A mother’s sacrifice
November 26, 2008 by cynthia
Was reading the New York Times this morning and ran across this headline:
TO BUY CHILDREN’S GIFTS, MOTHERS DO WITHOUT.
Now that’s a heartstrings moment if ever I read one, bringing to mind the Grapes of Wrath, the Great Depression, parents starving themselves so their children can eat. I knew the economic crisis was bad, but…wow. I read the story, and decided the headline needed some editing:
TO BUY CHILDREN’S GIFTS, MOTHERS DO WITHOUT DESIGNER JEANS
The story goes on to explain that mammas throughout the US are foregoing buying luxuries for themselves so they can load their children up with toys at Christmas. While daddies are probably also sacrificing, it’s the mammas that are hit “hardest.”
“I want her to be able to look back,” one mamma sighs, “and say, ‘Even though they were tough times, my mom was still able to give me stuff.” *
This brave mamma is sacrificing the purchase of a pair of designer jeans so her daughter can have a $260 play kitchen and other goodies. If she desperately needed a pair of pants so that she could step outside without copping an indecent exposure rap, great. Given the picture, however, we know she’s got at least one pair.
Awwww, c’maaaaaaan, people. I can’t decide if somebody oughta fire the headline writer for overdramatization, fire the reporter for not even remotely picking up on the real story, or send that mamma to, say, Somalia, so she can watch real sacrifices and stop whining.
Is this truly what we’ve come down to? Surely we’re not so shallow that we equate “great personal sacrifice” with “buying an off-brand until the economy recovers.”
I dunno. Maybe all this busted economy stuff is God’s way of telling us to get real.
Some people are not effected by this down turn. Just the sight of this young woman buying these HUGE toys shows that she might have never suffered a moment ‘without things’ in her life. That might be a little tough but then those of us that were raised in working blue collar families did just fine as our parents took care of us, gave us gifts yet did not bust the budget to “make us happy”. I agree someone should slap the writer and the paper for running stories about excess during a time when even people not out of work are tightening their belts.
Indeed, you are right on the money, Cynthia!!! I wonder how long you could keep a small village going for the cost of the “walk-in” kitchen.
Anyway, I can’t understand why they can’t make a good old-fashioned build it yourself kitchen, out of cardboard boxes and some nice chunky texta drawings (of the hotplates).
The kid will probably love the cardboard box that the gift came in, more than the plakky kitchen.
My true colours are showing.
jen
(Am waiting for my gravatar to arrive – will accept my lonely little monster in the mean time)
I think your gravatar’s here, Jen and I agree. I’m not trying to have a Hallmark moment here or anything, but the presents I most remember as a kid were the simple ones that didn’t cost so much (and in fact I still have two of them). A huge cardboard box would have been right up there. The stuff from TV was largely forgotten in a couple of weeks.
Gee, wouldn’t it be awful if after this mother’s tremendous sacrifice her kid got bored?
And yeah, Ed, I agree; I did wonder how the myriads of folks who can’t afford Christmas at all are taking the news that Long Island yuppies might have to go to Walmart this year.
“And yeah, Ed, I agree; I did wonder how the myriads of folks who can’t afford Christmas at all are taking the news that Long Island yuppies might have to go to Walmart this year.”
well, that’s a prophetic statement, given the news of black friday in new york…
Ulp. I promise, prescience or prophecy had nothing to do with it. Used to live on Long Island, though, and I’ve seen the Christmas shopping crowds; they’re vicious. I’m appalled but not entirely surprised about that poor man’s death at the hands of a bargain-hunting bunch of Nassau County residents. And unless this is the first year they’ve been in Valley Stream (I don’t think so), the Wal-Mart folk should have expected a mob.
Long Islanders are lovely, lovely folk but they do love their bargains–I got used to seeing empty cars on the Long Island Express train into Manhattan, right next to cars crammed so full of humans that you didn’t see how anyone could breathe. When I expressed puzzlement over a friend fighting to get into the crowded car while the seat next to me was empty, he explained: The conductors can’t get into the ultra-crowded cars to take tickets, so anybody in the full car gets a free ride.
Me, I’d rather pay the five bucks and be able to breathe…