By Jake H.
Every Sunday night Father Stephen starts off compline with a sermon on a subject that he feels is important. This Sunday one of his many subjects was the idea of giving your kids everything that you never had. He explained how in today’s society we have translated that into we will buy our children everything that we never had. He preaches that it should, in fact, be that we will give our children the love and care that we never had.
This dilemma that Father presented is a perfect example of how the American society is becoming more and more based on materials rather than morals. Since the industrial revolution the capitalist economy has been bombarding the public with advertisements that has equated happiness with materials. As a result today the average child associates happiness with a new toy, new computer, or a new video game; rather than love and care. Therefore, they turn to their parents for happiness and where they think happiness comes from is materials. It is by this societal circumstance that the modern meaning of the saying is derived. I believe that the statement “I want to give my kids everything that I never had” should remain the same in verbatim, but needs to drastically change in meaning.
The saying should be backed with giving children what they have not had for many years; a solid sense of morals presented through love and compassion. We need to shy away from buying love and concentrate more on giving it. Instead of rewarding achievements with materials we should give them praise and love and not praise follow it by a new toy. With the materialistic approach new toy gets all of the credit and the praise is thrown out the window and then the child expects a material reward the next time and will be discontent with just praise, starting an endless cycle of false bought happiness.
I believe that failure to impose this in raising a child, or just in daily interactions, is setting youth up for nothing but misery and malcontentment. A person who is raised in this environment, I am positive, grows up in life seeking only the next pay raise, the next bonus, while completely passing life by. It preaches a lifestyle totally based on things that are tangible and impermanent; and when it is all taken away nothing but confusion and misery lay waiting. The person lives a life gilded with possessions and materials with a hallow soul. I am in no way saying that if you buy kids toys that they will be miserable for the rest of their life, but I am saying that if you bribe or “reward” them with materials you will be setting them up for it. It may not be impossible to live happily afterwards, but it makes it a whole lot harder. It is a whole lot easier to continue good morals than to fashion them; speaking from personal experience.
A Few Words