anti-consumerist society?

[Roshni]

If so, why? And how do you pass on something better to your kids in this society that pivots on consumerism and the economy?

[DominiConnor]

Our plan is not to try and focus on that sort of outcome. Our long range strategy has "consequences" as big thing. A lot of the bad things from materialism are the result of people not thinking about what happens further down the line. It's hard to get this right. A sad thing to watch is "social greens", those who neither know, nor understand what they are agitating for, and merely emote with their friends about things, even less thought than the average football crowd support the activities of their team.
I don't think you can healthily make a kid not "consumerist", we simply didn't evolve that way. YOu can make him less wasteful and get more personal benefit from any given amount of consumption.

[notasheep]

We all seem to have so much but need very little.

We buy STUFF when we need it-hate excess and the whole look what i have bought,am i suppose to be impressed and flatter that persons ego?

[Roshni]

DoniniConnor, I understand what you are saying about social greens. I read an article in a newspaper yesterday about how being green itself is, to many, nothing more than a consumer choice in intself – yet another status or image statement, as referred to by Notasheep.

It's sensible what you say about teaching kids to be less wasteful and gain more personal benefit from each thing consumed. But is this a losing battle in the face of peer pressure in a society where waste and constant reaffirmation of status through purchase are completely normal?

[starlover]

"We all seem to have so much but need very little"

notasheep you are so right! i am the epitome of this I think... my house is full of STUFF with no purpose and no real value.
I was sat here the other night thinking how nice it'd have been to live in days gone by when I wouldn't have even had the chance to buy half the crap I have.

[notasheep]

DominiConnor-arent the Social greens just trying to be fashionable?
Roshni-We are lucky to live in an area without much pressure to purchase,purchase,purchase.People are not impressed with what you have got,its who you are! I can happily go to the pub wearing wellies and ripped jeans-but who knows I could be the wealthiest drinker there.
Starlover-make some head space and de clutter-the only thing i seem to have an awful lot of is books-which i dont think is a bad thing.

[starlover]

yes i have great plans for when we move house in the next couple of months!

will be getting rid of all useless crap!

[notasheep]

We are moving too-at the end of May
We have only been in this house since last August-so another massive clear out here too.

Dp and are cant agree on Stuff though as he is a horder and likes to purchase(boys and their toys)

[starlover]

i am a hoarder too, although would love NOT to be!

i have all this stuff that has sentimental value but in essence is totally pointless having around! I am also a sucker for buying "lovely things" that i will never use!

[Filyjonk]

I am on the verge of officially becoming a SAHM (as opposed to being on ML).

This is partly to show my kids that time together is more important than money. Which is good because we have no money!

We're trying to make everything we can. When you do that you realise that you don't need so much after all. Also that you can get a lot of fun out of making things. We sit and talk while making dinner, its great!

Re books-we have too many. But lots are no longer read regularly. So then they ar just things like anything else. We're selling them, slowly, on Amazon and ebay. Pays for the odd toy for the kids.

How do you mean DC re we didn't evolve not to be consumerist. We didn't have malls in caveperson times did we? Am genuinely curious re your point, not sniping.

[notasheep]

Felt i was being very upfront when i joined Mumsnet with this name,but nobody has made a comment!

So maybe somebody on this thread might?

[Roshni]

Notasheep, your name certainly didn't go unnoticed!

Filyjonk, DominiConnor, I'm also interested in the point about us simply not evolving to not be consumers. Do you mean what Starlover was referring to when she talked about the "lovely things" she (like me) ends up buying that she doesn't need?

Good for you Filyjonk, making everything. I think lots of people buy their kids stuff because they don't have the time to spend with them, and kids notice. I bet your kids feel loved.

[moondog]

I would strongly recommend naomi Klein's 'No Logo' to anyone who feels strongly about this.
Totally blew me away.
One of the most influential (on me!) books I have ever read.

