Consumerist Norms

From a UCLA study of today's middle class family:

• Managing the volume of possessions was such a crushing problem in many homes that it actually elevated levels of stress hormones for mothers.

• Only 25 percent of garages could be used to store cars because they were so packed with stuff. 

• "Master suites" for parents proved the most common home renovation, yet the spaces were hardly used.

• Even with clement year-round weather, families rarely used their yards, even if they had invested in outdoor improvements and furnishings.

• Fragmented dinners — those in which family members eat sequentially or in different rooms — are common.

• Only 3.1 percent of the world's children live in the United States, but U.S. families buy more than 40 percent of the toys consumed globally. 

• Several homes in the study had at least 250 toys on display, and most had at least 100. Untold numbers of other toys were tucked away in closets and under beds.

• CELF researchers estimate that each new child in a household leads to a 30 percent increase in a family's possessions during the preschool years alone.

Can you guess what the rest of the developed world looks like?

Moving on to Europe, new research by UNICEF has shown that children in the UK feel trapped in a "materialistic culture" and don't spend enough time with their families.

The research gives an in-depth comparison of over 250 children's experiences across three developed countries: the UK, Sweden and Spain.

Children in all three countries told researchers that their happiness is dependent on having time with a stable family and plenty of things to do, especially outdoors, rather than on owning technology or branded clothes.

Despite this, one of the most striking findings is that parents said they felt tremendous pressure from society to buy goods for their children; this pressure was felt most acutely in low-income homes.

OK, this part is a broader look at developed nations from the UNICEF study, and you're going to hate it.  And the part that follows is even more annoying.  

(click on the charts for a larger view)

These are things that require families to talk and think and perhaps change, for their children's sake.

Children's relationships with peers and parents can vary widely across national and cultural borders.

Cultural norms surround us, but we needn't conform thoughtlessly.  

We're encouraged that thoughtful choices can make the difference for which we so sincerely hope.

Pv22:6

For a quick look around the world at kids and toys, here's Toy Stories!  

And for a look at where children sleep, here's Bedtime Stories!

Too little, too much

Working internationally gave us a chance to review our thinking on 'enough'.  Enough food, shelter, education, employment, health care, ....  enough is good; it makes the difference between a gracious existence and a daily struggle for survival.  Moving along that line, where does it become too much?  

Children, particularly the youngest, can be misshapen by wealth and privilege.  It can do too much for them and leave them without the life skills they'll need. Keeping their stuff organized, taking care of their clothes, household tasks, interacting with adults, and prioritization among demands, all are learned first as a child.
Or not.

If a child is given everything they fancy and more, what does that teach them to expect?  Will life disappoint and discourage them? Will they spend their adult efforts on 'having' things instead of 'being' anything?  Is having 50 pairs of shoes a noble goal?

If you have money in the bank, clothes in your closet, a place to live, and food in your fridge, you're in the world's top wealthiest 10%, by the way.

These west African children and their families (pictured) are living on the edge of 'enough', but interestingly, they're an extraordinarily gracious culture. Children relate well to adults, they participate in discussions and decisions, and they share the family workload. They have the skills and insights to participate in community, and they work hard to do well in school. Their community has virtually no crime or violence, and children are safe anywhere. It's not an easy life, but it has none of the fail points common in the developed world's raising of children.


From the developed world,  a mother talks about her journey through the issue of excess with her children, "I equated giving them stuff with making them happy, a message that our consumer driven culture hammers into our psyches from the time we our born.  Oh, what a lie!"  See  Why I took my kids’ toys away


Does more stuff make us happier?
Is there such a thing as 'too much'?
What's the goal?

Recognizing that our children can be warped by wealth, are we curious what might be happening to us as well?

Parents 'Trapped in Cycle of Too Much Stuff and Too Little Time for Kids' Says New Unicef Study - See more here.

Great Heart

Can a child have a great heart?

A child can indeed learn great things like justice and compassion and generosity ... and then live a magnificently great-hearted life!

Can we encourage a child's thinking?

Some thoughts:

• we can explain the basics, but a child will have to grasp and act them out before they're real.
• a child's attitude about money will be like mom's and dad's. it's learned from example.  that's a tough one, but not set in stone.
• a child may not be able to relate to the poor or those in need.  it's also learned. that's another tough one.  we don't teach class distinctions usually, but kids learn them from unspoken things.  it can change.
• a young child's first awareness of injustice may be in abandoned pets or abused animals or some such; it's a legitimate start.
• you can, of course, just talk a lot about charity and the poor starving people overseas.
• talking without doing deadens conscience and insulates from reality.
• talking without doing is the same as walking by on the other side of the street.
• or you can gather up the family and do something! 



Youngest member of a gracious family, east Africa

• children learn more from what we do than from what we say.  
• they learn even more if they themselves get to be part of doing it.
• a child can befriend another in a moment and truly care.  
• stepping in alongside another because you care is more instructive than a thousand lectures.
• down the street or across the ocean, unless you help your children see the larger world, they'll think their small part is the norm. It's not, of course.

Friends in a rowdy neighborhood, just minutes from where we work, west Africa

Here are some odds and ends along the same line of thinking ...

Where Children Sleep

Children's Toys

What Children Eat

Childhood's End

The Adult Mind - Part I
African Life
Lip Service
Why Educate?

Lip Service

Lip service doesn't count.
We can say that something is important, but what do we do?

