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The Buck Stops Here!
Parenting in a Material World
By Lu Hanessian
My son, Nicholas, is squatted at the base of the dining room table rifling through a toy catalog, when he suddenly slams his palms on a page.
"Lo-o-ok it de-ez dru-ums!" he screams. "Cin we get dem?"
"It is a nice drum set, honey, but," I stall, "it costs a hundred dollars."
"Oh!" he bawls into my collarbone. "It's too many monies!"
Too many monies. Did I really want Nicholas to think the only reason we wouldn't buy the drum set was the hefty price tag? I don't want him to think this is an issue of acquisition versus deprivation. What if we had the money to buy the drums and anything else his little heart happened to desire? Would we?
If I regularly replace his inspiration with merchandise, something tells me he might become disconnected from his own ideas. And what then? Wouldn't a person then gradually yearn for things to fill the void? How would he see himself in the world from his vantage point of easy acquisition?
I once read that a fulfilled need is a building block of self-esteem. But a fulfilled want? I don't know. Is there any way to cut envy, boredom and indifference off at the pass? How early can a person begin to feel the first pangs of general dissatisfaction, an inner restlessness that there is never enough? I realize now that just because a child really, really, really wants a new toy doesn't necessarily mean he or she really, really, really needs it.
We talk a blue streak to your kids about the price of things, about what's expensive and what's on sale. They know the value of many things. But do they know our values? How early can a person begin to have a set of values and live by them?
