Hi,

Every time a package shows up at our door, my kids race to open it.

It doesn't matter what's in it. It could be laundry detergent or ant repellent. It could be the most boring thing on earth. They just want to see what's inside.

For a while I thought it was just a kid thing. The novelty of it. But I've been thinking about it more lately, and honestly, I'm the one who ordered the package. So I don't really know if I'm in a position to judge.

I think we all kind of are, right? It's just the consumer society we're in. You see something, you want it, it shows up two days later. The ease of it is what makes us happy. The kids just feel it more openly than we do.

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THE THING WE SAY TO OUR KIDS 

I think every parent has said some version of this, probably more times than they can count:

“You don't need that”, “you already have one”, “Put it back.”

We say it really fast. Almost without thinking. A kid asks for something at Target and the answer is just no, you don't need it.

In most cases, they don't need it. They have ten of whatever it is sitting in a drawer at home. They'll forget about it by tomorrow. But we're so quick to apply that filter to them, and we don't really apply it to ourselves. At all.

THE THING WE DO ANYWAY

I'll be scrolling on my phone, and I'll see a dress someone's wearing, and within a day or two it's on its way to my house and then I try it on, and a lot of the time it looks nothing like it did on her.

So I send it back only to do it again the next week.

If my 10-year-old did that, saw something on YouTube and was like, Mom, I need this, and then didn't actually want it when it arrived, I would have a lot to say about it. But I'm doing the same thing.

I think a lot of us are.

It happens with screens too, which is the one that always comes up in our house. My husband will tell the kids to put their screens away, and then I'll look over and he's scrolling Facebook.

It's not even on purpose, that's the thing. He genuinely doesn't notice he's doing it. But the kids notice, they always do. 

THE AMAZON PACKAGE PROBLEM

So back to the packages. The reason the kids are so excited about every box that shows up is, I think, because they've kind of been trained to be. By the world where stuff just appears quick and easy.

So it doesn't really feel fair to tell them to not be this excited about stuff, when we're the ones who set it up that way.

I've been thinking, if I actually want my kids to grow up being able to push back on all the influencing they're going to get (from ads, from friends, from TikTok, from whatever's next), it's probably not going to happen because I sat them down and explained it.

They're going to learn it from watching what I do.

WHAT I'M ACTUALLY TRYING

So I decided to try something. It's not big and I'm not turning it into some whole challenge. 

I'm not going to buy anything new for a few months. No clothes, no shoes, nothing I don't actually need, until our next planned vacation.

This is for me but also for the kids to see. Because most of my shopping happens on my phone, they only see the packages. So this time I want them to also see me not buy something. 

I don't know if it's going to make a difference for them. But it's already kind of doing something for me. Now, every time I almost order something and then I stop, I'm sort of proving to myself that the wanting is just a wanting. It passes. I didn't actually need it.

ASK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU BUY

I don't have any kind of system for this, but I've found some questions that I’ve been asking myself before I buy stuff. Not every time, but more than I used to:

1. Would I let my kid buy this? If my 10-year-old asked me for the same kind of thing, would I just say yes? Probably not. So why am I saying yes to myself?

2. Did I even want this an hour ago? If I hadn't just seen it on someone's feed, would it have been in my head today? Most of the time, no. That means the wanting kind of came from outside, not from me.

3. What does it actually replace? If I'm buying another dress, am I getting rid of one? Or am I just adding? If I'm just adding, I probably already have a version of it sitting in my closet.

4. Would I be sad if I waited a week? If I can wait seven days and I still want it, fine. But honestly, most of the time I don't even remember it.

That's kind of it. Nothing fancy. Just a small pause before I click buy.

Note for My Fellow Laid-Back Parents

Your kids really are watching what you do. More than what you say.

So if you're the one telling them not to buy every shiny thing, but you're also one-click ordering at midnight, they're picking up on that. Even when you don't think they are.

You don't have to do a whole no-buy. You kind of just have to notice.

I think the best thing we can teach our kids about all of this isn't a talk. It's just letting them see we do not need something we kind of wanted.

That's the whole thing, really.

See you next week,
Lakshmi 💛

📺 LAKSHMI WATCHES THIS WEEK:

Three things I watched this week when I needed a few minutes to myself: 

🎬 Movie Trailer I Found Interesting:

📱 Random Video I found:

👨‍👩‍👧 Parenting Moment That Hit: