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Material Child

by Johann Christoph Arnold    

there will your heart be also.

- Jesus of Nazareth

"Come in," said the professor.

John opened the door. Goatstroke was reading an academic journal. He gestured toward the wooden chair that faced his desk. John sat down silently and looked around the room, waiting for his mentor to finish...

John inhaled, painfully. "You know Martha - my wife - is pregnant again."

Goatstroke inclined his head slightly.

"So," said the professor, "I imagine you'll have it taken care of as soon as possible?"

"Martha wants to have the baby," John finished in a weak voice..."

"Yes, but -" Goatstroke had to stop, to collect himself. "Listen," he said. "You have got to persuade her. If not for her career, then for yours... You have got to understand...this is your career, John. You must have your priorities in order... This is the kind of thing that separates the men from the boys..."

In a world where the dollar has cast its spell over every corner of public and private life, the most insidious danger to children may be the economic lens through which we view them. To see children as assets or investments is calculating enough, but given the number of conversations like the one above (from writer Martha Beck's recent memoir about having a baby at Harvard) it is clear that plenty of parents-to-be see them in less favorable terms: as burdens, risks, and liabilities. Clearly, we live in a culture that not only fails children at repeated turns of the road but is often openly contemptuous of them.

Ironically, the same materialism that breeds such hostility toward children also welcomes them with open arms when they have money to spend. Labor laws may have removed children from the workforce in the western world, but our generation has its own, equally effective form of enslavement: the discovery of the child as a consumer. As advertisers tap the bottomless pockets of adults whose money is fueling the most prosperous economy in the history of the world, they are discovering the most lucrative market of all: their little (and not so little) boys and girls. At once the easiest targets and the most persuasive wheedlers, today's children and teens have been successfully harnessed to pull their parents back to the mall week after week, month after month, and year after year.

Schools are no better. In increasing numbers of districts around the country, financial incentives such as new computers, sports equipment, and vending machines are being used to coax principals into signing deals with companies such as Channel One and Pepsi, who gain in return the exclusive right to market their wares to eager crowds at lunchtime and recess.

Despite the fact that millions around the globe grow up in acute poverty, most children in developed regions like western Europe and the United States have far more than they need; we are raising a generation of what can only be called spoiled brats. Many parents are quick to blame the materialistic culture at large - for example, the steady diet of commercials and advertisements that children are exposed to daily - but as far as I can tell, the problem has other roots as well.

Pampered children are the product of pampered parents - parents who insist on getting their own way, and whose lives are structured around the illusion that instant gratification brings happiness. Children are spoiled not only by an overabundance of food, toys, clothing, and other material things. Many parents spoil them simply by giving in to their whims. While they are still in the playpen, this is bad enough, but as they grow older, the problem gets much worse. How many harried mothers spend all of their energy simply trying to keep up with their children's demands? And how many more give in to their children just to keep them quiet?

As a child of European immigrants who fled to South America during the Second World War, I grew up in what I now see was poverty. For the first several years of my life, we often ate only the bare minimum: cornmeal mush with molasses, or bread spread with lard and sprinkled with salt - something we regarded as a special treat. Yet, I would find it hard to imagine a happier childhood. Why? Because my parents gave us time and attention on a daily basis. No matter how hectic their schedule, for instance, they tried to eat breakfast with us before we went off to school each morning. They did this for over a decade, until my youngest sister (there were seven of us) graduated from high school.

The idea of a family meal at the beginning (or even end) of the day is seen as a luxury by most people today; even if they wish for it, conflicting schedules and long commutes make it impossible. But regardless of the reason, it is the children who lose out, and I am not convinced that it is always a matter of economic necessity. As often as not, the fractured hodge-podge of comings and goings that passes for family life in many homes seems to be the result of an insistence on maintaining a certain standard of material well-being.

Obviously, it is impossible to live without money and material goods, and every household must have its provider and its plans for the future. But ultimately it is the love we give our children, and not the material things, that will remain with them for life. And that is something we all too easily forget when the lure of a bigger paycheck, a better job, or a chance to make an extra buck comes our way. As Pat, a friend who spent most of her childhood following her father from one job opportunity to the next, recently wrote to me:

"Like most men of his generation, my father chose to immerse himself in his career. He was an officer in the air force. I can remember very vividly the occasions that he really took time to be with us. Because they were so few, each one was very special. We loved our father very much; he was so attentive and gentle when he was at home. At the time we didn't feel ignored; it seemed quite normal that he had to work every weekend or be away for a month to a year at a time. But now that I'm an adult I wonder what he sacrificed all that time for. A career? His country? Certainly not for the money. It strikes me as selfishness masked as duty. Yet I am sure that if my marriage had continued and my husband and I would have had children, we would have done the very same thing. It's considered "normal" in middle and upper-middle-class families to put one's career first...

