is it wise to have everything that you want?

 


I was about five years old when I began to notice toy commercials. I noticed a commercial for a baby Thumbelina doll. If you pulled a string in her side, her head would loll from side to side, like a real newborn baby. I thought about this doll morning, noon and night. I even dreamed of this doll, of going into my closet and finding many wrapped gifts. I took one and opened it and there she was, the newborn baby Thumbelina doll that I coveted.

It was the day after the end of Christmas break, 1968. Many kids in my kindergarten class came to school with the toys they had received over Christmas. One girl came to class with, you guessed it, the doll I had been dreaming of. I practically drooled over that doll. I could only admire it from afar as the girl was from a snobby clique of girls who looked down on me and my dowdy clothes and my scuffed up shoes held together by a safety pin. I had nothing to bring to class as we were Jehovah's witnesses in my home. We did not celebrate the holidays. We were also very poor. I had only one doll, and she was much loved, with a bald spot on the back of her head from being held so much. Oh! how I wanted to give that doll of mine a new "sister!" But alas, it was not meant to be.

It gave me ample time, though, to visualize what I would do if I had it. As I grew older, and my family's income remained stagnant, I mired myself in books. What a concept! You go to the library and you can pick out-for free! any book that you wanted! All that was required was that you return it the following week! Books became my very best friend. In books, I could dream about being anything that I wanted to be! I had adventures! I lived out other lives! I was FREE of the pain of our poverty, of the feelings of abuse that I suffered at my mother's hands and the ignorance of the kids at school who just did not understand.

So today, when I see parents cave in and give their children anything they want just because they asked for it, it makes me wonder. Do they lie awake at night and dream of having something...of what they would do if it ever happened to them? Could this be why adults are so depressed because what we want just doesn't magically appear? We realize that to have what we desire, we need to work for it...to earn it! and we also need to realize that if we don't always get what we want, maybe it IS ok sometimes to have only what we need! How else can we dream, right? Kids who are given everything tend to grow up whiny, surly, ungrateful, unappreciative and expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter.

Sad fact: life is not that way at all.

I used to watch clouds and visualize the pictures they formed. What child can do this now? I used to think that boredom was a cool thing. I could go bike riding and see what was happening in my neighborhood. I could walk my dog. I could read a book. I had so much power in my hands because I could just BE! It was a great feeling!

Think about this as the Christmas season approaches. Maybe instead of giving your child everything their little hearts covet, help them to dream. Help them to see that others also don't always get what they want. But if we all try sometimes, we just might find...they get what they need as well!