Fighting the disease of entitlement-- just let me keep my iMac

Most children struggle with learning gratitude and applying it to their lives but one of my children struggles more than most. She's working on it, though. She's recently started prefacing her admissions of coveting with such reassurances as, "I'm not asking for this, Mom...." or "I know we can't go there but I'm just saying...." Although, this might just be a sophisticated effort at manipulation. Reverse psychology and all that. Hmmm....

Kidding aside, I'm actually very concerned about the entitlement that kids and teens everyone seems to have "these days". I don't believe this is a new phenomenon but I do think that it's become worse with a greater emphasis on design and material gain on television shows (like Oprah, Martha, and Extreme Home Makeover), and with more such magazines in print than ever before in history.

When I was a kid, the design of someone's dish soap dispenser was not a hot topic. Sure, I was a welfare kid and was excluded from rich circles where, for all I know, dish soap dispensers were monuments to wealth and good taste, but even my middle class friends would sometimes be told by their parents, "We can't afford it." A phrase which used to reflect maturity, patience, and sensibility has become something dirty and shameful. If we can't afford the fancy soap dispenser, we might not be "good enough".

My husband taught an adult Sunday School lesson recently at our church. The topic was centered on living within one's means. Living honestly and self-sufficiently is an important topic and oft-discussed throughout our church, world-wide. A gentleman, who should have known better, raised his hand to repeatedly argue with my husband about why it's okay to go into debt to go on a vacation. This was after my husband had said that if everyone on your street is taking fancy vacations, that doesn't entitle you to the same; vacations are not a necessity. Good gravy, people-- when did Hawaii become an absolute right for the middle class?

I am worried that my children will:

• think that we get an education to get a good job so we can afford good stuff
• think that happiness is pink and sparkly and makes you look prettier
• expect new things all the time and be depressed when they can't have them
• feel like their worth depends upon their fancy outer packaging
• expect to be able to carry on with their privileged lives when they leave our home
• care more about their own wants than other people's needs

Since our children were babies we have had family prayers over meals and in the morning together wherein we open by expressing gratitude for specific blessings. Our children even say their own similar prayers before bed each night. But with the aforementioned child, these constant reminders for gratitude have not been cutting it.

Yesterday, we received our new iMac computer. But we didn't have a table for the keyboard, mouse, and printer so my husband, who was working in Leduc for the day, made a quick run to IKEA in Edmonton to get us a sofa table. And it just so happened that I had $150 in Shopper's Drug Mart Optimum reward points and the lady at the checkout informed me that they had Wiis in stock, not on display. Upon learning that I could get $150 off, I rushed to the nearest big store and bought that Wii like I was buying a package of gum.

Then, drowning in fancy new gadgets as well as furniture, it just so happened that on the same day, I reached my threshold of tolerance for being too fat to fit into any of my clothes and I decided that, until I lose this weight from my daily trips to the gym, I need one pair of jeans that didn't make me feel like I was squeezing two thigh sausages into their casing.

My littlest girls and I headed to the mall.

I might as well have brought an alcoholic to Las Vegas Elliot Lake, Ontario. My poor 5-year-old daughter actually said, while we were in the new H&M, "Can we please leave, Mommy? There are too many things here that I want and it's hard for me."

Wowsers. 

While that comment suggests some level of understanding that she can't have everything she wants, this maturity vanished while at Claire's, an accessories shop. The girls needed new sunglasses and she couldn't decide upon which pair;  she wanted more than one pair and resented me for telling her to hurry up and pick just one. Then we spotted some snap bracelets, my own nostalgia kicked in, and I offered to buy them each a bracelet. Miss Shopping Addiction spotted some shoes-- some ghastly foam platform, wedge flip flops with a rainbow print on them-- and when I said that no human in the world should be wearing such hideous shoes she gave me an ultimatum:

"I will only get the snap bracelet if you let me get these shoes."

Are you laughing your head off? I did.

"Little Girl, I don't have to get you this snap bracelet. It's no sweat off my back if you don't have it. I am being generous. Remember that nothing is always an option."

And wouldn't you know, we walked out of that store with her complaining loudly that she wanted the other sunglasses. And the shoes.

