Byzantine Catholic Family Matters

Consumerism, Time and the Human Person: Part III

There seemed hardly enough time to catch our breaths from the festivities of Christmas and Theophany before beginning preparations for the Great Fast. Very fitting it is for this discussion of materialism in our lives. How do we combat the internal longings for material possessions and comfort? How do we teach our children to protect themselves from these longings? How do we turn our focus to what is essential? These are tough questions with no easy answers.

Earlier in this series I mentioned my four-year-old son John clamoring for Dora the Explorer yogurt (not to mention other kid-friendly foods) during trips to the supermarket. On our most recent expedition to the supermarket John and I found success finding what I can only describe as a "kiddy car" shopping cart. The supermarket has a handful of these shopping carts that have a kiddy car at the front end. John got into the driver’s seat and happily "steered" the car as we went up and down the aisles doing the weekly grocery shopping. He was engrossed in play. Was he tooling down the turnpike or driving to the playground? Wherever he was in his mind, he was there and not in the supermarket until in a split instant he reached for a bag of marshmallows located on the bottom shelf in one of the aisles. Then I realized something: until that moment, nothing of interest to John was easily within his line of sight as the kiddy car seat kept him low to the ground and the roof to the kiddy car prevented him from seeing items on the shelves that were eye level to a four-year-old walking alongside his mom or dad. Amazing: John’s view was unwittingly blocked. The visual advertising that most four-year-olds see on their trips to the supermarket couldn’t distract him. The temptation to buy things simply wasn’t there, and John was free to play to his heart’s delight while I did the food shopping.

We can’t go to the supermarket or to any store – either virtual or real – wearing blinders or driving a kiddy car; but we can shop with purpose and a discerning mind. We can go to the store knowing what we need and how much we are going to spend. We can go to the store knowing that if something we had not planned to buy catches our eye then we are probably falling prey to a very good marketing team. We can make sport of trying to figure out how they are trying to catch us – with everything from placement of their product in the store to packaging to brand recognition and more. We can make a list of needs and see how many of them actually should be in the wants column. And, by all means, do these things with your children, the earlier the better.

Some commentators have opined that we have gone soft; that is, in our affluence we prefer to be pampered and to be entertained – if not in our homes then in nice hotels. They point, among other things, to declining visitation in the national parks since the mid-1990s. A youngster is more likely to seek out the latest video game than to want to take a hike. We can take a closer look at the ways in which we, as well as our children, spend our leisure time. Are we more reliant on consumer goods that are geared for the individual? Does our leisure and recreation foster more or less creativity, family togetherness or solitary activity? Finally we need to honestly ask ourselves if our material possessions, as well as those things which we seek to acquire, serve to foster deeper relationships with our loved ones and a deeper relationship with and knowledge of God? That is, do our possessions and our quest to acquire more leave us time for our loved ones and God? Once we begin to take these steps and tackle each and every one of these questions, we will begin to get a handle on managing the social imperative to consume, and, in the process, give us more energy and time to enrich and deepen our relationships with our families, community, and God. Not a bad trade off in my humble opinion.