My sociology class has gotten to childhood and economics, and I’m not sure I like what is being said.
Consumer culture has materialized emotions, in that now love and value are expressed through buying material goods and that those without money are pressured into working more and more to try to keep up with such a social obligation. Even among children there is a desire to belong and fit in with the rest of the group by consuming new experiences to have something to talk about (be it through toys, tv, or anything else). It seems lives and emotions are tied to what you can spend (and I can argue the rise in geek culture is the worst in this).
It’s…troubling. Reading all that made me look back at my life and wonder, if I really measured the worth of people by what they had and what they could give me. That if I didn’t buy anything it meant I didn’t care. I even felt left out as a kid because I didn’t have the latest toy and couldn’t share with others what they went through. Even now there are new apps coming out that you have to chase to have anything to talk about, like pokemon go in the past.
Have emotions and identity been assigned a dollar value and a price tag? Are we “buying” friends now?
Couldn’t you give some clue as to what video it is you’re posting a link to and why? I don’t want to have to view a video just to understand what you are trying to get at.
Our consumerist adult culture is not well suited to either the needs or the immense potential children have from birth to not become shallow, materialistic children or adults. For better or for worse, children will inevitably adapt to the environment they as they perceive it. And part of that perception is whether their needs are being met, which they of course don’t recognize consciously until later in life.
Hence why I’m a Montessori advocate. By relying on empirical observation of guides and other adults in children’s lives and scientific research, we can create environments that meet children’s natural, developmental needs. We can also leverage our collective knowledge and observational skills to assist parents (or in the best case scenario would-be parents) in setting up an appropriate environment at home for their child that aligns with each family’s means and culture.
Children can spontaneously learn at a very early age to take pride in and talk about their own actions, their own lived experiences, instead of relying on the experiences our adult society chooses to impose upon them that may get in the way of them focusing on their own experiences. Children raised this way will likely avoid some, most, or all of these pitfalls as adults given their firm foundation, through research would have to be done to confirm this.
It’s difficult to maintain a traditional culture of thrift in an industrial society where the captains of industry spend large sums of money on convincing the populace to consume the excess production. Buying to affirm one’s love and devotion is but one psychological guilt trip. Others tap into identity, status, or even patriotic economics. Terrorist attack? Better go shopping to keep the economy afloat.
If you define “now,” as referring to the entirety of human existence, then the answer is a firm “yes.” You could modify that slightly, by adjusting for the shift from one form of payment to the next, if you like.
There are definitely some who fit the bolded part. However, this has been going on for basically ever. Grog the caveman probably heard all about how Thags kids had deerskin boots instead of rabbits skin. And Thags kids had real rocks to throw at each other instead of lowly bear turds. And if Grog loved his kids he’d get them rocks.
However, there is a simple choice: don’t buy into it. And don’t let your kids buy into it either.
My wife and I have decided that we aren’t going down that whole path with our kids. No buying stuff to have it. No keeping things unless they are being used. No getting things for free, except B-Days and X-Mas type things. Even then, the presents will be reasonable.
We decided that we are going to focus on doing things, not having things. We are going to do our best to get our kids to think that way as well. It will probably be hard, peer pressure and all that, but certainly not impossible.
In terms of isolation I remember my parents often not buying into the latest fad just because the other kids did it. My time involved many trips to the library. Even when I did get things it was more just want I liked and not what everyone else was into. But that make me think about the lonely and isolation bit. When you don’t do or have what everyone else does, it makes it hard to connect.
I think it is unfair to call it “simple”. Yes, it is a choice. But ignoring peer pressure is not easy to do, especially for the average kid. You have to actually counteract that pressure with something stronger and more rewarding. And that’s hardly “simple.”
You’re swapping pursuit of things for pursuit of experiences. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with either of these things, but people who are financially comfortable can afford to esteem the latter over the former. Experiences can be just as much of a status symbol as a cool gadget or shiny bauble. And people can get their egos tied up in having nice experiences just as much as they can get tied up in having nice things. Witness the girlfriend who thinks her boyfriend doesn’t love her because he hasn’t taken her to Paris, or the kid feels like a loser because he’s never been to Disney World. People are constantly trumpeting their experiences on Facebook, unintentionally making their friends feel sad and anxious because they are missing out. (People are taking pictures of food like they’ve never been to a restaurant before. It’s kind of crazy.)
I think it’s important for kids to learn that status symbols in all their forms need to be viewed with healthy detachment. A kid who talks about his exotic summer vacations and fabulous camping trips isn’t more worthwhile than a kid who loves his dinosaur collection and has his eyes set on a digital camera. There’s also nothing wrong with wanting stuff just to fit in since winsome personality doesn’t always do the trick. A lot of times it IS about physical appearance and “looking the part”. I think it’s kind of crazy that adults appreciate that they have to “dress to impress”, but they will teach their kids that it is wrong for them to dress with *their *peers in mind.
I do thing the inculcation of children into consumerism has gone a bit overboard but on the flip side it is consumerism that gives the world most of us want to live in. Without it we’d be stuck in an agrarian society that couldn’t possibly support the current world population, we wouldn’t have wonderful toys like cell phones, television, the internet, or the modern medicine that keeps so many people alive. It is the a basic part of human nature that our ancient ancestors craved a pointier stick, a way to carry fire, to live in fancier caves in nicer neighborhoods, and to wear better animal skins than their neighbors did.