I spent some time over breakfast lecturing our children about how we're not rich but we're really fortunate and how their dad had to work three jobs to put himself through law school and how at the University of Alberta he ate nothing but oatmeal and potatoes for a whole month because he was broke and how I once had to make my own pasta out of just flour and water and eat that for weeks because I was so poor and how my mom and I never had a car and we bought all my clothes at Biway, which was pretty good because, hey-- at least they were new. Our son sometimes laments about how he'd love to go to Ireland and Italy and [a hundred other places] and are we really suggesting -choke- that next year his parents might take a brief 10-year wedding anniversary jaunt to London, England, one year late, without him? Then I remind him that I'm 29 and their dad is almost 45 and the furthest that either of us has been is Michigan and we haven't had any vacation that didn't include doing home repairs or visiting family, since our honeymoon in Banff.  Last year, in fact, was our first trip ever away from the kids. We went to Edmonton... for 33 hours. So, ya, he might have to wait until he's a TEENAGER before we take him anywhere exotic. Imagine that.

Aside from walking around singing It's a Hard Knock Life from Annie (which I do whenever they're particularly whiny), interspersed with lectures about children in Africa, I'm not entirely sure what to do. It occurred to me this week that I should be thanking God for my blessings by volunteering somewhere within the community and taking the kids with me, or delivering some food or money to some people who need it and then ringing the bell and running away. If they see us thinking outside ourselves, might that provide a necessary counter-balance to our material abundance? Is it possible that such a deluge of goodies all at once-- Wii, iMac, printer, new table, jeans, clothes, accessories, eating out-- actually hurt my daughter, altering her equilibrium of entitlement? I think it's more than possible;  I think it's human nature.

As I stroke the silky packaging of my Apple computer pieces, I don't feel altogether right. Technically we can afford it, but is that the only factor that should determine whether we're deserved? Is it right to spend all of our money on ourselves, even if we can afford to? I have friends about me, working very hard who are not being paid near what their efforts are worth and who are struggling. Should I not help them if I can? They help me by giving me their unconditional love everyday and as the saying goes, that's "priceless". There are children in my town who come to school with empty stomachs. Why slough the responsibility of charity off onto an organisation that I just assume exists? What's stopping me from showing up with some delicious food to say, "Hey, I don't know you but I love you"? Am I not my brother's keeper? There may come a time when I might need keeping.

It's always been my belief that just because you can afford Manolo Blahniks doesn't mean you should. I believe in generosity and charity and modesty. And yet, here my child is walking through a mall, bemoaning my refusal to let her drown to death in the Sea of Materialism. Is she not an indicator, a litmus test of sorts?
Is it possible that she is here to remind me that somewhere along the way I lost my head and forgot about my values of thrift, allowing us to be in a position to help other people, thereby showing our children the true source of joy? Not only that, what about responsibility to the earth-- when did I stop searching yard sales and Kijiji first before heading to the nearest big box store?

Whether it's right or wrong to spend my money however I please, because we've worked hard for it after all, my role on earth is not that of Entitled Spender and Hedonist. I am a Mother. It's my job to see to it that these children become adults with self-control and an ability to work hard and honestly. I want them to have generous spirits, with an eye open to the conditions of people around them. I want them to be able to recognize the signs of a struggling soul because they're practised at being of service. Then I want them to help that person not because she or he asked for it but because help was clearly needed.  I want my children to be able to think beyond themselves.

And if what I'm doing is giving me signs of complete failure in the above, then as Dr. Phil says, it's better to be happy than be right. My entitlements to stuff don't matter if the results leave me empty.

Okay, okay, yes, she's only five. But it starts here. She's young and impressionable. If I start now, she will forget her days of luxuriating in pink, frilly, fluffiness. Temperance, modesty, and, thoughtfulness will become her new normal. When that happens, I am convinced that she will better appreciate all her blessings and the shoes and hairbands will truly become accessories to her honourable life instead of counterfeit frosting that will rot her soul. If I have to set the example of someone who can say, "I can't afford it" with pride instead of shame, I will. Just let me keep my iMac.               

This is an original Canada Moms Blog post. Natasha has started a movement for Daily Gratitudes "Happying up the Internet" over at Becoming Something. It's a small thing that makes a big impression. (Daily Gratitudes graphic button to follow shortly.)