the low cost of abundance

Basic economics: the rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes, even to the point of weird frenzy.

I was thinking about this the other day at the grocery store checkout, aka, one of the Outer Circles of Temptation, Little Kids Division.  Have you looked lately at the way they package that stuff right at the checkout these days?  Holographic wrapping on the sweet tarts, mylar balloons with adored characters, rows and rows of bright colors promising ecstasy.  And then there are those coin opperated dispensers of false promises, temporary tattoos, and stale bubblegum in day-glo colors…

We always get something.  I know all the reasons not to: the stuff is shite, for one thing.  Overpriced, for another.  Save that buck for every grocery store trip and you’ll have a tenspot a month to put to something more worthy, right?  Then there is the random sugar, and oh lord, the chemicals….  It’s the smart thing to say, “No,” or even, “We’ll get some of the not-so-chemically-contaminated stuff at the health food store,” or, “I just don’t want to spend money on that.”  These seem reasonable objections.  I get that.

But the kids really, really want something from that aisle.  It looks amazing to them, all shiny and full of sweetness.  And it IS shiny and sweet for five, ten, even fifteen minutes, which to a forty year old is not long, but in four year old time, that’s at least an hour.   Oh my god, a DOLLAR, it’s so cheap, so absurdly inexpensive, to make them feel like queens and kings there in the cart, holding their prize.

When was the last time a purchase made me feel like that?  And how much did that purchase cost? You can bet it wasn’t a dollar.

When they are small, it is so incredibly easy—and dirt cheap—to give them a feeling of total abundance.  ”Sure, you can get something, what do you want?”  And the double dose, “You can’t decide?  Why don’t you get both?”  Magic words.  Magic!

If a kid, if anybody, gets a lot of “No, you can’t have that,” that thing gets more and more valuable to them until it achieves an almost mystical status.  And if a little kid gets a lot of “No”s to these simple desires, the wanting doesn’t go away, it amps up, fueled by earlier frustrations.  Meanwhile the things wanted move up, too, to more expensive items.  And the more “No” there is, the more demand, along with simultaneous its-never-enoughness takes over, i.e. the opposite of abundance.

I was thinking all of this yesterday in the grocery store, because when we got to the checkout, Sophie said, “No thanks.”

I did a kind of double take.  ”What?”

“I don’t want anything, right now,” she said, unconcerned.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.  I don’t like this kind.”

Wow.  I played it cool, but inside I was just…wow.

I guess she knows it’s there, she can get it later, it’s no big deal.  And of course, there is that lesson we all learn, as we move through our purchasing life, that everything wrapped in holographic paper won’t be as marvelous as it may appear…she’s got some of that. Discernment.  Purchasing sophistication. At six.  I really think all those “Yes”s at the checkout line, the freedom to try things and see what she liked and didn’t like, knowing there would be other opportunities, gave her the exposure to know when the checkout aisle goodies weren’t going to be all that they promised.  I think I was in my twenties before the checkout aisle lost its glow.  Sad, perhaps, but true.  Apparently, she already has some of that knowledge.  At six.

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this.  I’ve been saying yes at the checkout because it seemed hypocritical for me to say no.  I mean if I wanted something as much as they want that stuff, and it only cost a dollar, I would totally buy it.  Why shouldn’t they have the same freedom?  And look where generosity, if that’s what this is, leads.  Surprise.

People worry about spoiling children by giving them what they want, but I haven’t had that experience. As far as I can tell, Sophie hasn’t been spoiled, she’s gotten more mature.

But what I was really thinking in the checkout aisle as I loaded up our groceries and scanned my card, was this kind of Holy Cow Realization that it is SO much cheaper to learn purchasing discernment in the grocery store checkout buying goodies they don’t need, than at, say, the electronics counter of Best Buy *cough* where one might spend WAY TOO MUCH on gadgets, hypothetically speaking of course, that, um, one also does not need.

How outrageously inexpensive it is for a little kid to feel CRAZY ABUNDANCE in the checkout at the grocery store.  Not so, the forty year old at Best Buy.  Crazy Abundance is a wonderful feeling.  Stock up when you can get it.

Luc got a pack of juicy-fruit gum.  In the car, he asked Sophie if she wanted any.  ”Sure,” she said, and they sat back there chewing while I drove us home.

I could say “No,” for all the good reasons, to checkout aisle waste-of-money, rot-your-teeth, over-marketed, crap.  But I think I would be sacrificing their feeling of abundance and choice.  Not to mention the chance to try out buying stuff when the stakes are so low.  Lots to learn there.  All of which is WAY more valuable to me than that minuscule few bucks a month it costs.

Rather than a Waste of Money, suddenly the checkout aisle looks like the Deal of the Century!