I see so many middle-class parents immerse themselves in their work. Working forty to sixty hours a week is an easier way to get immediate satisfaction than spending time with your kids. It's much easier to be part of a system with defined rules and objectives, and to succeed in a corporate environment, than to sort things out at home.

A common excuse is, "I'm working to put my child through college," or "I want to pay off my mortgage so I can leave something for my children." There's no doubt about it: it's much harder to give yourself and your time to your children than to work "for them," to amass money "for the future" - in effect, to buy your children's love. But they don't want an inheritance. They want you, and they want you now."

Pat aptly points out that children don't see material benefits in the same way adults do. To go back to my childhood in South America: I distinctly remember a North American visitor who fussed over me and my sisters and asked us if it was hard to live with so little. Looking up at the stranger, I wondered if he was crazy. Hard? What on earth did he mean? I thought I was living in paradise. It is easy for me now, as an adult, to understand his point of view, especially after having brought up my own children in the relative wealth of the United States. But at the same time I cannot forget that fifty years ago, from a different angle, I saw it as the sign of a weak mind.

Speaking of differences in perspective, I have been amazed to find, on my travels around the world, that in some of the most impoverished places on earth there is also the greatest devotion to children. Iraq, Chiapas, Cuba, and the West Bank boast none of the material advantages that we take for granted in the developed sectors of the West. Infant mortality rates are high, food is meager, and medicines are always in short supply, if they are available at all. Toys are sticks or tin cans; clothes are made of rags or old T-shirts; babies lack bottles and cribs and strollers. Yet nowhere have I seen such radiant smiles or such warmhearted hugs. Nowhere have I seen greater affection between parents and teens, elderly people and small children, than in these places.

In Havana, which I visited in 1997 with a group of middle-school students from New York, I discovered the same thing. Living conditions in Cuba are not squalid, but the island still suffers from the economic chaos left by Russia's withdrawal at the end of the Cold War and from the harsh economic sanctions imposed by the United States. Buildings are crumbling, grocery and pharmacy shelves are bare, schools lack basic supplies, and public transport is unreliable. Yet again and again our group came across billboards and posters reminding passersby that "the children of Cuba are our first responsibility."

Cynics might interpret such signs as clever propaganda, but our experiences made it clear that this was not the case at all. On the contrary, we found the sentiments behind them at work in every classroom we visited: on the part of the students, a passion for learning and a healthy sense of self-esteem, and on the part of the teaching staff, a conviction that no matter how bad things get, the children must be cared for with love, pride, and respect. This was especially so in a hospital we visited that had taken in pediatric cancer patients from the Chernobyl region. The eagerness and joy of the children - as well as the quality of their care - is unforgettable.

What is it about the plush homes and classrooms of our own country, where every material need is more than adequately attended to, that leaves our children in such a different state? Perhaps, according to child psychiatrist Robert Coles, it is the lack of something to live and work for besides a better car and a bigger house:

"I think that what children...desperately need is a moral purpose, and a lot of our children here aren't getting that. Instead they're getting parents who are very concerned about getting them into the right colleges, buying the best clothes for them, giving them an opportunity to live in neighborhoods where they'll lead fine and affluent lives and where they can be given the best things, to go on interesting vacations, and all sorts of other things..."

I don't advocate poverty. Nor am I blind to the fact that there are plenty of poor children in the "developed world," from the orchards of California and Washington to the slums of Rome and London's East End. In those places and others too numerous to name, children are being denied the most basic necessities - let alone the additional trappings that most of us feel we deserve. Yet I firmly believe that ultimately the well-being of a child is not dependent on his or her access to material wealth. Anyone who clings to such a short-sighted mentality has succumbed to a foolish and even dangerous myth.

Mother Teresa once observed, after a visit to North America, that she had never seen such an abundance of things. But, she went on, she had also never seen "such a poverty of the spirit, of loneliness, and of being unwanted...That is the worst disease in the world today, not tuberculosis or leprosy...It is the poverty born of a lack of love."

What does it mean to give a child love? Many parents, especially those whose work keeps them away from their families for days or even weeks at a time, try to overcome feelings of guilt by bringing home gifts. Well-meaning as they are, they forget that what their children really want, and need, is time and attentiveness, a listening ear and an encouraging word. Unfortunately, many children rarely receive these things.

When Gina, a friend of one of my daughters, took a job as a preschool teacher at a private day school in Georgia, she was initially impressed. It was small, orderly, and well-furnished, with only a handful of children in each class, and all of them seemed to come from affluent homes. Before long, however, her enthusiasm turned to shock.

"The parents of the children I care for have everything they want - fancy cars, expensive clothes, big houses, and plenty to spend - but so many of them are going through divorces, so many are cheating, doing drugs and alcohol, or fighting and abusing each other at home...And you can see it in the kids.

One little girl, Amanda, is three years old and seems to do nothing but throw temper tantrums - she has built up that much anger and frustration toward her parents. Often she says things like, "I hate Daddy" or "I'm not going to let my Mommy pick me up today."

