Today I completed a project that’s been hanging over my head for a long time: cleaning and organizing my almost 4 year old’s room. Not just putting things away, but throwing out broken toys, loner socks, and packing away clothes she’s outgrown. It was quite a day!
It is really amazing how much stuff she has and yet, she only has a fraction of her friends’ possessions. I know it’s considered horrid manners, but every year, I include in her birthday invitation something to the affect of, "In lieu of a gift, please consider a contribution to K’s college fund." While I don’t expect the grandparents to abide by this request, most of our friends have been understanding.
I know it’s a foreign concept in the USA where most people equate expressing affection with material goods, but I’m really trying to teach our children that the time people spend with us, and their friendship, is far more valuable than a new toy. I really don’t want her birthday to be about the ‘stuff.’ I don’t want her to grow up thinking that success is defined, or happiness obtained, by how much ‘stuff’ you have. I want her to think smart and rather than do the ‘home upgrade’ every few years, put that extra money away for retirement, so she can semi-, or completely, retire early and reap the flexibility and freedom that brings. (Yes, we are huge Millionaire Next Door fans.) And since my daughter rarely plays with any of the toys she has, it’s really just a waste to spend money on some plastic, made in China do-dad. She spends almost every afternoon playing in our backyard, climbing fruit trees, chasing the chickens, exploring under the deck, singing as she sits on the roof of her playhouse, picking flowers, making up stories, trying to ride the dog like a horse, building sand castles… she really doesn’t need, or want, a ton of toys. I think that afternoon routine is developing her mind and body better than any My Little Pony action figure ever could.
I really resent how almost all toys found in your typical Target or Toys R Us are really just advertisements for TV shows and vice versa. (Consuming Kids is an excellent commentary on toddler-targeted marketing.) And the times that I have purchased these mentally vacant toys and ‘twaddle’ books, K played with the toy in question once or twice and then promptly forgot about it. It’s amazing how a Disney Princess sticker book that she wants "so bad" is forgotten within a week. With the help of TiVo, we are able to really control how much, and what shows, K watches as well as fast forward through the commercials, but she is still a fan of Horseland and Strawberry Shortcake. (That’s one thing I really like about HBO Family – no advertisements and, to my knowledge, the shows that they have do not have corresponding merchandise. Which means I can walk through the toy section with less exclamations of "I want that!") Don’t get me wrong, we have our fair share of Princess crap, err merchandise, but I’m trying to control the tsunami of commercialism. Everywhere you look, there is a Princess bike helmet, clock radio, or TV. Disney has done a great job of marketing virtually everything under the sun with the Princess brand. I just don’t want it all in my house! And while it’s fun to think of yourself as a Princess, I try to counter this fantasy with books like The Princess and the Woodcutter’s Daughter, which is more in line with the values we are teaching our children.
Most toys are cheaply made, in foreign countries where people are treated and paid poorly, and then shipped over here, using/wasting fuel, where the price is considerably marked-up, and then we walk in the store and lap it up as if it’s something truly special. DH and I recently watched the movie Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price which made a compelling argument against shopping at Wal-Mart. I highly recommend watching this movie and questioning whose economy you are actually supporting when you shop at Wal-Mart and buy things primarily made in China. (Here’s a hint – It’s not ours.) I’ve never been a big Wal-Mart shopper, but we do get our oil changed there and I plan to do that elsewhere in the future.
And then you just have the physical space in our house available to store more ‘stuff.’ To reclaim space, I conduct a ‘crap reduction’ a couple times a year, scheduling a pick-up via the Salvation Army’s website and donating books to our local library. Our house simply does not have a lot of storage space and, while I would love to spend a few hundred dollars at The Container Store, revamping all closets in the house and streamlining our storage processes, I simply don’t have the time or money. So, in order to live in a non-cluttered house where every square inch is not occupied by an object, I’m trying to reduce the amount of stuff that we buy that we would have to store.
I’m a huge fan of the ‘no/low space’ gift and these are the kind of things I enjoy buying K and others. Things like tickets to a local zoo. A CD of music. (K loves our Signing Time CDs.) A gift certificate to the local ice cream shop (food doesn’t take up space for long,) Netflix (they have an extensive library of ‘twaddle-free’ movies,) Lakeshore Learning (so many fun activities,) Michael’s (K loves crafts!) or, since K loves the outdoors and camping, REI. And when I do buy toys, I try to support toy companies that sell well-made, high-quality, non-branded wooden toys, that aren’t full of lead, and contain some intellectual component such as Rosie Hippos or Magic Cabin. I love to buy Charlotte Mason-esque books. Or, the best gift of all, a simple check to the college fund. A $10 check, invested over 15 years, will bring more value to K’s future than something that will simply be donated to good-will in a couple years in almost-new condition. This year, we are having her party at the local gymnasium, so we will get her a small gift and make our donation to her college fund. I know she won’t get excited over this now, but when the time comes, she will appreciate it.
And I walk the walk. Almost always, I write a check, in lieu of a gift, for birthdays. And as I watch the child open the 20th gift, without a gift receipt, I’m glad that I have given that mommy one less thing to return or store in the over-crowded closet. If she wants her child to have a particular toy, she can use the money for that, but given the pile of gifts left on the living room floor, I suspect that she, and her child, are not missing that one gift.
Recent Comments