Kids and Consumerism

I wrote this piece over 4 years ago. But the point's still valid.

Raising a child in these times of rocketing consumerism is fraught with danger. One constantly hears stories of youngsters barely into their teens using rather crooked means to get their quota of cell phones, designer outfits, nightclub entries and what have you.

Doctors and social scientists advise us parents not to give in to our children’s demands, but that, like most pieces of advice, is easier said than done. I know. I have a four-year-old who loves his cartoons, but he loves the ads in between the cartoons even better. He doesn’t mind if he misses a minute or two of his favourite Popeye or Tom & Jerry show, but hell breaks loose if we mute the television even for a second during the commercials.

Last Christmas, he asked Santa for a washing machine—not just any, mind you, but of a particular brand—so that his mother, like the ever-smiling super mom in the ad, can have enough time on her hands to bake him a strawberry cake. That his mother doesn’t even know the recipe to begin with, or that even if she did, she would hardly have had the time or the energy (ask any mother, the phrase ‘energy crisis’ holds an entirely different meaning for them) to bake a cake after a hard day’s work seems to have escaped him completely. Luckily for me, Santa didn’t oblige. And I got him a strawberry pastry from the neighbourhood cake shop.

But I don’t expect all problems to come with such simple solutions. There’s a whole wide world of goodies out there, and it’s only a matter of time before he starts eyeing the pricier ones. Therein lies the crux of the problem: How do I explain to a four-year-old that all those nice toys lining the shop window doesn’t really matter in the bigger scheme of things; that he should focus on the smaller (read: cheaper) joys of life; that abstinence is the best policy to reach a higher plane of being? The explanation becomes even tougher in the light of the fact that his parents simply can’t do without their share of the latest gadgets, good clothes, and premium Scotch. We know, of course, that, we are well past the age when we are likely to give in to temptations like clearing out our parents’ bank accounts (we drain our life’s savings instead, but that’s another story), but it’s difficult making that distinction to my son. Consumerism is here to stay, and all we parents can do is pray that we don’t get our throats slit for refusing a camera phone. As of now, my son’s fifth birthday is coming up and he has asked for a house.