shantinik

November is a good month for homeschoolers to learn how to be frugal
consumers. Of course, the shopping lessons, at least in our family,
occur year round, but November has a holiday specifically devoted to
this purpose, so we try to take advantage.

There is neither a domesticated fowl nor a funny-hatted man with
silver buckles on his shoes associated with this holiday. It is not
Thanksgiving. In fact, it is a holiday without a name. I write of
course of the day after Thanksgiving

On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, after the turkey has hit the soup,
we gather up all the hundreds of pages of ads for the "After
Thanksgiving Day Sale". Now in our homeschooling family, as Quakers,
we don't celebrate a traditional gift-giving Christmas, so some of the
heat is off. But the sales are good, I'm told (though I've often
suspected that the stores just mark up all the prices on their winter
goods and then take 40% off so that the prices are pretty much the
same.) We then decide what we 'need' or 'want'. There's usually one or
at most two items to be found in each of six or seven different
stores, the stores of course being scattered in various and sundry
parts of the city.

My daughters and I arise at 6 a.m. - this is a special homeschooling
outing! I having pressed upon them how important it is to arrive
early, and having convinced them of the compelling superiority of each
particular item in the store that is our destination. We arrive at the
first store a little before 7. Stand it line. Purchase item. Then on
to the next store, and the next. We are relentlessly efficient..
Sometimes we have to choose among colors, or designs, or whatnot. But
no tomfoolery - we know how to do this. We stick to the list. We don't
browse. We don't look at socks in the store where we buy jackets, or
ties where we get bedspreads. We don't get distracted by trinkets,
sale signs, Santa Claus, or handbills. We refuse to be distracted. By
11 a.m., we are home, like homeschooled big game hunters, having
bagged our limit.

By 11:30, after surveying our cache over a second cup of coffee,
nausea sets in. I have convinced myself, and started to convince most
of the rest of the family (my wife, having conscientiously abstained,
doesn't need much convincing), that at least half the things we
purchased we really don't need, or they aren't particularly nice, or
they aren't any better than the same item we saw for ten percent of
the price we paid in the local thrift shop, and I don't like sleeping
under a blanket made by exploited women in Bangladesh or watching my
younger daughter run around in athletic shoes fabricated in
unventilated sweatshops in Indonesia (has anyone found a good
alternative for these?) And so my holiday will turn into a weekend of
returns! How do I communicate all of my thoughts and feelings about
these issues to my two daughters as part of our homeschooling experience?

There is no question that I (like many Americans) suffer from a very
particular neurotic 'thought disorder', and I am now in recovery.
Teaching our children to become knowledgeable consumers is important,
even an essential part of our homeschooling efforts. But, to me,
liberating my children by providing alternatives to America's religion
of consumption (of which public education is a key component) and
helping them understand the non-material basis for a truly satisfying
life is central to my family's homeschooling efforts.

And now I've gotten some help. The day has been given an appropriate
name - "International Buy Nothing Day"! Check it out at
http://adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/ Started about five years ago by a
Canadian magazine named Adbusters. BND, as it is now affectionately
known, was celebrated last year in more than 30 countries, including
France, Japan, Panama, Israel, South Korea, Canada, Brazil, and the
United States. Billed as a "global carnival of life in the face of
consumer conformity", BND has gone so far as to produce radio and
television spots to get their message across, though in most cases the
spots have been rejected by network executives ["Contrary to the
function of advertising itself and against our ethics (sic)," said
one)] only to make their appearance on the evening news. On their
website, you can download "Christmas Gift Exemption Vouchers" to give
to friends and family, templates for buttons and tee shirts, and a
full range of posters and press releases. A celebration is likely
coming to a town or city near you. Your rebellious (or just socially
conscious) homeschooled teen or pre-teen will love it!

Not quite ready for Buy Nothing Day? Well, then connect up with the
Center for a New American Dream's "Kids and Commercialism Campaign".
You can find them online at www.newdream.org/campaign/kids/index.html.
Download their excellent brochure, "Tips for Parenting in a
Commercial Culture." There is a website for kids full of fun,
non-commercial play ideas, advice from responsible consumption gurus,
essay contests, and links to dozens of groups who will keep you better
informed as you gird up your loins, take up your battle axe, and stand
ready to defend your homeschooling hearth and kin against the next
advertising onslaught.

Holidays are an important part of our lives as homeschoolers. We can,
if we choose, use our holidays to reconnect ourselves with friends,
with nature, and with our playful, creative sides, with our
spirituality, and help rebuild communities that extend far beyond the
confines of the shopping mall parking lots. And, if we're really
smart, we can do that with our children every day. For me, that's what
homeschooling is all about.

Make a poster with your kids emblazoned "More Fun, Less Stuff!" Try it
out as a homeschooling family slogan (you could even write a family
jingle!), and hang it in a prominent place. Next time you feel the
urge to shop coming on, look at the poster, and you'll know it's time
to clean out the garage. "Hey, this could spell the end of
civilization as we know it," says my friend Anthony (I think he was
referring to responsible consumerism, not to the new era of
uncluttered garages across America.)

Who said homeschooling is not a subversive idea??


Copyright c David H. Albert