Contentment

My older daughter's birthday is coming up. Nearly every time a commercial comes on I hear, "I want that" or "Mommy, can I have that". I usually tell her I'll put it on her wishlist (which I conveniently forget to do) or tell her she has to get rid of something to get something new. And this whole scenario is replayed at Christmas time (which starts right after Halloween, apparently) and seems to be even worse as every company wants to push some new product. Last year I remember my kids wanted the large animatronic dinosaur or pony. *rolling eyes*

I know I've been suckered into a couple infomercials myself. There was one for perfect pancakes and another for donuts. Though I did wait until they were available in stores--yeah, I know, it's not an excuse. They still got me. Commercials just seem to breed discontentment.

As a recovering packrat, I have stuff--lots of stuff. I used to hide the things I was going to get rid of and get them out of the house without my kids knowledge, because they would tell me they wanted it or have a meltdown because they loved it (even if it was never theirs).

So I'm trying to change my strategy. I'm telling and showing my kids what I am getting rid of and why. When commercials come on telling me something I "need to buy", I'm going to start telling them what I don't need and why. I want to be an example of contentment and a cheerful giver. I want my kids to know that we don't have to have everything we see on TV and that some people live with much less than we currently have.

It's hard in today's world to not listen and pay attention to what we hear on TV. But just imagine that if we can teach our kids not to listen to toy commercials, then maybe they will learn they don't have to listen to the other commercials and TV shows, too. You know the ones that tell our kids they have to dress a certain way, listen to certain music, wear a certain perfume/cologne in order to be considered cool and acceptable by the world. Imagine a kid who grows up confident in themselves, not swayed by media bias. Hmm, could that be too big a dream?