Brett Graff - Not Buying It: Stop Overspending and Start Raising Happier, Healthier, More Successful Kids

Copyright 2015 Brett Graff

Foreword copyright 2015 Gwen Wurm

Seal Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Unless otherwise specified, the accounts of people in this book are fictional compilations of various actual events. Any familiarities reflect the authors work to incorporate situations faced by many, many families. Readers should conduct their own research and reach their own conclusions about the opinions described in this book. Publisher and author accept no responsibility for loss, injury, or inconvenience relating to the information and opinions in this book.

Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. Yonkers, NY 10703-1057, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. Excerpted with permission from Choosing Wisely, When to Say Whoa to Doctors, May 2012, Vision Care for Children May 2014; That CT scan costs how much? July 2012; Surprise medical bills are costing consumers May 2015; Viewpoint: Improving the marketplace for consumers, April 2015 for educational purposes only. No commercial use or reproduction permitted. www.ConsumerReports.org.

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Cover design by Jason Ramirez

Interior design by Domini Dragoone

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

ISBN 978-1-5800-5592-5

This book is dedicated to the loving memory of Melvin H. Einhorn, who would have loved the job of proofreading every word.

Table of Contents

Contents

by Dr. Gwen Wurm

Choose College Savings over Commercial Spending

Choose Academic Acceleration and Financial Protection over Advertising Hype

Choose Perfect Timing over the Two-Hour Commute

Choose Public School over Private Education

Choose Endurance over Narcissism

Choose Fresh over Formaldehyde

Choose Good Health over Hearsay

Choose Stylish Freedom over Brand-Name Slavery

Choose Peaceful Retirement over Piles of Debt

by Dr. Gwen Wurm

A s a pediatrician, I am privileged to be a trusted voice in many families livessometimes in unexpected ways. I am not sure when it happened, but in recent years, questions about breast-feeding began to morph into questions about what type or brand of breast pump. No longer was a car seat that passed safety standards good enough, but was the extra cushioning in Brand Expensive really better for a babys delicate head? And mashing your own banana with a fork for babys first food turned into the $150 Babycook Pro. As amusing as this is, I sense the struggles in parents voices as they ask these questions. As children get older, it gets worsemy sons tennis coach said that Jeremy needed the $160 Babolat racket, and of course he couldnt possibly wear the sneakers he wears to school on the court. With all the money spent on lessonsand the driving to get him therewas it really the time to cut corners? Of course the medical bills from me wanting to kill him when he dragged the racket on the ground and jumped into puddles wearing the special sneakers were not figured into that equation.

Stop the craziness. This is the message of Brett Graffs Not Buying It. There is no requirement that in order to have healthy, happy, successful children, we have to spend our hard-earned dollars on the right stroller, educational toy, or private school. Study after study shows that it is not money that buys our childrens success, but parents being parents. Being there to read to our children, encourage them on the playground, and stand and cheer at the school play. But all too often our fear gets in the way, and we spend moneymoney that we often dont haveon things that we have been told are important.

Do not think that being a developmental pediatrician makes one immune to these messages. I remember going back and forth for weeks between buying the $40 big-box store bike for my four-year-old or the $200 Trek. Didnt I want my child to love bike riding? Didnt I want her to become athletic and develop a lifelong sport? And what about one day biking through Harvard Square? I decided to show her pictures of both. She wanted the purple one, and I was $160 the better. The bike had a great run for two years until she outgrew it and then it performed well for another two years for my niece. As for my daughter, she still loves to bike, and her bike is still purple. And according to Brett, that money is now worth close to $500, which might pay for the Thanksgiving vacation airfare from college (assuming she doesnt use it to go to Cancn with friends).

In Not Buying It, Brett proves that all the stuff were buying does not come with guarantees and also can wind up putting our kids at a disadvantage. She shows us that not spending money is the way to go. Economic stability is its own reward; protecting our kids from debt is one of the best gifts we can give. But as a doctor, parent, and child advocate, I find that Not Buying It offers more than advice on saving moneyit offers freedom from the fear that marketers, friends, schools, and even other parents are instilling in our vulnerable brains. This book has the empowering information we can use to make our own smart choices. Brett gives us the tools to analyze the claims that bombard us from the media, teachers, and other parents. She takes on the companies, the advertisers, the experts who tell us what to do to ensure our childrens success. She challenges their assumptions and provides hard data to say that we are being misled, and that there could be lifelong consequences. Because not only do we get scared by the advertising that tells us that our childs future is at stake, but our children get scared too.

It is both heartbreaking and infuriating to see preschoolers spending long hours in the car, being driven to $200 math classes where theyll do worksheets instead of playing happily, counting flower petals, in their own backyards. Or walking into the exam room to find a patient of any agebut especially the babieshypnotized by an $800 electronic device instead of singing with mom. Families in our practice routinely move to other counties for a bigger home thats far away from the fathers job. I hope the kids are happier having their own rooms. But I bet they would trade it for having Dad read a bedtime story.

It starts prenatallyremember the fad of headphones placed on pregnant womens bellies in the hope that playing classical music to fetuses would lead to math geniuses? For every pound of baby, the typical family buys at least one hundred pounds of stuff. And we research, debate, and fret about each purchase. Companies pummel us with ads about what it takes to make our babies college-ready: Provide them with foreign language phonemes and teach them sign language, or else they will be behind before they ever learn to walk. Dont cheap out on the $30 video that may start their superstar on the way to Stanford. The message of Not Buying It is that little if any of this is true. It is time for us to go back to following our hearts and not parenting by credit card.

So what do we really want for our children? I believe that all of us want our children to be happy, healthy, self-supporting (yes, that is important) adults who can form loving lifelong relationships. Parents who listen, laugh, allow kids to fall, and are there to put on the bandages can help make that happen. It takes time and energy and lots of loveand you cant buy it on an installment plan for $19.95 a month. By writing