The New York Times ran an article today that's being shared among my acquaintances on social networks. It's a paean to excess; parents who spent $50,000 on a playhouse, complete with DVD player, flat screen television and fully stocked mini fridge, for their sole 4 year old child. Here's a link to the original article: Playhouses.
My initial reaction was disgust at the spending. Then I thought, "Well, who am I to say that? If I spent $50,000 on a greenhouse or to build a horse barn, some people might think that's excessive, too." But that didn't feel right either. So I sat and thought about it, and I realized my reaction was more about spending this much to create a kingdom for one child than it was about the money itself.
I understand the need to give a child "everything." These parents could certainly afford it - the father is an oil company executive, the mom a former Playboy model of all things. So they aren't hurting for money.
Then I started thinking about a 4 year old child who could run around the backyard in her very own magical kingdom, and what she was missing.
Remember finding the box by the curb? I remember one time when I found a dishwasher or dryer box on Magnolia Avenue in Floral Park. I couldn't budge it by myself, but oh boy I wanted it. I used to turn cardboard boxes over on their sides, cut windows out on the sides and use crayons and paints to create mini vignettes or rooms for my Barbie dolls. A dishwasher box could be a palace!
I couldn't budge it myself. I couldn't drag it the blocks back to my street. I had to coerce, beg and cajole my older sister to help, and some other buddies on the block....but they were all boys and not at all interested in Barbie dolls!
So we had to reach a compromise. I had to negotiate. "I'll let you boys play in it for a while, say, an hour in the yard, then it's mine." It was a deal. We dragged the box back and it was only a bit worse for wear when the siren went off a 6pm near the railroad tracks, signaling the end of the day and time for dinner. Then the box was mine.
I remember laying on the sweet smelling grass in the yard, and making Barbie doll furniture out of old toothpaste cartons for my newfound treasure. If you glue two boxes together, you can make a couch. My sister gave me old fabric and I glued it to the boxes. I bought an egg cup at my neighbor's garage sale for a quarter and it was like a beautiful golden bowl on the 'table' in the middle of the room. I spent countless hours decorating the box, creating a mini kingdom, inventing stories about who lived there and what was happening.
I look back at the child I was, and the woman I've become, and how I got there, and things like summer afternoons decorating old dryer boxes don't sound at all like what goes into a summa cum laude college graduate who founded two businesses, but it is.
- I learned hard work and the virtues of working for what I wanted.
- I learned how to negotiate; I learned that you must give people something in order to get something in return.
- I learned to share my box with the neighborhood kids. You can't go back on a promise like that or they'd beat you up.
- I used my creativity and imagination to create the cardboard kingdom.
- I made do with what I had, and learned that a clever use of what you have on hand is more satisfying than buying what you want as soon as you want it.
2 comments:
And you learned how to think instead of what to think!
Marvelous post. It was a TV box that our dog claimed for his hut.
Oh, that children still played in the manner that your described your childhood. Imagination, innovation, improvisation -- carries one far.
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