Donna Bee-Gates - I Want It Now: Navigating Childhood in a Materialistic World

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For my husband Dave

Thank you to my family who has supported me throughout this project. To my wonderful husband, Dave, who has read countless drafts, cooked dinners, run errands and cheered me on, all with endless grace and good humor. To my mother, who provided spiritual guidance and reality checks, my beloved sisters, Michele and Maria, and my father and his partner, Beverly. Thank you to Elizabeth Fishel, my writing mentor, whose expertise and faith in me has kept me inspired. Much gratitude to Arielle Eckstut and her husband, David Sterry, for their invaluable advice. I would not have had the opportunity to write this book without Arielles belief in this project. Thanks to Sudha Kaul, for reading portions of the manuscript, to my agent Stephanie Rostan, for her guidance and tenacity, to my editor Amanda Johnson, for her expert comments, and Emily Leithauser for her invaluable assistance. Huge thanks to all of the parents who shared their stories with me. I appreciate your wisdom and your valuable time.

On his fourth birthday, my nephew received a pile of gifts. During the party, well-meaning parents told him how lucky he was, and several mothers marveled at what great friends he had. Unimpressed with his windfall, my nephew was more interested in playing monster with his friends than in opening presents. Over a week later, the majority of gifts remained unopened. How to explain such disinterest in new toys? Perhaps, I thought, this child might actually be immune to consumer desire! Just a year later, my nephew had joined in the annual Christmas gift opening frenzy. Like the transformation of the townsfolk in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, seemingly overnight youngsters morph from carefree non-materialists to savvy consumers plotting their next acquisition. To those who have witnessed the change: it doesnt have to be this way.

Young children learn to crave the newest and the latest. Theyre socialized to believe that happiness comes in the form of a superhero or an American Girl doll. How do young ones discover this? We can finger the usual suspectsmedia, advertising, peers andyou guessed this was comingparents. Indictment of the media is not new. Many studies document the artful ways that advertising agencies and retailers seduce children into wanting things that they dont need. Peers intensify this need through social comparison ( Everyone else is wearing $250 Nikes!). Parents can unwittingly reinforce this acquisitiveness. Children study up by observing the spending habits of their elders. Maybe they learn the importance of waiting and saving for their objects of desire. Or kids might catch on that one way to soothe hurt feelings is to ask their parents for something new or, for older children, go buy something for themselves.

Parents can preach to their children that money doesnt buy happiness, but the real lessons take place every time children hear their elders talking about the new car, electronic equipment, or bigger home on which theyve set their sights. Before parents help youngsters to find their way through the commercial world, it is important that they examine their own relationship to material possessions. How do you deal with disappointments or setbacks? What are your spending habits? How much have you accumulated? Why do you buy? Because parents behaviors serve as a very powerful influence on children, I Want It Now focuses both on providing parents with research and analysis on materialism-related issues and on increasing awareness of their own relationship to possessions. In addition, it offers all of uswhether we have children or nota new way to view our spending habits and attitudes toward material goods.

I have noticed that very few of us completely escape the mashed potatoes and gravy style of consumerism. I experienced my own epiphany while sitting amid a pile of shoe boxes in the middle of a Nordstrom department store. I was using the boots I had picked out as comfort foodthey were my mashed potatoes and gravy. Instead of grappling with my overloaded work schedule, I chose to head directly for the mall. Spending to feel good really is like the cure-all tonics of years past. Instead of downing a foul-tasting brew to cure the blues, we cruise to the stores or surf the Internet to buy just the trinket that will make us feel better. Several of the parents interviewed for this book admitted to the spending cure. Lisette, a mother of two young boys, believes materialism affects us all, regardless of what we buy:

Im a bargain hunter and I like sales. Ill go to Walgreens and I see buy two and get the third one free, and its hard to resist, even though Im bringing home more frickin Legos. I cant resist getting that free box of Legos. If I see a sale Im all over it, whether we need it or not. My husbands like this. He comes home from the Goodwill with all this junk, and hell say, Look at all this great stuff, it was only $7.00! and Ill tell him, Only $7.00, but look how much space its going to take. There are different levels of consumerism. There are people who need to have the latest iPod, and people like me are Whats an iPod? There are people who have to buy it before its even on the market. Im not like that Im the type that buys a watch that costs $5.00; I dont need a Rolex. I have a cheap version of materialism My husband has a different version, he likes all the cool, old stuff Its not how much you spend, its why youre spending it.

Of course material possessions are not inherently bad. Treasured belongings can bring happiness because of what they representkeepsakes from a special trip or a suit bought for a first professional job. The trick lies in finding a happy medium: the juncture where you value your belongings without depending on them.

During my time as a child therapist, I observed a few parents trying to solve tough family problems using this retail tonic. Like the ancient Aztecs seeking to placate their angry gods with treasures, parents would buy their children things hoping for a miracle: depression soothed, anger quelled, and strained relationships made right. Most parents discovered, however, that over the long haul, spending rarely solves emotional problems. Parents would bring their children to the clinic complaining of misbehaviorpicking fights with classmates, talking back to teachers, disregarding household rules. Many of these parents had tried everything they could to address the problems. Some used the lure of new possessions to change their childs behaviorperhaps a trip to the toy store or the ice-cream parlor would do the trick. Typically, these strategies were ineffective. Only after gaining insight into the actual causes of the misbehavior and directly addressing youngsters emotional distress did parents actually see some improvement in their childrens behavior.

Now I teach at a university in northern California. While the population I work with has changed, the big picture remains the same. My college students call spending to feel good retail therapy. Typically when I broach the topic of materialism during class, students smile and nod knowingly. Most can relate in some way to the quick fix. For example, several students received credit cards during their teens. By their early twenties, these young adults have amassed thousands of dollars in debt. According to one young woman, Whenever I finished a project, or had a bad day or whatever, I rewarded myself with something new. Countless children, teenagers, and their parents attempt to heal emotional pain through shopping, behavior that can complicate ones life further and lead to more emotional stress.