With all of us stuck in our households for weeks on end, we’re probably realizing how much stuff we really have. It’s more obvious than ever. And something else I’ve noticed is despite being here how little we use so much of that stuff. I know my kids would often rather play with kitchen utensils or even a pencil than their own toys. So one thing that this time has given us is a chance for many of us – not all of us – but many of us, to really think about what’s important. And for many of us, we’re realizing that we don’t want to buy into that materialist consumer culture anymore. We want to find something different. We want to come out of this different. We want to come out with it of this with a new focus.

I’m Shannon Brescher Shea. I have a book coming out – Growing Sustainable Together: Practical Resources for Raising Kind, Engaged, Resilient Children. I have a chapter on anti-materialism in there that a lot of this talk draws from today. But for more details, be sure to pre-order my book, which is the link to is in the description of the video.

So why materialism? Well, materialism goes beyond just the amount of stuff we have. It also includes the mindset we have towards those things and what those things say to us, say to other people about us, and why we do that. So it includes everything that’s that more, more, and more. That we need something because it’s new and shiny because the stuff we have is old and not as exciting, right? It also is about having quote unquote the best. That we deserve the best as long as you can afford it, of course. Whether that’s the nice car or the nice house or even the best college for your kids. And it’s wrapped up in what society’s ideas of what best means. And what that always means is the most expensive, the most prestigious, and often the one with the most social power. 

And yet we can do better. And we can do better for our society in ways that don’t enforce the systemic injustice in society nearly as much and for our families. 

If nothing else, having less stuff helps have room for our kids to be more creative and problem solve. The more toys you have, the less you do with them. Essentially one research study looked at toddlers, where they gave two groups of toddlers different amounts of toys. And they found the kids that had more toys to choose from spent less time playing with each of them. Which makes sense, right? I mean you’ve seen ‘it could do that.’ Yeah, you have a toy, you have a toy, you have a toy, you go from one to one. That meant with each one, they spent less time getting into what it did. They thought less about it. They were less imaginative about it. They were just shallower in their play. And since children learn through play, we want them to go deep. We want them to learn, right?

Being materialistic also gives you less time with each other. It steals time from you. The more time you spend taking care of your stuff – whether that’s cleaning or shopping or just finding other ways to take care of it – the less time you have with each other. And it’s also the more stressed your time is with each other. Everybody knows the more clutter you have, the more you just feel stressed out. In one study of parents in Los Angeles, they found that the parents who had more clutter also had higher levels of cortisol, which is the stress hormone. I mean, it’s biological!

Also, more stuff you have can even take away from other things that you could be giving. Experiences – it’s a cliche right now – but experiences are much more valuable than things when it comes to presents and with just time and energy spent with each other. There’s experiments that show when someone was given a present that was an experiential present – so like this sounds so old-fashioned now tickets to a concert or a restaurant gift certificate – they were closer, they reported that they were closer to the giver than if they’ve got a physical gift. And this even worked – this is so weird  – it even worked with the exact same present. If you presented it as experiential, as a coffee mug, as what you were going to do drinking the coffee, thinking about the coffee, and spending time with their family while you’re drinking the coffee, it brought them closer to the giver than if you just have it as a coffee mug. Which just shows how much we have value to those experiences, that time spent together, that energy spent together. And if you’re spending that time either taking care of your stuff or long long hours at a job that if you’re privileged, if you have the money, maybe you don’t need you don’t need a job that spends that many hours or is that stressful or is that far away from your family. If you can downgrade it. I know this is not an option for most people, but for some of us and especially now that a lot of us have been able to telework, it’s become more possible.

So other benefits. Simply the being less materialistic makes you a better person. People who are more materialistic are less kind – they found this in surveys – have shorter relationships that are more negative with people, tend to treat people more like objects, are less generous, and spend less time volunteering in their community. They’re preoccupied with what other people think of them and they’re never able to just be themselves. They’re constantly stressed about what other people’s opinions are. And that’s what materialism does does it wraps us up in this frenzy of just constantly being worried about the bigger world rather than focusing on what’s important to us and what’s valuable. What’s valuable to us as a society as well.

So how can we break this? How can we avoid becoming materialistic miserable jerks? Right, we don’t want that for ourselves or our families or our kids. Well, one thing is to model it first and foremost. To really tap into our values and think about what’s important to us. And again, this time has given us – a lot of us  – that space, that mental and physical space to really think about what’s important. Either because we appreciate it now more than ever or because we miss it. Because we’ve been cut off from it. Things like safety, health, family, friends, sense of community, giving back to your community, right? All these things are more important than all those other extraneous things that maybe we’ve worried so much about. 

So when you go to buy things or when you make decisions that involve, you know, a lot of time or money, think about “Does this illustrate my values? Does this get me is this something I need to carry out my values? Is this gonna bring me closer to my family and friends? Is it gonna serve my community or is it just another thing? Am i buying it because I had a bad day at work? Am i buying it to make myself feel better?” Because that never works in the long run. Again, studies actually show this. People usually feel worse after buying things even though they think they’re gonna feel better beforehand.

