Could you get by with just 100 items to your name? Manage with half a closet of clothing? Declare your CD or DVD collection frivolous excess and put it up for bid on eBay? Eat with a spork?
No? Well, check out my lastest article and links on Moms Speak Up for the rest of the story because there are people doing just that, purging themselves of the materialistic trappings of our uber-consuming life-styles. Turing over a non-shopping leaf. Pulling away from the table of the American way of life.
For a while I was reading Overheard in New York, a blog that asks people to send in the inane, amusing and scary conversations they overhear as they go about their own business in the New York City area. Although the novelty of it has worn off and I listen to Rob read it to me more than I read it myself now.
On our recent holiday in B.C. we had to stop at the Wal-mart in Kelowna. We’d left Katy’s swimsuit at her Grandmother’s in Penticton and because the resort we were heading to was literally in the mountains with not much for retail around, and had a pool, traveling on without replacing the suit was not an option. If you’ve ever stayed at a hotel or resort that possessed a pool with your kids, you know why.
Kelowna is a boom town built mainly on tourism. I have been through it only once and really could avoid it for the rest of my life without trouble, but we needed to use the TransCanada to get to Three Valley Gap, and it took us right through it.
Rob waited with Katy in the truck while I ran in to grab a suit (and blister stick that Band-aid makes that I swear by when running or hiking). It was a good thing. Rob is a non-shopper and Wal-mart on a Sunday afternoon is like mecca for the consumer-set.
Back in the States, I would cruise the Target on a Sunday morning after reading the flyer. It was a ritual born of my pre-widowed days when a dying husband and toddler prevented me from having much contact with the world at large. Aside from the grocery, my only real outings every week was to Target and occasionally taking my daughter to the indoor play area at the mall. I have noticed that shopping seems to have replaced church for many people on Sundays or is their post-church, pre-lunch ritual. I always knew the church goers. They were the ones all dressed up as if they were going to a wedding. The boys in collared shirts and the girls in skirts or dresses. Conversely I always appeared to be on my way to the gym and Katy looked as if I would be dropping her off at a costume party along the way. This was in her “Halloween costumes as every day clothing phase”.
While this Sunday mass consumption thing has enriched the Walmart family, I am not sure it has been an enriching thing for people in general.
As I wound my way through the women’s clothing section in search of the girl’s section, I made a pass of the dressing rooms, scooting around a tall man who was standing directly outside the entrance to the women’s changing room.
As I passed I heard him say to someone who was in the change area,
“The suit looks great, honey, just gotta get on that diet now.”
Not certain I heard that correctly, I actually stopped and looked back at the fellow. He was beaming and nodding – encouragement? – at someone unseen. His arms were folded at his chest and he was clutching a couple of hangers with swim attire dangling. He was not one to give diet either. Obviously athletic at some point in his youth, or at the vary least involved in manual labor of some kind, he had that early thirtyish look of someone not quite unfit but definitely going to seed. Faint traces of a jowly future and the start of what will likely be sturdy love handles.
With praise of the kind this man offered his significant other, should low self-esteem, distorted body image and the eating disorder rise among middle aged women really come as a surprise?
Health care is a calamity in the United States. Tens of millions of people, mostly women and children, are without the means to see a doctor for preventative medicine as well as treatment for illnesses and accidents. Why? Health insurance was irrevocably wedded to employment after WWII when the government restricted businesses ability to compensate their worker monetarily. Businesses began to use health insurance as a way to attract and keep the workers they needed. Today’s workers find themselves in a much chillier climate with health insurance being limited, dropped or not offered at all by businesses desperate to maintain healthy profits as opposed to healthy workers. Women and their children are especially hard hit by this as they are more likely to be working part time jobs or for small businesses and benefits like health insurance are not available to them. Even two income middle-class families are hard hit by the co-pays and payroll deductions for the coverage they are able to get through their employment. With medical costs sky-rocketing, people find themselves paying more and more for less and less coverage.
And then there are the catastrophes that no family expects. The catastrophic illness of a breadwinner or child. Chronic illnesses that are perfectly treatable but too expensive to do so without insurance. Terminal illnesses. Most Americans are one disastrous illness or accident away from losing everything and this is mainly due to inadequate health insurance or none at all. For these people federally funded programs like Medicaid and CHIPS were created but due to Congressional underfunding, states have to limit those who can participate. There are long waiting lists and some people are forced to quit jobs in order to qualify for these programs – a Catch 22 if ever there was one.
My late husband qualified for Medicaid – barely – due to the nature of his very rare illness, but I have to say that I wish I hadn’t had to take that assistance. I will forever feel like I failed because I couldn’t take care of him myself. Being a part of any type of government assistance program, from my perspective, is not something the majority of people seek out. I found my dealings with social workers and Medicaid frustrating and soul-crushing. I don’t know that I can ever really put into words just how damaging it was at a time when I was already going through one of the worst experiences – watching my husband die. But I would have done anything to make his last months better and I “sucked it up” and did what needed to be done. I was lucky. We qualified. Thousands of people are told every day that they don’t. They make a few hundred or thousand dollars a year too much. There are waiting lists and they must get in line. Or, the worst of all, the program has been cut due to lack of funds.
If you have a minute, check out some of the stories and articles at Moms Speak Up. Leave a comment. Tell a story. Send a quick email to your state senator or representative. We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world and we are not taking care of our children or our desperately ill. We can do better.
anniegirl1138 