As you may have gathered from some of my ramblings and musings over the last year or two, I spend rather a lot of time on social media.
The first thing I do when I wake up is check my notifications, and the last thing I do at night is…check my notifications.
The Social Media web
With several accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the like, I pretty much have no time for any social life, what with all the social media https://uk.care.com/liz-frasers-blog/i-spy-with-my-little-parenting-eye/ I’m keeping on top of. It’s really smart.
If this weren’t bad enough, I also try to justify this time spent flicking through photos of women posing in front of mirrors as part of some fashion or fitness blog or other, videos of cats riding on hoovers and Insta snaps of artistically arranged cups of coffee and uneaten pastries (guilty as charged!), as being part of my ‘work’. ‘I need to be plugged into the Zeitgeist!’ I’ll say, looking at another filtered picture of someone else’s lunch. #lunchzeit
But once in a while, this ‘it’s for my work’ actually comes true, when I see something that makes me feel so strongly about a certain aspect of life, or our culture – especially as regards the way we raise our children – that I have to write about it.
And this week, that was the case.
It was just a photo of some food. A bowl of porridge; plate of pancakes; some jams; some fruit; a plate with poached eggs on rye. The usual kind of pretty nonsense. Nothing wrong with that. But the caption read something like, “I couldn’t choose, so I ordered them all! I’ll never eat it, but it was all so lovely I had to have it!”
And instantly, I felt…sort of sick. Not because of all the food, but because of the gob-smacking, stomach-turning wastage, and what it says about our culture of “I want, so I shall have. Even if I don’t need it, and will barely use it.”
This, in the run-up to Christmas, when so many of us are struggling with the cost of presents for our children, stuck especially hard in my throat. Because it was a perfect representation of all that is so, SO wrong with this culture we’re raising our children in, of ‘I want, I get.’
Waste Not, Want Not
When I was growing up, in the waste-not-want-not ‘70s, Christmas Day meant four things: an orange, some chocolate coins, not getting half of the things you wanted…but being genuinely grateful for anything you didget.
If I got a notepad and a pencil, I was happy. I’d go to my room and look at it for ages, stroking the clean, smooth pages, before actually daring to mess them up and WRITE on them. If I was extra lucky I’d get a pencil sharpener so I could actually do this, but if not we’d use a knife to whittle it down.
The best, most epic, bumper, magical Christmas EVER was in 1983. I wanted a tennis racket. And a squash racket. Asking for both was obviously out of the question, so I hedged my bets with tennis, crossed my mince-pie-covered fingers and sat up all night in hope.
The next morning I saw a present under the tree with my name on it, that looked suspiciously tennis racked shaped. Either that, or it was a really weird notepad. Inside, were both a tennis AND a squash racket. Hello??! I could hardly believe it! Neither could my parents’ bank manager, I imagine.
A surprise like this was so huge I’ll never forget it. Not only that, but 33 years later, I still have both of those rackets. And my children have used them.
A Childish Sense of Entitlement
This, I know, is now so old-fashioned it makes me sound like a character from a Dickens novel, brandishing some cold gruel and a whip. But it really wasn’t all that unusual back then to be given very little, and to appreciate everything we had. I honestly don’t remember feeling sad or hard done by at all. In fact, I honestly think we were happier than many children are today.
I look at the list of Christmas presents children want now, and it almost makes me dizzy. Not only do they want all of these things…many children expect to get them. There’s some bizarre sense of entitlement, or need for all this stuff, as if their happiness depends on it. And if they only play with their new toys only once or twice, that doesn’t seem to matter. It’s the getting that counts. The having.
These piles and piles of presents are the pancakes next to the porridge next to the fruit next to the eggs. You can’t possibly eat them all – so you don’t need to have them!
Set an Example for the Children
And this is where it all comes down to us, as parents, or carers , to set some kind of semi-decent example. If you don’t need another pair of jeans, another scarf, another cushion, another cupcake, another magazine you won’t read, another gadget for the kitchen…don’t buy it. The financial, environmental and even emotional meltdown this all causes is enormous.
Most of us are feeling the financial pinch at the moment, and huge numbers of families will be taking out loans or bleeding their credit card dry, to give their children what they want for Christmas. This is mad on all fronts, and teaching our children that you have to spend within your means, and sometimes have leaner, simpler times, is a far more important and valuable thing for them than the latest mobile phone.
Also, in case you’d somehow managed not to notice, the world is caving in under the weight of discarded junk consumed by we humans who think we can treat it like a giant skip. The most important part of reduce, re-use, recycle is REDUCE. If you don’t need it….don’t have it.
And finally, the emotional part. If you keep stimulating your senses, they get used to it, and it can’t feel or enjoy that sensation as much anymore. They become desensitized. What was once ‘WOWEEEEEE!’ becomes, ‘meh’.
If you want your children to have WOWEEEEEE moments, then there has to be some period of no woweeeeee. Of waiting. Of not having. And, sometimes, of not getting at all.
This, in itself, can become the new high. The sense of satisfaction of walking away from something, and not having it. And being OK with that. So this year, I’m dreaming of a simpler, cleaner , greener Christmas. Where less really is more. Have a go. And enjoy it.
I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas.
Liz Fraser discusses the sense of entitlement children have with regard to gifts and what we, as parents, can do to set a better example.
