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.
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