The more you have, the less you care

by Paola Vellere

Toys and entertaining stuff are all over your house. A repetitive complain: Mum I’m bored. Does it sound familiar? Your children have a million toys and they are still bored. Toys can be part of the most amusing moments of childhood, but they also can be part of children’s boredom.

“Marcela was bored”, a short story for children, portrays a clear example of a young child who has too many belongings: toys and devices that provide a comfort life. She is a girly cat who complains about being bored the entire day. She does not even care to have fun spending time with the members of her family and her friends. Every single thing she has got at home is bored for her. Marcela’s problem is what we can observe in most of children nowadays. The more toys children have the more easily bored they get. If they have plenty of options to play with, the lack of interest in any activity increases.

Children are born into a world of consumerism and start to develop consumer personalities at a very early age. On the one hand, they learn from their parent’s behaviour and on the other hand, they are increasingly influenced by mass media and their peers. Since kids are babies they are related to materialistic life style asking parents to buy them things just because they want it. There is no fulfillment, their happiness and enjoyment seems to be ephemeral because they have a new pray to hunt and therefore they know that they will get it. Parents consent to the kid’s insistent and tireless begging, and that’s why the endless circle never stops. Some members of Marcela’s family offer her activities to do and several options to play with, but they don’t help her to reflect about his obstinate and apathetic attitude. The family’s stance increases Marcela’s lack of interest. Adults should reconsider what kind of person they would like to rise and take into account that the excessive exposure to materialism life s

tyle will be reflected in their kid’s personality. But the main problem seems to recognize that first of all they are the consumer model their kids are following.

Mass media and kid’s environment, such us the school or recreation areas, play another important role. Commercials in television are made for catching children’s attention without any scruple; in fact they are conceived to sell. Cartoons and advertisements are full of colour images and catchy songs, therefore children can not differentiate one from the other. However, it’s adult’s duty to monitor how much time children are exposed to television. Adults spending time with their kids are the ones who can show them the importance of having fun without sophisticated toys or electronic devices.

Marcela, the little cat, discovers how significant are her family and her belongings at the moment she gets lost in the city, and is left with nothing but herself. The moment when people think that their things are worth is when they are left with nothing. A simple conclusion: the less you have, the more you love it.