Raising Precious
Okay, I know that I said here that American Idol is indicative of everything that is wrong with our world, but I think that I was too quick to pin the blame on one source. After receiving it in the mail yesterday, and then flipping through it in the bathroom this morning while taking a shit, it became quite apparent that the same can be said for the Pottery Barn Kids catalog.
Page four is all about "The Creative Backyard" or something like that. As if my kid can't learn creativity without a teak sandbox, lime and seafoam-striped sun umbrella, and monogrammed sand pail. (Metal, of course, because plastic is just tacky.) Creativity comes from within, Pottery Barn - Just see the idea my kid came up with while helping me garden. And, no we didn't have a monogrammed trowel and sunhat for him.
There is a section just on shit you can buy for a kid's party: Themes include pirates, surfers, and luaus. Who the fuck would buy a real teak kids' outdoor dining set, with little precious' name monogrammed onto a surfboard for a birthday party? To look at the catalog, you would think that not only are you supposed to have the director's chair that your kid will sit in while eating his cake monogrammed, but you are supposed to have the names of all the other little kids monogrammed on their items (chairs, towels, plates) presumably to take home as party favors?
So, not only are we training our kids up to think they might be the next American Idol, or the next movie or sports star, rather than teaching them tools to succeed in the real world, but now some parents are creating this fucking dreamworld that is so magnificent that nothing in the real world will ever hold a candle to it, and they will continue to be disappointed by life.
Not to mention that if I pay those kinds of prices for a fucking surfboard, I'm damn well gonna monogram my name on it.
Labels: Grrrrrr, Parents These Days, Pottery Barn
posted by Dogwood Girl @ 8:12 AM
12 comments
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12 Comments:
Agreed. The creativity of the marketing department has little or nothing to do with fostering personal creativity.
More books, fewer movies. That'll help creativity.
I particularly enjoy the "taking a shit"/"buying shit" parallel.
Annie, Pottery Barn Kids Catalog doesn't even make it past the garage garbage can, it goes right in when I sort the mail. I couldn't agree with you more about this need for "stuff" that seems to be pervasive in our society. One of my kids favorite things to do...roll soup cans around the kitchen. How's that for non-monagrammed creativity?
I feel a little sorry for the marketing people, because I know they must want to vomit while they are doing this stuff. Agreed - more books, fewer movies. And more time just hanging out in the backyard making up games, instead of sitting inside pushing buttons to see what happens. [she says, typing away on her own little information box of brain death.]
Glad you got the shit theme.
"Non-monogrammed creativity!" I like that. You might need to trademark it, then start your own soup can toy company. BTW, the soup cans rolling around might make me a little batty.
I should add here that tiller does have a Pottery barn pillow, quilt, and fitted sheet for her crib, which must be how I ended up on the mailing list. So, I guess I am partially buying into it.
But I wanted it. :-)
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Anne, my mom calls my house the Pottery Barn house. Odd because I don't think I actually own anything from Pottery Barn or PBK. But I do look to their catalogs--along with other decorating catalogs and magazines-- for ideas and then go buy/make/refinish it for less than half the price. Do you think that counts as creativity--doing Pottery Barn on the cheap??
The kids catalog makes the 6 year old in me want to beat those kids up with all their matched and monogram stuff.
Nat, your house does NOT look like a Pottery Barn catalog - it looks awesome and totally reflects your personality. I feel like my interior "design" [the theme is that there is no theme] is completely embarrassing when compared with other girls' homes. I'm just too lazy.
Back to the point, your stuff always looks creative. Pottery barn WISHES they had the creativity you put into Carmella's room. That dog ballerina stuff cracks me up every time I think of it. You are one of the most creative people I know.
Agreed on the too-perfect kid models. . . funny how they don't show the kid that got rotovirus on their birthday and puked up cake, or the one that is a total brat and throws a tantrum and slings his cake on the floor, or the kids fighting over birthday gifts that aren't even for them.
Would that we all lived in Pottery Barn Kids world.
Who wants to live in PB world? You can't eat popsicles and can only have vanilla cake because that expensive monagrammed shit stains! I wonder who really does buy all of that stuff, though.
We do own some PB sheets and those foam chairs because I was nesting (twice). I like the idea of the cool, calming adult rooms in the catalog, but they cost too much to actually purchase at retail.
Seems to me that kids would rather play outside with the hose and some dirt than in a cutesy sandbox shaped like a boat. And, the current favorite toy here - coffee cans; they can be drums, maracas, rolling cylinders, bowling pins, whatever.
I was totally kidding, except that in pottery barn world, you would be able to eat anything and not get fat. You could eat the popsicle and throw the shirt away, because money is no object.
I haven't been over here in a while and am so glad I saw this.
Truer words have never been spoken. Now, I'm going to go outside and eat on my daughter's teak picnic table and monogrammed plates. Or maybe we'll just dig in the mud for worms like we did yesterday and put them in a non-monogrammed plastic bucket.
I'd like to see that in the PBK catalog.
Hey, Girl! So glad to hear from you! I check your blog occasionally, but haven't commented in a while. Glad you agree, but I knew you would. :-)
The reality is that the neighborhood cat will crap in the teak sandbox. I always get a kick out the fake stainless kitchen. The stove costs more than the working one I have in my house!
How much does a kid's stainless kitchen cost, anyway?
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