Materialism

I think both my husband and I are relatively good at avoiding gross materialism; while we're not spartan in our living, we do avoid buying the latest gear/gadgets and "stuff" all the time. In fact, I'm proud to say that we're one of the last ones of the people we know to own a HDTV. Until last fall, we have had a 32" cathode ray tube TV that we bought together about nine years ago when we were first dating. We never hosted SuperBowl parties because it was too embarrassing to invite people over to watch our TV. When my husband first went to work at Samsung four years ago, we talked about getting a new Samsung HDTV since he could buy them at an employee discount. I resisted because our TV worked fine. It made no sense to buy a new TV that was more expensive. We finally relented last year because our TV was giving us the hint that we needed to move on. The sound keeping disappearing randomly and the screen would flicker sometimes. So we decided to take advantage of the employee discount and actually bought an LED, 3D, 52" Samsung TV. For once, we actually had the latest and greatest.

While we haven't been too successful in not accumulating a lot of toys for Scarlett, we do try not to buy her too many things all the time. I found that we've already hit the point of diminishing returns - almost everything we buy her now is played with the first couple of days then she no longer plays with it. As an example, she has a lot of stuffed animals. Originally, I had made the decision not to buy her any stuffed animals because she would get them as gifts from people, ever since she was a little baby. Well, I've broken my rule a few times. Most recently, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and she wanted to buy a stuffed dolphin. I figured that it's a "special occasion" so we bought it as s souvenir. Well, she played for it for about a week and now she doesn't even remember that she has it. I bought her a tea set recently because my husband commented that we should buy her one since she's at the age where little girls like to play with it. Well, she played with it for 2 days and no longer plays with it. A few weeks ago, we went to a friend's house for dinner and she thoroughly enjoyed playing with her friend's tea set. I asked her yesterday why she doesn't play with hers anymore. She commented that it doesn't talk, like her friend's tea pot. Sigh, can't win.

I really struggle lately with her need for materialism. I'm surprised by Scarlett's strong sense of materialism, considering that she's only 3. I don't know if this is normal for most 3 year-olds but it drives me nuts that she wants to "buy something" or "buy stuff" everytime we go to a store. Yesterday morning, we went to Target to get her some sparkly "princess" shoes. I figured that it was appropriate as part of (princess) imaginative play. Well, yesterday afternoon, we walked by a store and she wanted to go in and look around. So we went in and instantly, she "found" something that she wanted to buy. I told her no and she kept asking "why" and even after I told her that we can't buy something everytime we go to a store, she still complained about how she never gets to buy something. Ugh, how do I get her to want less "stuff"?