Anne Kim writes in her blog, “So, what’s the point of back-to-school shopping? It simply trains kids to be excessive consumers -- buying things they don’t really need simply because everyone else is doing it.”
Like Kim, I’m not for irresponsible shopping sprees and excessive materialism.
Having said that, moderate back-to-school shopping can be a fun, memorable, relatively harmless tradition. In elementary school, I was all excited about buying Lisa Frank gear with pictures of teddy bears, rainbows and smiling unicorns. In high school, I got slick new running shoes for cross-country. In college, shopping for dorm stuff (like cute decorations) was half the fun of moving.
Besides, let’s be honest here: Who is 100% excited for summer to end and school to start? Sure, we’re excited to see friends, participate in extracurriculars and take new classes with awesome teachers.
But some aspects of school are inevitably negative; even the most studious, determined and passionate will agree. School replaces sweet ZZZZs with screaming alarm clocks, leisurely breakfasts with early morning classes, sunbathing on cruise ships with rocky bus rides, pleasant boredom with long lists of to-dos. Ultimately, back-to-school shopping makes the bitterness of homework and tests a little sweeter.
So if spending a moderate amount on pencils, notebooks and sweaters cheers up a glum child and makes special memories, why not?
Respond to this posting
Back to top