Amanda's parents don't live together; in fact, they've never been married. They have split custody, which means in her case that she spends a certain number of days per week with one parent, and then an equal number with the other, and so on. The days she gets switched from Daddy to Mommy and vice versa are always a mess. She wets her bed at naptime, bites, hits, and scratches other kids, and generally disrupts the class at every opportunity.

Amanda's mother recently started going out with another guy, whom she has instructed Amanda to call "Dad," so now she has two Daddies. She's totally confused! On top of this, her mother expects her to be a "good girl" and look nice all the time. I've learned to make sure her hair isn't messy when her mother comes to get her at the end of the day.

There's another kid, Jared, who is extremely insecure, especially at naptime. Every day I have to sit next to his mat and rub his back or stroke his hair and sing to him -and that's not to get him to sleep, but just to calm him enough so he'll stay lying down.

I've been a sitter for Jared at home on occasion, and I can tell you why he's so unhappy - I found out the first evening I walked into the house. While his mother and dad rushed around their condo, fixing themselves up for a night out, ten-month-old baby Drew was sitting alone in his high chair in the kitchen with an empty bottle, crying. Jared, who's barely three, was alone in the living room, huddled on the sofa and watching an R-rated film on TV. As I stood there in the doorway, Jared's mother breezed past me with instructions about bedtimes before dashing off to some party with her husband, who was waiting outside in the car..."

Clearly, it is one thing to have children. To create a home - a place of love and security - is quite a different matter. Unfortunately, many adults lack a sense of what this means. They are always "too busy" to have time for their children. Some parents are so preoccupied with their jobs or (as in the case of the couple above) their leisure activities, that even when they do see their children at the end of a long day, they have no energy to really be there for them. They may sit in the same room - even on the same sofa - but their minds are still at work and their eyes on the evening news.

Deep down, every parent knows that bringing up a child entails more than providing for them. It's a rare father or mother who won't readily admit that they "really ought to spend more time" with their children. Yet it's just as rare to find parents who are willing not only to make such a recognition, but also to carry their good intentions into deeds.

Dale, a good friend who used to work for one of the largest law firms in the world, is one such parent. Though Dale once made more money per year than many people make in a lifetime, his paycheck and his prestige meant little to his family - perhaps because he was never at home to enjoy it with them. Excuses didn't go over well, either with his wife or his children, so rather than dig in his heels, Dale decided to try listening. Soon he had heard enough and made up his mind that there was only one thing to do: quit the firm.

"About ten years ago, a colleague and I were driving home from a Cub Scout pinewood derby competition...While the van-full of boys played and laughed in the back seats, he cleared his throat and broached a difficult subject. "Dale, you are making a big mistake by leaving the law firm. Do you realize that?" He was referring to my decision to give six months notice of my resignation. "It's not like you can just do whatever you want," he continued. "You have five children. You have a duty to give them the best life possible and to send them to the best universities they can get into. You are shirking your duty."

I let a few moments pass. Finally, I replied. "It wasn't my idea. I never intended to cut back to less than twenty hours per week. My daughters pleaded that I quit."

It was true. For the last two years I had balanced twenty hours per week as a lawyer with an equal amount of time serving men dying of AIDS and cancer. This was a dramatic change from my life as a lawyer who lived on airplanes, opening accounts all over the country and working eighty to ninety hours a week. But then the Gulf War hit. My part-time legal work suddenly exploded, and soon I was back to my old schedule.

About six weeks into this reversion, my sixth grade daughter disappeared from school: she simply wasn't there one afternoon when we went to pick her up. We looked for her for over two hours and finally contacted the police. Later she was found by a friend walking alone on a roadside, crying. Her explanation was simple: "Dad, when you were gone all the time, it didn't matter. But now I've gotten used to you being here, and I can't take it. I want you to quit being a lawyer."

First I tried to get my ninth grade daughter to talk some sense into her younger sister, but it didn't work. She agreed with her completely. Then I put it all down on paper for them to contemplate - to show them just how stiff the economic consequences would be: pay for your own clothes, car, gas, insurance, yearbooks, prom, college, trips, etc. It didn't matter. My daughters wanted me...

My colleague was bringing the van to a stop at a red light. "Look," he said impatiently. "You're shirking your responsibility!" A few moments passed before I sealed the discussion. It seemed too important to finish quickly. I was focusing on a clump of trees that refused to fall in line, refused to be controlled, refused to be cut down and processed at the corporate mill.

"I disagree," I told him gently. "I disagree. And I bet, in your heart of hearts, that you do, too.""


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Johann Christoph Arnold is a family counselor, author, and pastor with the Bruderhof Communities ( http://www.bruderhof.com ). Read more of his articles and books at http://ChristophArnold.com . Copyright 2003 Bruderhof Communities. http://www.christopharnold.com/