Instant Gratification

I grew up with a fairly good idea of the value of money. It didn’t grow on trees — that much I knew, or if it did, certainly not on my parents’ trees. I had an allowance for which I performed many chores: cutting the lawn, watering the yard, cleaning my room, washing dishes, and sometimes ironing my own shirts and pants. Working was not foreign to me. Having a paper route, doing other peoples’ yards, and selling Christmas cards door-to-door earned me money to buy records, a bicycle, a basketball, and a Heath Kit radio. For the most part, if I wanted it, I had to earn it. And earn it I did.

The work ethic instilled in me by my parents helped to develop a healthy perspective of things financial, things earned. I wasn’t the type to try to shake their tree, hoping that maybe a dollar or two did linger in the branches. In the case of my basketball, I saw it in a catalog, ordered the Christmas cards I would have to sell to earn it, waited for the cards to arrive, sold the cards door-to-door in my neighborhood, sent the money back to the company, and awaited the arrival of my hard-earned prize. That involved 100% my participation. An invaluable part of the process of earning anything is the anticipation of attaining one’s goal. I didn’t think of the ball, snap my fingers, and instantaneously have it in my hands. The anticipation in every step of the way, consciously living each moment of purpose, made the basketball’s eventual arrival all the more meaningful.

The only time I can remember really complaining about not having something was in my junior year of high school. I was carless, with no prospect in sight. The cost of such was beyond my teenage capabilities, and I was inconsolable because most of my friends had cars. By then I had a job working in a music store every day after school and on weekends, and had already saved for and purchased a new set of drums, but in no way could I possibly earn enough for a car. Finally, after hearing just so much of my moaning and complaining, my father showed me the title to a 1962 English Ford Anglia. I remember being completely confused because our family used to own just such a vehicle when I was younger. My father explained that what I held in my hand was the title to my first car. He was the Head of the Albuquerque High School Vocational Department and had arranged for the auto shop, as a class project, to rebuild an old car from the ground up, and when it was in running order my folks were going to present it to me as a gift. I was floored, speechless. I didn’t know what to say. My father had spilled the beans only to finally shut me up. It was perhaps one of the most profound experiences of humility in my life. After all the crabbing I had done I felt about two feet tall.

Years later I was at my friend Stan’s graphic design studio when a woman and her four-year-old child came in with a job. While the woman was talking to Stan about the specifications of the project, her son kept nagging her for a treat. She repeatedly told him that he would get one when they got back to the car. He became more belligerent as time went on, to the point where he was jumping, trampoline-style, on Stan’s black leather couch screaming at the top of his lungs, “I want a treat, I want a treat!” His overtures were so deafening that work in the entire suite of offices came to a standstill. The poor woman had to finally apologize and leave with her little tornado screaming all the way to the car. Poorer still was Stan, who eventually emerged from his office ashen-faced, eyes bulging, and catatonic. When he was finally able to speak he instructed his staff to lock the door and turn off the lights if they ever saw her return.

The woman obviously had never taught her child the virtue of patience. The boy was a classic case of one who expects and demands instant gratification. He was used to having his every wish immediately granted. It was evident who wore the pants in that family. There could not possibly have been any regard on the parents’ part for instilling in the child a very crucial building block of character development, and unfortunately it remains absent in too much of today’s generation.

In raising my son, who is now in his twenties, I do not recall ever seeing an example of any of his friends having had to work for something, much less develop a savings plan toward the purchase of a desired item. The parents usually bought the child the toy, the video game, or the movie-on-tape. In most cases it was purchased either the day of the request or the next. Those children were not made to be financially responsible for any part of the purchase, and, as a result, the true value of the item lost all significance. If something is so easily attained, then how can it be of any value? Some kids of today want a free ride: they’re reluctant to apply for college student loans because they don’t want to be saddled with debt upon graduation. (My generation did it, and we survived somehow.) They expect their parents to foot the entire bill. How valuable will their education truly be to them in the long run?

Some toy stores now issue scan guns to little shoppers who can walk through the aisles and “point ’n’ shoot” each item they wish to add to their birthday or Christmas list. Aunts, uncles, and grandparents around the country can consult the “registry” and then buy something the child wants without duplication. A mother who was interviewed about this new feature was thrilled that finally her son would not be disappointed at Christmas either by getting something he didn’t want or by not getting the toys he did want. Where has the element of surprise gone? When our children know ahead of time what they will receive, why bother to wrap the gifts? And how dare we risk disappointing them by not giving them everything they ask for!

We can’t really blame our kids entirely for this sad state of affairs. They are merely emulating their elders with their “I want it now” attitude, possessing the same false sense of need. Credit cards, mail-order catalogs, telemarketing, home shopping channels, and on-line services have fueled the sense of immediacy by which it is possible to order something at five-o’clock in the evening and have it on one’s doorstep by breakfast the next morning. I did just that in the purchase of a new scanner. From the time I placed the order to my first full-color scan, the earth had barely completed two-thirds of a turn. It seemed as close to immediate materialization as it could be. I want it — POOF! — I have it. Because we can obtain something so quickly we feel that we also need that something — whatever it is. Effort of any kind has been removed. We no longer have to wrestle with our conscience whether or not we should purchase a product because the credit card in our pocket — which only postpones the inevitable — and the overnight delivery services make it too easy to justify our amassing material things, items that the process, by its very nature, persuades us we need.

I heard of a father trying to convince his little son that he couldn’t afford a certain toy. The boy asked to see his father’s wallet. Upon seeing no cash the boy suggested writing a check. The father said that even though there was some money in the bank, there wasn’t enough for the toy and the bills he had to pay. The boy then told him to use the ATM because he always saw Mommy get all the cash she needed from that machine. Aside from the ridiculous situation of allowing the little one to even question his father’s “No” and submit to an examination of the wallet (another case of who’s really wearing the pants in the family), there had been no education whatsoever in the basics of money. That father is forever doomed to financial servitude to the son. I can just imagine Junior’s future lawyers demanding to see Senior’s tax forms to determine ability to pay for whatever Junior wants. Similarly, in a letter to Ann Landers, a young man complained that as he had reached the age of eighteen, his father’s child-support payments had terminated, as per divorce decree. Financing his college education was very tough on his poor mother, and he felt that Congress should pass a law dictating that fathers continue to pay until their children graduate from college. Ann Landers asked if the boy had ever heard of getting a job.

In spite of their wonderful availability of instant cash, ATM’s are actually the devil in disguise. They provide us with the means to satisfy our immediate cravings without stopping to consider the ramifications of such an expenditure. No longer do we take pause to consider if we can really afford to buy X, Y, and Z. We also no longer plan a purchase by putting aside fifty dollars per month until next September, a buffer that could also allow us to change our minds over time and realize that maybe X, Y, and Z were not that important after all. If we can’t control our own styles of spending, we shouldn’t be surprised when our children think of ATM’s and credit cards as the answer.

Gone are the days of earning the build-your-own Heath Kit radio. Not only will an aunt, uncle, or grandparent buy the item for the child, it will already be assembled and painted. No muss, no fuss. If it breaks, so what? There are always plenty more where it came from. And if not, one can always jump up and down on someone’s black leather couch and scream, “I want it, I want it!”

©2002 Stuart Vail

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