A speaker tackles the challenges consumerism presents during the discussion.
The Church in the 21st Century Center and the Boston College Women’s Resource Center presented the seminar Unwrapping Faith for Our Children: Helping the Young Challenge Consumerism. The discussion focused on the detrimental impact that our consumer culture has had on the development of children and strove to define the true meaning of the holiday season.
Questioning the material excess that is seen during the holiday season was the major premise of the night. Dr. Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College, started the night off with a commentary on the question of material excess at Christmastime: “There has been a pretty rapid acceleration in the commercialization and targeting of children,” she said. “And according to polling that has been done by the Center for the New American Dream, the vast majority of people feel that the holidays have become far too commercialized, and have lost the original spirit.”
Of the small group in attendance, most of the people were mothers, therefore the perspective of mothers was examined. It looked at the particular strain that mothers are prone to during the holiday season as a result of too much concern over material presents and decorations. “Being parents and mothers, especially given the daily barrage from the media on how much we are spending, commercialism does affect us,” Schor explained.
Dr. Mary Doyle Roach, from the College of the Holy Cross, contended that, “Childhood itself is being marketed to us…we believe that the presents that we give to our children are somehow reflective of our own social status.” Those in attendance nodded in agreement to this statement. Schor mentioned that even in those families that put price limits on the amount of money to be spent, it has still been reported that the pressure to spend in excess is high – something that takes away from the true meaning of the season of giving.
From an economic standpoint, the strain that our consumer culture exudes is no less, either. For example, polling shows that high numbers of families purchase expensive presents around the holiday season just because that is the perceived norm. “There are a significant number of people who go into debt in order to finance the holiday season,” Schor said, “even though so much of what we are giving are things that we do not actually need.” Such financial burdens could be averted if the pressure of our consumer culture and the emphasis on showing affection through material goods were lessened.
Consumer culture and its effects on children were talked about in a more dramatic manner, but not to anyone’s surprise. Schor compared our commercial culture to sugar, in its addictive and detrimental nature: “The more oriented to consumer culture that our children are, the more likely it is that they will suffer from depression, a lack of self-esteem and fighting with parents.” Roach added, “our consumer culture has lost the sense of children as gifts of God…children have now become mere objects to be cultivated.”
So, the conclusion was reached that the more media that children are exposed to, the more likely those children are to become consumers themselves – not a shocking revelation in the least. As for the solution in combating these trends, that received resistance.
According to Schor, “the best strategy is to control the environment that our children grow up in…as much as we can limit children’s exposure to such media as television and the computer, the more we will be able to curb their consumer desires and habits at an early age, before they can develop them.”
Of course, no one doubted the truth inherent in this statement. Countless studies have proven that there is a direct correlation between higher media exposure and greater consumer tendencies. However, asking to rid ourselves of the media in general just seemed far too extreme. To do so would be to deny the positive effects that the media does have on our culture. Roach provided a more down-to-earth perspective, speaking about both the fleeting pleasure and disappointment associated with materialism and our consumer culture. She said, “Gifts have become something that we deserve, that we need… and we have to challenge this traditional sense of gift-giving.” Translation: We need to move back towards viewing the holiday season as a time of reconnecting with our loved ones, not as a time of stress due to the pressures of a consumer culture.
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