Letting your kid go without is not necessarily good for them

amother

Mustard

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 12:40 am

I thought I was so deprived as a child because I was being raised by a single mom and she wouldn't buy me every trendy thing that I wanted. When I look back at my childhood from an adult perspective I had a pretty great life. I was always dressed nicely, there was no neglect, etc. When you're 13 years old the world is going to END if you don't have that clip that EVERYONE is wearing or the shoes or whatever. But you will most likely grow up just fine.

LovesHashem

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 6:07 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Really? Even if he rarely asks for anything?

If you can assure he will get everything he wants for the rest of his life.
Including forcing other people to like him and to get things that aren't physical such as love, care, support, friends, etc then by all means go ahead and bring up your child with the mentality that he can get whatever he wants.

If you want your kid to grow up a healthy adult, who will know how to budget and emotionally deal with rejection, choices, and life than yes - he cannot always get what he wants.

Right now you have the means, to buy him a house, helicopter, idk what. But who knows what will be in a year or 10 or next month? People's mazel can change in a second.

To bring up a strong healthy adult you simply cannot just "give in" to everything. Anyone reading the serial "Enough" in Ami by the awesome Riva Pomerantz? Yeah, that's why.

'

LovesHashem

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 6:11 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

There is a big difference between buying only what you can afford and depriving your child on principle because you don't think children should have anything beyond basic food and shelter.

Puleez. Depriving your kid of having a hoverboard is not deprivation.
I don't care if everyone in the class has one. A kid doesn't need a hoverboard, bike, scooter, and 3 different gaming devices and a ipad. It's OKAY if he only has 1 pair of brand name sneakers and not 5.

I'm not saying you should NEVER buy your kids anything. There's a balance. If you have the means, get him some brand name things, but he doesn't need EVERYTHING.

amother

Orange

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 6:31 am

I don't think you can make a blank statement like that.
It totally depends on what you can afford.
If you have loads of money then denying your kids of expensive clothes or activities doesn't make much sense. You just have to make sure they have good middos and appreciate what they have .

If you're poor then it's a different story. You simply can't buy fancy clothes or pay for fancy vacations and that's a reality you and the kids have to accept. Many people want to love a lifestyle they can't afford and I think that's not the right thing to teach kids.

My parents always said, if we can afford it we will buy it and if we can't , we won't.

amother

Jade

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 7:02 am

amother [ Orange ] wrote:

This. I came to the United States from the former USSR and my parents sent me to a Jewish day school (non-frum) with a wealthy population of American Jews and a small handful of Russian-speaking kids like myself who arrived recently and whose families had no money either. I knew that we couldn't afford to live in the neighborhoods or the types of houses my classmates had, or buy their kinds of clothes or toys. The experience of being one of a handful of poor kids in a rich school was sometimes unpleasant for other reasons (the student body was sheltered and snobby), but not because of being unable to buy certain items.

amother

Honeydew

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 7:25 am

amother [ Orange ] wrote:

Your parents philosophy doesn’t mesh with me at all.

Being able to afford expensive things does not equal spending frivolously.

southernbubby

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 8:57 am

There are some beautiful posts somewhere on imamother about poor people who found creative ways to live well with little money and then you can also find people whose stingy parents were simply controlling to the point that life was miserable, such as making kids pay for their own necessities when the parents could easily afford it.
Obviously it's a vital part of education to teach kids how to get the best quality for the lowest price rather than falling for trends.

amother

Beige

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 10:29 am

I'm the oldest and my parents have gone thru periods with more and less financial leway. I was raised with the knowledge that I never had to worry about the basic needs - and that my parents love us to pieces and will do everything they can to give us the best life possible.

The thing is they also taught that a good life means living within your means - so when they could afford to send me to camp they did, and when the couldn't they didn't.
Some years I got one new outfit for yom tov, some years I got 3, some years that yom tov outfit was from the expensive jewish stores and some years it was a new top from TJmax that matched what I already had.

Whenever I wanted something we couldn't afford my parents tried to help me figure out how to get it - when it was uggs and a juicy sweater my mom shlepped with me to thrift stores and marshalls/tjmax in an upscale neighborhood an hour from where we lived to find cheap versions. They helped me get jobs from 7th/8th grade, screened them for me to make sure they where safe.

And many times I just couldn't have what everyone else did - and that was OK. I didn't go to camp every year - that was fine. When I struggled socially in 5th grade (I switched classes) they didn't give into my claims that if they spend hundreds of dollars on fancy nosh to give out every day I will have friends. Instead the worked with me on overcoming my shyness, role played, and helped out by setting up a couple awesome playdates.

I plan to raise my kids the same way and I doubt it will traumtize them

ectomorph

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 11:53 am

amother [ Beige ] wrote:

Love this

allthingsblue

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 11:57 am

amother [ Orange ] wrote:

The problem is that it raises entitled kids who live in a bubble. I've seen this problem firsthand.

amother

Honeydew

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 12:15 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

You all know there are mothers who are very proud of saying no to everything their children ask for, and not for financial reasons, just out of not wanting to spoil the child by providing anything but the bare minimum.

I would hope those mothers also don't do anything more than the basics for themselves.

I imagine most parents (like myself) who say "no" when there is money in the bank account - are providing more than the bare minimum.

amother

Beige

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 12:28 pm

Op - sounds like you've got a lot of baggage, that you felt deprived as a child for the sake of you not being spoiled without your needs being taken into account while there where financial resources available to provide for more then what you considered the "bare minimum.

Though this may have been your experiance it is far from typical. Much more typical is people forking over money they can't afford for things their kids "NEED" while the kids still feel resentful because they see that "everyone else" has more then they do.

Very few people only provide the bare minimum (the people upthread who where complaining that they needed to borrow clothes in camp from friends where in CAMP hardly a "bare minimum).

Honestly its really about how you parent, how the message of " you can't have that is given over".

Also living in an area with people in a similar income bracket IS important, when we moved to Israel where no body had money (in 9th grade I had friends who where not embaressed to let everyone know they paid for there own tights and waxings) it was a lot easier to here the "sorry we can't afford that - lets try to figure this out" but when I was in a typical LKWD school where the popular girls bought sushi every day and I had to hear know pretty often I was HAPPY and DID FINE SOCIALLY - without the sushi, burberry scarfs, winter vacations to florida ect.

ora_43

Tue, Jul 30 2019, 12:40 pm

I'm not sure I quite get what you're saying, OP.

Are you saying that it's unhealthy to never have what other people do? IOW - kids don't need to have everything their friends do, but they do need (for their emotional health) to meet a baseline level of fitting in?

Or are you saying that parents shouldn't say "no" just for the sake of saying "no"? Because their kids will get that it's a "I choose not to give you this because Suffering Builds Character" no and not a "that's genuinely not a good idea right now" no, and so the "no" will lead to resentment? (But if the parents genuinely have to say "no" for financial reasons, the kids will be OK, even if they are noticeably different from their peers.)

Or - third option - am I reading way too much into your posts?