefully weighing my options, giddy, silly and wanting.

I asked T. where he would like to look first. He said “Star Wars stuff” so we headed there. He went straight up to the $49.00 Darth Vadar/Death Star transformer. “What about this?” “Sorry hon, too expensive.” And then pointed out what things were ok. He touched all the boxes, considering everything but he seemed a bit overwhelmed. So I said that maybe we should walk around a bit and see what else there was.

When we stopped at the Thomas the tank aisle, without any hesitation, he picked up a starter train set for $19.99 and said “I want this!” Perfect! Ok! Let’s go check out.

…”But what about the Star Wars things??”

“Um, no, hon, this train set costs $20.00. You’ve spent all of your money.”

And that’s when it happened. I could practically hear the audible snap. Greed swooped in and clutched my son’s usually rational brain – a beast took over.

“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I WANT THE STAR WARS THINGS!!! I WANT THE TRAIN THINGS!!!! I WANT EEEVVVVEEERRREEEETHIIIIIING!!!!!”

He promptly burst into tears and slumped down on the platform displaying all the bikes. While C. ran up and down the bike aisle, with a bike helmet on, T. sobbed. I explained that he couldn’t have everything. $20.00 will only buy him somethings or one thing. Not everything. He was crushed. He was overwhelmed. The decision was impossible.

We finally went with the train set. As we went to check out, we steered clear of the Star Wars aisle for fear he would be set off once again. But what really made me sad was that he wasn’t giddy and excited about his purchase. He seemed resigned. Instead of getting a fun new toy, he looked like he had actually lost something. His eyes were still wet, his face was sad and walked behind me slowly. This was not the fun adventure I thought it would be. The only lesson he learned was there is so much he couldn’t have. Granted, that is a very important lesson for any child, but again, it wasn’t exactly how I thought the experience would go down when we walked in there a half hour prior.

As I have mentioned before, I try to limit too much stuff in our lives. Call it being cheap, being green, or saving space, but we honestly don’t have half the toys his friends do. And even the toys T. has, he only plays with them now and then. T. has never been a stuff guy. Presents are fun to open but he’ll leave something in its box for days and only vaguely find interest when I get his attention and ask him if he wants to open it with me. He is usually happier with a book, playing a board game, playing outside with a ball or in the sprinkler. Of course, he loves T.V. but not too much. He has always seemed “just right” with his need for any sort of excess. He has never hoarded, he has always shared well, and – shockingly – he has never begged or pleaded or demanded a toy (ice cream, yes, a toy no). Until today.

So excuse me as I unleash the mommy guilts within. But, today, I feel like I ruined a little bit of him. I let money become something exciting. I let the stuff become a fun thing to get and find and need. My heart went a little cold when he said “I want everything.” I know this is a human reaction. We all want a shopping spree. We all get excited over stuff. We all get bummed out when we can’t afford something we want desperately. Its normal, he needs to understand how buying things works and understand the value and limits of money. And, I assure you, there will be more birthday money in his future, we will set out for Toys R Us once again, and we will keep working on this lesson until it is good and learned. But, I guess, just to see his first moment where he is actually heartbroken over not getting some sort of stuff… It just didn’t feel so good.

And here’s the kicker. After lunch we pulled out the train, got it all set up (making a figure eight with train tracks is no easy feat, I mean it) and now its sitting there untouched on our family room floor. A few minutes ago, I asked him ”What about your train, T.? Why don’t you play with that for a little bit?” “Its making me boring, mommy” Oh o.k. Terrific.

Stuff. We want it. We stress over it. We use money we don’t even have to buy it. We finally get it, hold it up like a trophy fish scooped out of mall’s ocean. When, most of the time, we really don’t even need it.

With my new washer all hooked up, I have settled back into washing daily loads upon loads of dirty laundry again. While sorting socks and thanking my lucky stars for that sweet Kenmore yet again (sigh), I was reminded of my first year and a half with my oldest boy T. We lived in a small one bedroom apartment outside of Boston. The one bedroom was big and we were able to divide it off between us and the baby. However, the apartment itself was a lesson in humility to be sure. Our kitchen was tiny with a small frig, a small oven and no dishwasher. We also did not have a washer or dryer. And with a newborn producing mass quantities of every sort of bodily fluid, it was a struggle. But in the moment, I thought to myself: remember this. Why? Because we got by. We did it. We didn’t have a ton of space, a ton of stuff, we didn’t have every cool appliance or endless cool new baby gadgets. And we were fine.

