I don't know what is wrong with kids these days. It seems like the more that I try to teach them good values, the more they're about. When I was a kid, I wanted nothing so much as a new electric guitar. Although I drooled over some of the more expensive, fancier guitars, I craved them because they would allow me to make music. My passion was creating things and making art. My kids, by contrast, think about buying new iPods and getting dual screen portable DVD players. My daughter in particular was begging for a dual screen portable DVD player a few months ago. We were about to go on family vacation to the Rocky Mountains, you see, and she wanted the dual screen portable DVD player so that she could watch DVDs with her brother in the car. Can you imagine? They were going to one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, and instead of looking out the window, they wanted to watch generic Hollywood flicks in the car!
My wife wanted to get her the DVD player with dual screens as a way of shutting her up, but I thought that this would only encourage your. Don't get me wrong – my daughter is a good girl in general. She is kind, sensitive, and caring. Nonetheless, she has this attachment to material things that I find disconcerting. She looked at the dual screen portable dvd player as if it were the end-all and be-all of possessions. She couldn't picture anything that she wanted more in this world. It wasn't that she loves movie so much, but that she wants to get something high-tech and knew every single week. This week it was a dual screen portable DVD player, last week it was an iPod, next week who knows? It might be a new phone or something we haven't even heard of yet. She seems to think that the dual screen portable DVD player will make her more popular and cooler. In my opinion, buying new thing seems like a terrible way to make friends.
Needless to say, my wife eventually gave in. We did not get her the dual screen portable DVD player. At first, she complained like a little brat. Eventually, however, she started to look around her. She was able to see all of the beauty of nature. Although she didn't exactly thank me for not giving her the dual screen portable DVD player, I could tell that she was happy to finally be seeing the world around her.
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