Fighting the Urge to Splurge

Has any one else read this NY Times article? If so, did you also have to suppress the urge to curse aloud in your office? Or was that just me? The website-blog Gawker responded with a post titled “The Infuriating New Face of Poverty” which I highly recommend and that pretty much sums up with incredulity my feelings on the article; i.e. feelings of intense nausea and middle class shame. Seriously, I may never go shopping again as recompense for living in a country with such monstrous priorities.

I sent the link to Dan and his response was “In order to prevent a stroke, I am choosing to believe that the article was written with a sense of humor. The name of the town -- Safety Harbor, FL -- says it all.”. While I am all in favor of my husband not stroking out, sadly, it is not tongue-in-cheek. At least, not intentionally.

America?! What have we become? A nation that counts not buying a sixth pair of designer jeans a meanginful “sacrifice”? So that a five year-old can get a mountain-size pile of tacky plastic crap that will probably be forgotten and relegated to the garage in a matter of months (if not weeks)? So that said five year-old will know her parents could always “buy her stuff”? Is this monumentally gross to anyone else? Could I possibly be using more question marks??? It’s just that I need answers, because none of this makes any sense to me. I know it isn’t everyone, but I think NY Times Lady from Florida is far more representative of a certain mindset in this country than we (all of us, um, sensible, thrifty people) would like to believe.

But I am going to level with you, Internet. I have a lot of stuff, far more than I need. I am plagued by materialistic desires for things; things that make no logical sense in a practical world. There are frivolous fancies in life that inexplicably make me happy, or at least create that illusion for a brief time. I make an effort to be conscious when I open my wallet, why and for what, etc. Only to inevitably morph over and over again into a hideous green-eyed monster eyeing the possessions of others as “more”, “better”, “newer”, “sleeker”. My little family is blessed with abundance, and worrying that we’re not stewarding our plenty faithfully does keep me awake at night.

When I think about having my own children some day, I often worry about accumulating too much stuff. I sometimes heckle my brother and sister-in-law for the material boundaries they have set for my niece. Because I am an auntie, and my impulse is to spoil her bloody rotten. How much of that is guilt due to the fact that I see her, maybe, twice a year? How much would I rather actually be there with her to eat popsicles and play games and go to the park? What I want to give her most are memories of an aunt who loves her and knows her and makes an effort to be involved in her life – whether she lives nearby in Boston (yeah, I wish), or far away in Virginia or even farther in Germany.

I may not have children of my own, but I have a lot of hands-on experience with kids, especially with kids who got a lot more stuff than quality time with their parents. And I know, for a tear-stained fact, that they would have rather had more one-on-one time with their dad rather than the newest toy or video game (in the event they couldn’t have both, naturally). I know that if I want to be able to teach my own little moppets to be grateful, frugal and to treat the things they do have with respect that I have to first live out those principles myself. Boy, do I have a long way to go. At this rate, I am praying to stay fertile into a ripe old age.

In NY Times Lady’s particular case, assuming that by not buying fancy jeans for herself, she has the means to buy her daughter the pictured pile of crap, err, excuse me, toys without going into credit card debt, who I am to judge her decision to buy whatever she wants for her own child? Sure, yes, I am judging a little -- but it really is her life, her daughter, her parenting choices. My judgment is better reserved for whoever wrote this New York Times piece and the editor who chose to publish such useless garbage in one of the nation’s most widely circulated newspapers as an example to us all of “sacrifice” and “values” rather than featuring the genuine sacrifices of Americans who lack the entitled voice of the bourgeois. It is more than just myopic, but downright callous to the true suffering of real people not only in this country, but all over the world. Apparently just not in Safe Harbor, Florida.