Children and consumption

We drive old cars. My children wear hand-me-downs. We don’t have cable TV.

It’s hard to explain this to my kids, but I don’t ever want us to be defined by our stuff. Our priority has always been to spend our money on experiences rather than things.

Lately it’s become a struggle as my children are getting older and more aware of other people’s stuff. It’s hard for them not to make comparisons. In fact, it’s sometimes hard for me as well.

“We have become a nation that places a lower priority on teaching its children how to thrive socially, intellectually, even spiritually, than it does on training them to consume,” wrote Juliet Schor, author of “Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture.”

“The long-term consequences of this development are ominous.”

I’ve been reflecting on this quite a bit, especially as I fill a box every two weeks full of stuff we no longer use.

How did all this junk get into our house in the first place? How much energy and time did I spend cleaning it up, managing it and now hauling it away?

Trent Hamm, a guest blogger for The Christian Science Monitor’s “The Simple Dollar,” offered some advice on this very issue last week.

“I want my children to not derive their self-worth from the stuff that they own or don’t own, but instead from who they are and what they’ve accomplished,” he wrote.

Here’s a summary of the tips he shared:

1. Be picky about the media your kids consume.

2. Steer conversations away from “who owns what.”

3. Focus on people’s qualities instead of the things they own.

4. Praise them for hard work.

5. Actively work against defining other people by their stuff.

I need to incorporate some of his advice into my own life. As we get busier, it’s harder to be intentional about these things.

What do you do at your house? How do you steer your kids away from consumerism and accumulating junk?

– Posted by Virginia de Leon

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