So now we live in a house, but it’s certainly not the biggest house around. My boys share a room and their toys compete with our living space (the toys are winning by a long shot). Again, I think back to our Boston apartment days. We had a lot less, and we were fine.

Maybe its partly to save money or be more “green” or to save space, but I find myself coming back to the same realization: there is way way WAY too much excess expected in our lives.

Its impossible to avoid. We live in such a world of stuff. Catalogs, websites, malls, magazines, commercials, talk shows… they beckon and lure us in. Friends, moms, neighbors all around fall in love with stuff and try to convince us we need it too. Its cool, its fun, its efficient, its absolutely necessary to get by.

And what is it that we all seem to need? 

How about household stuff: Two cars, and after 4 or 5 years, turn them in for new ones. Stainless steel appliances, even though those regular white ones still work fine. Two computers – a laptop and a regular sized PC with a nice flat screen monitor. Scanners, printers, cable boxes, wireless routers, DVD players, surround sound systems, and a million power strips to try and support it all. A grill, a big one with a big gas canister attached. Ipods, iphones and all the iattachments. Digital cameras, video cameras, phone cameras. Chargers for everything. Digital picture frames, security systems, a TV mounted on the porch, halogen track lighting. Blue tooth stuff. Flat screen TVs – for every room. Video gaming equipment and games upon games upon games. Cool chairs to sit in while you play those games. Garage door openers, garbage compactors, lawn mowers, edgers, whipper snippers, sprinkler systems to maintain unnaturally green grass.

What about babies? Well they need: bassinettes, cribs, excersaucers, bumbos, bouncers, swings, jumparoos, slings, backpacks, play mats, pack n plays, video and/or audio monitors, high chairs, 3 strollers minimally, car seats for each car, and every latest Baby Einstien developmental toy out there. You don’t have those? You’re a horrible mom. And then the diapers. Do I even need to explain the diapers? The excess which diapers represent? And how many of us know cloth diapered babies? I think I can count on one hand moms who use cloth diapers. And I am not one of them. Of course, kids do get potty trained (with potty seats and stickers and treats and endless loads of washing to clean up mistakes). 

Then comes the kid stuff: train tables, all the $15 Thomas the train trains, princess gear, swing sets, board games with pieces spread all over the house, dress up clothes, books upon books upon books, heaps of forgotten stuffed animals (where do they all come from?), bikes of every size, wagons, slip n slides, pools, sandboxes, kiddie kitchen sets, plastic this, plastic that, bright, buzzing, falling apart. New clothes, always new. Old clothes hardly worn because they grew.

Our clothes: Piles of ancient fraying t-shirts, old jeans you swear you’ll fit into, shoulder padded dresses you’ve forgotten you used to like, jackets of every sort even though you live in Florida. Clothes with tags still on them because the sale was too good in the store, but they are sort’ve ugly out of the store. Clothes you bought trying to feel better, clothes you bought that made you feel worse. And shoes that seem to reproduce at the bottom of the closet, old ones falling stiff and flat and forgotten.

Food: Meat, every night, with packaging. Veggies bought, never eaten, rotting at the bottom of the crisper. Bags of potatoes bought in bulk that grow spuds faster than they’re eaten. Leftovers you swear you were going to eat, but seemed to have crawled off to the back of the frig. Seperate overly packaged containers of yogurt, applesauce, cookies, crackers, cheese, granola bars, easy mac, formula, juice. Bottles and bottles of water. Cans and cans of soda. (What DOES soda do exactly?)

And then cleaning it all up: Water left on while you rinse a plate. Handfuls of paper towels to clean up any water spilt while washing that plate. Antibacterial wipes – which we all love - pulled out and used for everything, then tossed. Cleaners of every variety, in big colorful containers. Water is still left on this time to brush teeth, to wash the kids hair in the tub, to water the plants, to play in, to wash the car… oh the water is still on? And some of us recycle, some stuff, some of the time.