And then the next step is when you do buy things, talk through the process with your kids. Talk to them about not just the price, although that’s important too, but also the value. How long is this object when to last? What are the many things are we going to use it for or we only gonna use it for one thing once? Is it something that we can pass on to others when we’re done with it? Can we buying it secondhand or get it from somebody else? Can we share it with others in some way in the long run? Is it gonna break or is it gonna last a long time? And how is it made? Is it made in a socially sustainable way where people are getting paid well? Maybe it’s fair trade or from a local business and is it made in an environmentally sustainable way? Is it recycled? Is it recyclable? Again, can we pass it along? These are all the different questions we could ask when we buy things. And even things that are you know, like food for example. 

Another way we can prepare our children to push back against this narrative and to think differently is to talk through commercials with them. First just try to avoid commercials as much as you can. The average kid gets exposed to twenty five thousand commercials a year, which just seems staggering but when you think about the number of just little clips on YouTube and billboards and magazines and all these things everywhere, they are all commercials for things. Even the back of cereal boxes, for goodness sakes! There are commercials for other cereals or for some movie or some stuff. You can’t escape it. Which is why it’s important to not just minimize exposure to commercials but also help kids understand the tactics they use to get you to buy more stuff. And if you feel bad about yourself for not buying stuff. And these include things like in diaper commercials showing happy carefree babies to show that to tell parents “Hey if you buy these diapers your baby will be happy and safe too.” Or with you know commercials for SUVs, showing them climbing these giant mountains that “If you buy this truck, you’re gonna be adventurous and exciting too.” Now adults may think, “Oh we don’t buy into it,” but the truth is we do. And kids do even more so! Especially kids commercials that show things that are really more in the kids imagination than what actually happens. But if you help your kids understand these, they can know from a surprisingly early age. Most kids don’t develop real critical thinking skills until the age of six. But you can get that a little earlier by talking through these things. For example if my son saw one of those truck commercials and “They’re like you need this truck!” and he yelled back at the TV, “You don’t! You can walk.” Which I was like, “Yes! Our messages are sinking in.” 

So besides advertisements, other practical things you can do to just minimize the amount of stuff coming in and just the amount of time you spent thinking about it and wanting it. You can cancel magazines that have a lot of ads, especially kids magazines. You can cancel catalogs in the mail, coupons in your email. 

And you can create sort of structures for when kids get toys. Some people have the four gifts rule at Christmas: something to you want, something you need, something you wear, something you read. Some people do a one in one out thing, where you have to get rid of something for everything you get. In our family we give toys twice a year: Christmas, because we celebrate Christmas and birthdays. And if our kids ask for something outside of those two times, you take photo of it and you put it on your Christmas or birthday list, no matter how far away Christmas or your birthday is. My younger son was asking for something and his birthday is in March. And “We’re like dude, your birthday is really long way away.” But you know, goes on the list. And then they find out like you know, later on maybe they didn’t want it so much. And the nice thing about this tactic is it teaches kids what Simplicity Parenting author calls the the gift of anticipation. It teaches them patience. And if there’s anything all of us have are learning in this world more and more it to have patience and to be able to be resilient and to be able to just wait for things. That you don’t get everything when you want them. It’s a really valuable lesson there too. 

And make sure you also talk to your relatives about these things. A lot of the time, well-meaning relatives always want to bring toys right. But if you talk to them about your values. You tell them that sometimes you just don’t have space and say you know, these are when kids get things. Maybe they won’t let up completely, but they’ll get of less than they would otherwise and they’ll understand hopefully.

And remember that this is a journey for all of us. Kids are kids. They’re gonna want stuff. Even parents want stuff right? And you know my kids don’t go to the store and ask for stuff all the time but when they get a toy catalog in the mail, it is like it is the best-selling novel of the year. They will look at it and read it and points to things like, “This is amazing!” Yeah, of course they do. First of all, it doesn’t mean our messages aren’t sticking in. It just means we’re all this journey together and we’re pushing back against a multi-billion dollar complex of people trying to sell stuff right? And so if we take a few short steps towards being less materialistic, towards being less consumerist, then those are a few short steps and then we can take more and more and eventually we’ll all get there together. 

Does anybody have any questions? Any questions? Okay, no questions. So if you have any questions I’ll check them in the chat box and then if you’re watching this afterwards you can also take them in the chat box and I’ll be sure to answer them on Facebook page. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do or any of the resources. Of course, you can pre-order Growing Sustainable Together: Practical Resources for Raising Kind, Engaged, Resilient Children. It’s coming out on June 16 and I hope you read it. It’s also available in an eBook version, although you don’t get to see this lovely in-person thing. But talk about materialism, ebook is good too! Great! Thanks so much!