I was recently faced with the question regarding children in the developing world versus that in those in the West or developed world. The question being asked was; are those in the West leaning to live in a world of excess? Secondly the question was raised; Is this unrealistic view point (of excess and over consumerism) costing all of our children a better future?
The two questions raise very valid points that quite frankly have been raised many times before, and one I have touched on in pieces over the years such as;
Is the Western Diet Causing More Harm to Some Children?,
Doing more to protect our children from abuse,
Gender Inequality in U.S. Schools,
And the Best Country to be a Mother is…,
Are Children Playing Enough?
In the United States we like to do everything bigger from our burger and fries to our cars, skyscrapers and hopping centers and of course our toys, including those of children and children at heart. Americans seek to have the best of the best, and why not you ask if we can afford it and its available lets get it. But does there come a point where we have just gone too far? Our big burgers and fries are literally making our us bigger and literally killing us faster. Our big houses are putting us all into debt. Our bigger and better cars and trucks increasing our effect on the environment, and even our toilets have more-powerful flushes are causing an impact.
Our goal to score the reputation of having the biggest, the best, and the most luxurious may be costing us all we actually set out to achieve with our ambitions to be the global leaders. Now we are facing a nation of gluttony, and maybe we really are just gluttons for punishment, as we now find ourselves as one of the world leaders in obesity. The fact is bigger isn’t always better and that leaves myself asking if maybe we are just going to have to learn this the hard way?
One look around has me fearing the answer is an astonishing no. I mean I think the lesson is there, but I am not sure we are learning from it. Just look at our childhood obesity rates, and then you flip on the news to see that the big story are Hollywood stars who have taken living in excess to the max. Really Charlie Sheen and Lindsey Lohan are what our children are seeing as news, that even when you seem to have it all you want more…what a great education. Yet what they are not seeing flash across the news screen, magazines and talk shoes is those living in poverty, children suffering in the crossfire of armed conflict, young girls and boys forced into the sex trade across the globe.
Society has led us to believe that our children need a lot of toys. Go into any US toy store and your instantly overwhelmed at the shelves lined with hundreds of toys, lets not even mention video games and electronics. We have truly taken it to the excess, but the reality is, children are simple. Give them some stickers or a pencil and paper, a car or wooden blocks, even given them a cardboard box or let them play in some water or sand and they’ll be entertained all day. Their imaginations sometimes alone are enough, so with all this “stuff” it has me wondering if we are possibly inhibiting children’s imaginations and possibly some future artists, scientists, comics, actors, ect.?
We literally live in a society were “stuff” takes president in our lives. Children now have not only cell phones but i-phones, their own TVs and computers and they are led to think one is not cool without them. I hear it myself as an adult who really has no “cool” or “up-to-date stuff”, my car was bought used for cash, I have an “old” box TV, and lord knows my phone is out of date and I must be the only one with out an i-Pod or at least an MP3 player. Therefore, it seems to me that we are equating value to our lives based on what we can buy/own versus that of what we actually do and achieve, let alone how we care and give back to those around us.
The reality is you can’t take it with you and if were going to eat ourselves and stress our selves to death we can’t really enjoy all that “stuff” anyway. Maybe we do all need a few months in the developing world working with the poor, or at least a week ruffing it in the woods at the very least so we can get the core of ourselves and our families to teach our children that excess really doesn’t add up to much at all in the end.
