Frida Berrigan: How Can We Reclaim the Holiday Season From Corporations?

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How Can We Reclaim the Holiday Season From Corporations?

Sunday, 22 December 2013 14:33
By Frida Berrigan, Waging Nonviolence | Opinion


Seamus is covered in peanut butter and dragging a cell phone charger around while he carries a box of tampons in the crook of his arm. Not exactly photo-finish perfect parenting, but okay. He is fully occupied for the moment, and nothing he is holding can do him harm, right?

He is headed for the bathroom. My one concern is that he will decide to store his now-precious items in his favorite place — the toilet. Is the lid on? I think so, but the little genius can open it, no problem. I am listening for the splash. I think the charger would be okay, the tampons not so much. I am not even sure where he found them; I am almost seven months pregnant and haven’t had much use for them recently. But I don’t want to see them wasted either — they are too expensive to get waterlogged in an open toilet by a 16-month-old. I am encouraging his independence and curiosity, so I don’t get up to check on him.

But as I listen to him noisily exploring the second floor of our house — door knobs, rugs, dust bunnies, the basket of neatly folded laundry outside of his sister’s room — I think about his room full of toys. There is almost not enough room to play because there are so many toys — blocks, cars, stuffed animals, board books galore, musical instruments, and plastic things that talk, squeak and moan. But here he is, in the bathroom, happy as a little, nosy, box-emptying, stuff-strewing clam. Every corner of the second floor — except his room full of toys — entices, beckons, tempts.

It makes me think: “This kid doesn’t need any toys.”

That notion is three quarters of the way to heresy, especially this time of year. Americans spend more than $20 billion a year on toys for kids — with most of that green leaving their pockets between now and the end of December. Please do not spend any of that on toys for our Seamus. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20791-how-can-we-reclaim-the-holiday-season-from-corporations