Among the hardest things to do, we find:

• homework
• honey-do list things
• helping others

It's true.  So many things demand our attention, and it gets worse as the years go by.  Our families are fully engaged with school and birthdays, science fair projects and sports and shopping ... well, you know. We're really busy!

Precious, amazing children in Kenya.  The elders from
their community are hoping we'll be able to lend a hand
getting some school projects started.  About $4K over
two or three years will equip and staff their facility.

Then there are other important issues like families that are struggling, children in a famine region, or kids who can't go to school because their family can't afford it.  Those are distant concerns that we see and affirm but we just can't get around to them. Fortunately, they're less important than the stuff we have to deal with every day.  At least that's what we tell ourselves.  

'The tyranny of the urgent', it's been called, and we're more stressed and less productive as it piles up. Years pass, overly filled with busy-ness, some worthwhile, some not.

What if we sat down with our kids and took the time to work through real-life things?  Did you know that it costs about $45 a semester to keep a kid in school in Kenya?  For the price of an X-Box, you could put some kids in school for a year or so.  That includes a mid-day meal, usually, and it may be the only meal the kids get sometimes. You and your children could be world changers for those kids and their families.

Children learn more from intimate involvement in such things than from years of words. A great heart isn't formed by talking.

If lip service is the best we can manage, it doesn't count. No peace, no joy, no help at all.  A little time and effort invested, however, is great fun, and it pays back more than we'll ever give.  If you like, we'll introduce you!

Feel free to join us.  TexasEx.Org

C. O. W. EIEIO!

Political
 Ideologies
   Simplified

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

A GREEK CORPORATION
You have two cows. You borrow lots of euros to build barns, milking sheds, hay stores, feed sheds,
dairies, cold stores, abattoir, cheese unit and packing sheds.
You still only have two cows.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows,
but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the ** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive...

TWO COWS ~{Matthias Varga}

It's only funny from outside of the kill zone, of course.

Allegiance

NYTimes 18 FEB 2014

"With hundreds of riot police officers advancing from all sides after a day of deadly mayhem here in the Ukrainian capital, anti-government protesters mounted a final desperate and seemingly doomed act of defiance late on Tuesday evening, establishing a protective ring of fire around what remained of their all-but-conquered encampment on Independence Square.

Feeding the blazing defenses with blankets, tires, wood, sheets of plastic foam and anything else that might burn, the protesters hoped to prolong, for a while longer at least, a protest movement against President Viktor F. Yanukovych, a leader who was democratically elected in 2010 but is widely reviled here as corrupt and authoritarian."

Does allegiance to country include obedience to government?

Not at all.  Not morally, not ethically.  A person of conscience does not equate country with government.  Governments serve the people who are the country.  IMHO.  (Kneejerk response. It's an ancient idea that citizens exist solely to serve those who rule. Such thinking brings corruption and extraordinary injustice still today in much of the world.  Too much.)

Protesters at Independence Square on
the first day of the Orange Revolution

The heartbreaking violence in Kiev (pictured) and across the Ukraine in the last few months is specifically about that distinction.

The Euromaidan (Ukrainian: Євромайдан, literally "Eurosquare") protests started in NOV 2013 when the majority of Ukrainian citizens demanded stronger integration with the European Union. Demonstrations followed the president's refusal to sign an association agreement with the EU, which he insisted was disadvantageous for the nation. Euromaidan has come to describe a wave of ongoing demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine.  The protests have included many calls for the resignation of President Yanukovych and his government. In January 2014, the government enacted the Bondarenko-Oliynyk laws, also known as Anti-Protest Laws. Violence has escalated in frequency and severity since then.

20 FEB - The EU and the US are threatening targeted sanctions against Ukranian officials they hold responsible for the violence in Kiev that has killed at least 26 people and injured more than 200 since November. 
There's a truce announced this evening. We hope for progress and a end to the violence.
Thursday morning, another 20 have died as the truce crumbles.

21 FEB - In a statement, EU foreign ministers said targeted sanctions including asset freezes and visa bans would be introduced "as a matter of urgency".  Dozens of anti-government protesters died in Kiev on Thursday. Many were reportedly killed by snipers.  In all, 75 people - including policemen - have been killed since Tuesday.  In addition to those, Ukraine's health ministry also said that 571 were injured during three days of violence in the Ukrainian capital.

Protesters had captured 67 police, the interior ministry said. A number of them were later released by activists on the main protest camp in Independence Square - widely known as the Maidan.  The tense stand-off is continuing overnight, with the activists standing guard on the Maidan barricades for possible new police attacks.

24 FEB - President Yanukovych has fled the country ...
Our great hope for humanity; freedom from injustice, protection from the wicked who would put their own will above the good of others, a safe place to raise our children.  Stunned Ukrainian citizens view the opulence Yanukovych purchased with the country's meager wealth.

“It’s beautiful here,” Svetlana Gorbenkova, a real estate agent, said of Mr. Yanukovych’s privately owned residence. “It’s so peaceful. But why all this for just one person?” she asked. “This was all stolen from us. It’s obvious now how much he stole. Why didn’t he give anything to the people? When he was running for president, one of his slogans was ‘I will listen to every one of you.’ But he didn’t listen to any of us.”

27 FEB - As my father would have noted, the Ukrainian government appears to have been crooked as a dog's hind leg.  If they're as smart as they are corrupt, government officials will run for their lives.
6 MAR - Disturbingly, now Russia (Putin) is making a play for land and resources, much like earlier land grabs.  All ultra-high-risk.