"I want" ... the comercializing of Christmas

A series of posts on one of the lists regarding Christmas wish lists for underpriviledged children sponsored by various charities caught my interest. The original tone questioned these children asking for expensive items when they "needed" things like coats and warm boot with a tendency to be put off by these requests. I have to admit to thinking a bit along those lines myself but more thoughtful posts made better points and started me really thinking about the situation and remembering my only truly serious "I want" from my childhood.

The one "store bought" thing I can remember wanting very desperately when I was a child (maybe 7 or 8) was a child-sized saddle in the saddle shop. I rode bareback because the saddles we had were adult sized and my parents wouldn't let me ride with one since they were afraid I'd slip and get my foot through a stirrup. This saddle was light enough for me to pick up and carry, I could reach the stirrups and it smelled so good ... that new leather smell. I can still remember how very desperately I wanted that saddle and struggling to blink back tears as we left the shop.

But when we got home, my mother sat me down and went over the $$. Even at that age, I was raising "livestock" for my spending money, chickens at that time. I sold them in the fall, gave half the money to my folks for the feed and then put as much aside as I could to buy more chicks the next spring. I knew how much it cost to buy a chick, how much I would probably get when I sold them, that some would die so I wouldn't have all of them to sel. I knew I'd have half that money to buy more chicks the next year and if I chose to spend it on something else, how much I could spend and still have money for more chicks. At that age, I was already not expecting my parents to buy things to give to me ... not "big" things. Special little treats, an ice cream cone when we went to town, a particular kind of cereal, material for a new shirt ... but not "big" things.

I could see in black and white the numbers showing that it would take me 3 years to save enough money to buy the saddle even if I didn't increase the number of chicks I was buying each spring. By that time I was already planning sell enough chicks in the next year or two to buy my first pig ... for more potential income. I realized that I couldn't do both and agreed that more chicks ... and then the pig ... was a better decision.

I was able to make that decision though because I knew how much money I could selling those chicks, how much it cost to raise them to butcher weight and what my profit would be. It was obvious I couldn't do what I wanted to do with the chickens ... and the pig ... if I took most of that money to buy the saddle. My parents didn't say I couldn't save to buy the saddle, if that's what I wanted, they just showed me the numbers and that it wasn't possible to do both.

I'm not sure that it is as easy for parents to explain the economic facts when they are working a job that pays "X" $$ ... and having to explain that the house payment, car payment, utilities and food and everything else has to come out of that ... and there isn't enough left over for whatever it is. It was difficult enough for me to realize how much money something cost when I had something as concrete to refer to as "X" number of chickens brings me "X" dollars ... and to make more I need "X" dollars to buy "X" more chickens. If I can't buy more chickens, I don't get more money. I could understand that.

Children rarely connect $$ with "want". They see things advertised on TV, hear other kids rave about things they have and of course they want "one of those" too. It takes time ... and careful teaching by the parents to start them along the path of "if I want this, it costs this much and means I can't have that" as a part of maturing.

Without the advertising and hype generated by the companies producing these products, my parents weren't dealing with the problem of advertising targeting children and designed to convince them their product was a "must have". So for them, it was just taking the time and patience to present the actual facts to me in a simple enough way that I could understand and then give me the freedom to make a choice.

I have ended up coming to the conclusion that the "I want" syndrome is really not the fault of the child or even of the parents who are dealing with explaining economic realities that are more complex with fewer concrete examples. And you can't even really blame the companies who build the toys and then advertise them ... they wouldn't be in business, employing people, if they didn't.

But I do feel fortunate that I did not have to contend with those pressures as a child ... and am very glad I am not raising children in today's society.