Getting anywhere with your stuff: Cool mommy minivan started up and air conditioner on. Gotta get to that other mall across town for that sale. Gunning the accelerator to get through the yellow light. Waiting with the car on, music blaring, a/c blasting in the oh so long drive-thru line …GASGASGASGASGAS…

All of this is just stuff. And a lot of this stuff I have. Or want. We’ve all got it, we all compare it, we all enjoy it, we all toss it out without another thought. I guess what I am trying to do is simply THINK about it. What do I have? What do I really need? What can I live with or without? I want to be aware of why I buy yogurt in individual containers as opposed to the one big quart sized container. Or why I toss things into my cart in the dollar section of Target. Do we really need a new TV? Nope. Did we need that new washer? Yup. But I have made do without one before. So, excuse me as I go gather my garbage for our twice weekly and oh-so-easy curbside pick up tomorrow. I need to go and really think.

Last night, snuggled into bed, I watched part of MTV’s “The Hills”finale. What? So it’s the most vapid, horrifyingly shallow, “un”reality show ever. Of course, I am well aware that I am almost 35 and this admission may have pushed me a couple notches lower on the “grounded, has a clue, feminist” scale. But, whatever, I’m coming out of my MTV closet. I was watching it. And while hurling insults at that horrid human, Spencer, I saw a commercial for a new “reality” show. My Super Sweet Sixteen – EXILED.

Oh, mother of pearl. My prayers have been answered.

I may have mentioned before my visceral distaste for the show My Super Sweet Sixteen.It stands for everything that is wrong with parenting today. The expectations it sets for tweens everywhere absolutely fill me with horror. For real. It’s televised p*rn for the self centered, materialistic teenaged masses. Hell yeah, I’m getting a Escalade for my birthday. Hell yeah, I’ll fly to Paris to buy four dresses for one party. Hell yeah!! And you suck if you don’t!

Ugh, I am just not sure what to say. Except… gag me with a spoon. I’m 35, ok? As I often do while watching MTV, I am connecting with the permed out 80s teenager still living inside of me.

So anyway, MTV has now decided to take the stars of these shows (I can hardly stomach the fact that there have been 61 episodes to date of this trash) and plop them in the middle of a third world country. And as I watched this trailer, I found myself sitting up in bed, madly snickering and clapping with glee. Oooooh, they’re gonna GET theirs now…

But I have to add in a sidebar here. These parents need some exiling themselves. How could they have EVER gone along with “My Super Sweet Sixteen” in the first place? What part of showering their teen aged children with money, cars, and live performers - and then taping it all for a national television show – was ever a good idea? While their kids are getting schooled in Peru, India and Kenya, I hope someone, anyone (Super Nanny, where are you?) is setting them straight while shredding every credit card in sight.

And I also feel for the families who are hosting these girls. UGH. I suppose our status as the “Ugly Americans” can’t get much worse these days (thanks, Dubya) but I know I will cringe seeing these families react to their horrid, self serving behavior. Please, wonderful people of our earth, ALL AMERICANS DON’T SUCK THIS BAD!

But here is the irony. Back in 1987, I went through my own little teenaged exile. I wasn’t 16, I was 14. And it wasn’t Kenya, it was Swaziland. I may have had my reasons back then, but there can be no denying it - I was a very unreasonable 14 year old. And in the summer of ’87, kicking, “UH-MUH-GAWD”ing and screaming, my parents dropped me in Africa. So there.  And was I schooled? Oh, you bet.

So why do I take such glee watching these privileged brats get such a drastic slap in the face? Is it my own issues of wanting to see other kids go through what I did? No, I don’t think so. Or is it the fact that at 35, I am painfully aware of how much excess we American have – and EXPECT to have? Do I shudder at how little we Americans understand about humanity on a global scale? Do I feel heaps of shame when my fellow Americans don’t even WANT to learn more about cultures other than their own? HELL YEAH. And guess what sweet sixteeners… you suck if you don’t.

My brother and myself. Still new to Africa. Getting a clue.