It’s a hard life: why you shouldn’t feel guilty for not giving kids everything they want this Christmas

I’ve been meaning all last week to write a cogent response to this in the BBC Magazine about how less is more when it comes to giving kids stuff,  with  research showing that kids play more creatively when they have fewer toys.

This seemed to be particularly resonant after our weekend trip to Harrods, where we took the kids to get a glimpse of the how  the other 1 percent live.

It was a revealing experience, as much about how my own expectations and aspirations for my children have been cultivated, as about what is best for them, because as a child, this is where Papa Rep  always took me, and sister Katie.

We’d buy Jelly Bellies and look at all the stuff we couldn’t afford, and Papa Rep would talk about what we would buy when he became rich, and we would eat a burger at the Steak House opposite and then go home. It was a happy memory, for all it fuelled rampant consumerist aspirations, which, for some reason, I want to inflict on my own children.

Like any parent, I love being able to treat them every now and again. But where do you draw the line, to try and make them happy with what they have? Well, to be honest, all too often that line is drawn by the person who decides my salary, rather than any high flown principals of my own.

My children have a reasonable amount of toys, but are also told ‘no’ often enough to know not to expect too much – and it’s been good for them, to learn the value of money, and to know they have to save up to get the things they want.

But knowing certain things are permanently out of their reach – unless they married well, or invented something brilliant – hard work, alone, it seems won’t cut it these days –is that just cruel? Or a necessary evil in a world of such great inequality?

Whatever. It was a nice Christmassy day out. We stuffed our children’s heads with the latest crap they could  fill my house with if only we could afford it and both kids were very reasonable about looking without buying, and choosing a thing each that Tom would later buy them on eBay, while giving us some clues about what to get them for Christmas,which, despite my cynicism about, we’ve managed so far to ‘do’  well enough for nearly eight year old Jonah, and Ava, 5, of course, still believe in FC – which, I guess, makes it harder to set expectations about what they can expect on the ‘big’ day…

The real reason we went, of course, is that I’d booked Jonah and Ava into the Harrods grotto, as much for my own guilty pleasure as for theirs. I expected the creme de la creme of Father Christmases – a toy worth taking home and no paedos or stick on beards, but alas, we queued – the timed ‘slot’ was of little use –  Santa’s beard was noticeably flagging, and the photo of the ‘experience’ we were offered cost more than our train ticket in from Kent where we’d been visiting Papa Rep – yep, the car’s still on the blink and we’ve not yet extended the mortgage enough to get a new one.

So, with my Christmas healthily cynicism refreshed, I was gearing up to write some pseudo scientific diatribe against the giving of too much stuff to kids.  But then I found this:

And I thought, shit, has this all just massively backfired?

Jonah’s work – and he doesn’t often bring home drawings – is a psychologist’s nightmare of tight black pencil scribble entitled HARD LIFE in heavy stencil.

It rather took me by surprise, and has given me the guilts – and not just about my attitude to giving them stuff – which I actually think is plenty reasonable, but whether or not my own stress levels, which as a working mum are more about keeping our heads above water then being able to provide them with luxuries – are having an impact on Jonah. Undoubtedly. But what to do about it?

I can be tough on them sometimes, and I shout as much as any working mum trying to leave the house to a barrage of inanities about Pokemon on a weekday morning, but is that really what he thinks? He, with his own bedroom, with a playroom, frankly full of toys, at a liberal school where he wears clothes of his choice, and eats a bag of crisps after school as long as he has an apple too. Life’s not THAT BAD surely?

I mean, he fights with his sister a bit, and I make him go to bed on time on school nights, but I don’t push him to do clubs or learn an instrument, and he can play on his computer for an hour or so after school – Particularly now the aspie specialist said it was a safe place for aspies to relax, so I chilled right out about it.

In fact, I’ve chilled right out about a lot of things, parenting wise, because as a full time worker I just don’t have time to micromanage my kids affairs as much as my innate control freakery would like, but that’s a good thing isn’t it?

Or is it? Parental guilt has all off us by the balls – and the wallets. It has crippled some of my friends who won’t hand their child over to a childminder for fear their kids might not like them, or financially fucked them over because they don’t want to upset their child by saying no to anything, and so are over a barrel paying for horse riding, ballet, Perform, ice skating and just about anything their little angel is ‘into’ at any given point.

But my tough-ish love and rather more hands off approach has made my kids resilient and self-sufficient, hasn’t it? I am hardly overcompensating for not giving them time by showering them in possessions. Perhaps, I’m not giving them enough of anything?

While there is an argument to say that giving your kids less, be it attention or stuff, makes them more imaginative and less needy, it might, of course make them attention seeking rabid consumerists, or internalise their anger about how life just isn’t fair, which is what has happened to me (which is why i blog about it all the time, to get it off my chest ), and what seems to be happening to Jonah, with his distinctly unchildlike drawing.

Whatever’s going on, it’s clear that Jonah, like me, is finding life tougher than he should be, and that’s probably more to do with his Asperger’s – and my depression/suspected female Asperger’s than anything physical. And there’s not much either of us can do about that.

But like everything, there’s a balance. Between my need for both order and my children’s need for boundaries, time and things, like computer games and trainers, that make them feel normal – even if they’re not the most expensive in the world.

But whatever it is they need, it’s not me shouting at them in the morning  because they’re too busy playing on computer games to get ready for school, making me late and tearful. So for that reason, and that reason alone, Father Christmas won’t be bringing them 2DSs this Christmas, however much they may want them.