[starlover]

i think part of the reason i need to buy things is because there is some part of my life that is unfulfilled.
i always seem to need a project too, in the last few years it has been planning holidays.. then it was having ds... now it's moving house

maybe when/if we can be more fulfilled in our lives our desire to purchase things wanes?

[moondog]

Having a project is good though SL.
Just buying crap isn't the same at all.

[starlover]

but i think it's part of the same thing... like this feeling that i "need" something and I'm not sure what it is that leads me to keep buying things I don't need (sometimes very expensive things too!)

[Roshni]

Starlover, why do you think you/we are unfulfilled? What do you think might be missing? Do you think if we were busy as our ancestors were, growing food, preparing for the harvest, fixing our wattle and daub homes, etc, we would feel like this?

Perhaps it is the barrage of advertising that has trained us from childhood that we aren't fine as we are, we are missing something that we could just buy and then we'd be fine... until the next time?

I'd really like to know how we can all be more fulfilled with our comparatively very privaledged lives.

[moondog]

Depends what your project is I suppose.
Mine seems to be frittering away hours on MN at the moment!

[starlover]

i don't know... i just sometimes feel like someting is missing from my life and i try and buy things to fill it up,
maybe it's a happiness thing, i have suffered from depression and buying things may make me feel good temporarily until the guilt kicks in!

but i do have this kind of underlying feeling that I should be doing more with my life and maybe that is connected in some way?

or maybe i am talking crap?

mn as a project i think is just fine!

[Roshni]

I guess it's called retail therapy for a reason.

what does your instinct tell you you should be doing with your life?

[moondog]

Well,what are your goals??

For me,it is a range of trivial and more important.
Trivial=apply velvet borders to all my beautiful antique Welsh blankets
Reasonable pressing=plan my Sunday school session for this week and work out when I am going to the gym
Non trivial=enrolling for the MSc I want to start in September.

[starlover]

i don't really have any... i've always just kind of floated through life.

I had a place to study midwifery and then fell pg wil ds.
would like to do that one day but plan on having some more babies first!

[Roshni]

moondog, how about
• finish knitting that jumper before my boy gets too big for it (oops, too late)
• finish knitting that jumper before my friend's newborn gets too big for it (phew!)
• find a way of making a living that has little ecological impact on the earth
• adjust my lifestyle to avoid exploiting anyone (eg. sweatshops in southeast asia)

[moondog]

That will do nicely Roshni!

Have you read 'No Logo' btw?? Partic. relevant to the last bit of your wish list.

[Roshni]

No, I haven't read it. I think I'll have to BORROW it from the library rather than buy it .

[DominiConnor]

How do you mean DC re we didn't evolve not to be consumerist.
We evolved in highly resource constrained environments. Few things could be acquired without effort, and in general most things we wanted required serious effort. Thus there was no need for us to evolve much in the way of self limiting.
We were constantly in threat of starvation so we have a strong inbuilt desire for fat/sugar and other high energy foods. Salt was also an issue, so we evolved to like that as well. Our evolutionary optimisation was a post-childhoold life expectancy of about 35 years. Hence we eat the wrong diet to live to 100, to increase what our genes still think is the way to live until 35-40.
The broken vitamin C gene which winds up the less dim end of Christian dates from this time, when citrus fruit was plentiful engough that we could live without it. Again something that's far from optimal now.
We can get food without much effort, and there is a time lag between eating and feeling satisfied. Hence we over eat in a way impossible for most animals in their natural environment.

Much the same applies to goods. We hunted and gathered for as much as we could get. Any ability to moderate, like the vitamin C gene, just atrophied out of the genome through lack of use. Same way you get blind fish in deep caves.

The evolutionary imperative to get as much stuff as possible was not moderated by any other major influence.

If we'd have had the malls you cite, by now we'd have evolved some degree of moderation.

The term "natural" and "good" are often confused by many greens mostly due to their exclusively arts based education. As we see from "natural" human evolution, nature only looks backwards; whereas we can look forawrd.