Summer’s winding down. To that, I say bah.

It’s always too short. I could do with one more beach day, one more book to read, one more day trip, and I’m up for finding one more reason not to embrace the finality of a looming Labor Day weekend.

A few weeks ago I salvaged binders, notebooks, pens and folders from the previous school year and realized I was rebelling against the onslaught of back-to-school propaganda; the momentum of must-haves to begin the new academic year. I can’t stand the fact that my kids think they can’t re-walk the hallways at school without new lunch boxes and backpacks, new pencil boxes and markers, new binders and book covers and certainly new clothing and shoes.

In the spirit of rebellion (I once picketed in my own front yard and went on a motherhood strike) I clad myself in the armor of practicality: the helmet of gently used school supplies, the breastplate of still strong and functional backpacks and 3-ring binders; the sword of truth to wield when asking if sneakers still fit, and the shield of thrift as I proposed the concept of continuing to wear what we already have.

I will admit that the soft-center in me wanted to build a trap-door in my suit of armor. The sensitive and caring part of my psyche wanted to pen-in the clause of escape. Thus was born “the chart.” Into the laps of my unemployed off-spring I placed an opportunity to earn money by performing tasks above and beyond the “normal chores” expectation. I was disappointed to realize that it was not highly motivational.

I found out about a terrific sale at a local thrift shop and dragged my girls along to shop for a tall-kitchen trash bag full of anything we could stuff in it for a mere five dollars. They snubbed it. I felt the smoldering coals at the bottom of my provident-living fire being fanned; their refusal to consider new goods less than necessary transformed embers into a blazing fire.

My bedroom floor has been newly transformed into a warehouse of piles of adequate school supplies. That will be as close as these kids get to a shopping experience. I have enlisted the help of my expert seamstress mother, and hole-y jeans and damaged articles of clothing have been beautifully mended. I’m hungry. I’m craving a subculture of thrift. Having it become trendy and fashionable would be nice… I don’t want daughters who flock to the mall at each change of season or highly promoted occasion to shop. I want my kids to know that when money is scarce, life is still good. There are mountains to climb and diseases to cure. I want our summers of discovery, travel and adventure to flow into the next season and trump the need to be a consumer. I yearn for the cash-only mindset of my grandparents’ generation. And I’m NOT going back-to-school shopping.

Related posts:

1. Money Money Money
2. Finding Balance: Thrift versus Consumption?
3. Why yes I’m happy to donate, or HA HA, now it’s YOURS, suckers!

A week ago I attended a meeting where someone said, “We live in an age of entitlement.” That word, entitlement has since been reverberating in my head. It’s plinking around between my ears because the word itself has a bothersome connotation. In a world where instant gratification is an integral part of our routines, it’s hard to imagine that people would think about feeling entitled to live in a certain neighborhood, eat meals out, have a day at the spa, or wear specific brand labels. Please don’t misread.  I’m all for betterment.  It’s just that when working to make improvements turns into expecting upgrades, I get queasy, and wonder how our sense of stewardship has become distorted and provident living becomes a quaint idea of the past.  I asked my kids if they knew what entitlement meant. I got puzzled looks. One wants new jeans, another a sweatshirt.  The definitions they came up with were well-thought out— to give someone a title, among others— but none were correct. And even though my kids haven’t officially reached adulthood, the fact that they couldn’t put a finger on the meaning of a word that describes our day-to-day existence was troubling. Thus the question: If we live in an age where we feel we deserve so much, why don’t we recognize it?

 The cover of Time magazine this week has a red ‘reset’ button on it, and the caption underneath it reads “The End of Excess: [and] Why this crisis is good for America.” I’m thinking that in order for this economic crisis to be good for any of us, we first need to recognize that we are living to excess. Realization should begin at home… right? And lucky for us, this epiphany happened on a Monday morning.  So FHE became a Consumer Awareness 101 group therapy session centered on two visuals: a credit card, and a piggy bank. We shared thoughts, from youngest to oldest, starting with the credit card, and taught each other everything we knew about that little piece of plastic. The youngest deemed it a Wal-Mart card. He said, “You swipe it, and then you buy things with it.” The next in line said “It’s a credit card, and there’s money in there, and you buy stuff with it.” And so it went, right up the line. The common missing element was that the kids didn’t understand that to use the card, in fact, is to borrow money. Not like borrowing money from your brother, your mom, or a friend, because the lender doesn’t know you, and is not kind. And if you don’t repay the lender within a short period of time, you won’t be forgiven. You will be punished. The cruel irony is that society would have us believe a credit card represents freedom for consumers. Reality teaches otherwise: debt is bondage. Now how to make my son feel imprisoned by the sweatshirt he doesn’t want to pay for.

  During our discussion, the piggy bank did not have the significance I thought it would. It seemed to be a shelf decoration for plunking pennies into. I was taught that saving your coins would put you on the road to buying power. It’s an interesting thing to study how the mind works when purchasing something with cash versus a credit card. As you hand over the amount needed in cash, you experience a kind of reckoning—it’s difficult to give over the hard-earned money. When you whip out a plastic card, however, it’s a different, enabling feeling. Ergo the ease with which we feel entitled to spring for dinner, or justify new carpet. It takes discipline to manage the card, more than it does to make purchases from a piggy bank. The key? Embrace the principle of work and save in order to consume. Not that owning a credit card or desire equals entitlement, but understand that the credit behind our credit cards is actually cash. To have the money in our pockets before we spend it is a worthy guideline. Did FHE prove enlightening?  The message I wanted us to take away from this is that entitlement is a word with strings attached.  The puppet master should not be a large corporate bank.  It should be the wisdom of living providently. We should feel entitled to share this knowledge with others. After all, if we don’t, who will?

How have you brought entitlement to the forefront of your consciousness? How do you fight against it? How do you teach and live the principles of stewardship, work, and spending in our consumerist age?

Related posts:

1. Ward Envy – Part II
2. Brief Comfort
3. a good giver of gifts