Thank God for greedy, materialistic children!

If your home (or, if you're a nanny, the home where you work) is anything like the home where I work, for the past couple of months you've had tiny little hands grabbing at every catalog that comes in the mail, crayons at the ready to circle every item of fascination for Santa's list. If those tiny hands belong to tiny people who also watch TV, they can quote you verbatim every hot new your-childhood-is-incomplete-and-miserable-without-this-toy advertisement. It can get kind of wearing when young voices beg for every toy in the store and clamor to keep writing and rewriting letters for the North Pole because the last letter was not quite complete.

It is easy to get discouraged when we see all our efforts at building thoughtful, generous little people dissipate into greedy, grabby, demanding, selfish, materialistic holiday-fueled behaviour. We might start to worry that the child who is begging for every toy in creation today will grow up to be just as self-focused, greedy, and materialistic as an adult.

It can become even more of a struggle when we, as the adults, struggle ourselves with wanting to provide them every joy in the world along with the knowledge and understanding of how truly truly blessed we might be. We see a story about a family whose home just went up in flames. We hear about parents who have lost their child. A child who just lost his parents. A couple struggling, thus far unsuccessfully, to build a family. A family just given a horrific, life altering diagnosis. Families and individuals without homes, food, or love. Countries where children starve to death, daily, for lack of food. Places where physical safety is unknown. Children who only know touch to be something that brings shame, or pain.

We hear these things and it gives a new perspective, it helps us to be a little more grateful for what we have.

I recently read a comment about a newscaster reading a child's letter to Santa wherein the child asked Santa to go to heaven and give his mommy a hug for him. The comment continued...what would children ask for if they weren't brainwashed by toy companies?

I thought about that and it dawned on me: They'd probably still ask for toys, and isn't that beautiful?

A child who asks for a message to be taken to his mommy in heaven is a child who knows the loss of his mother. It is his greatest wish to see her again, to be held by her again. It is natural for him to have this wish, given his circumstances. But why on earth would we want for every child to have this wish? Or even for one more child to wish for his mother?

A child who asks for toys instead of for a meal is a child who goes to bed with a full belly, who does not know hunger. A child who asks for a gaming system over having her parent back is a child who still knows the loving presence of her parent, who has not experienced the devastation of that kind of loss. A child who wants a Transformer instead of a home is a child who has a place to feel safe and to lay his head at night, who does not know what it is like to wander the streets or live in a shelter or be bounced from foster home to foster home. When a child is desperate to possess this year's "must have" item, that child is a child who likely has his basic needs met and doesn't even comprehend what it would be like to not have those needs for food, shelter, and love met.

Isn't that an amazing, wonderful thing?

Isn't it worth celebrating?

I do not, in any way, mean to belittle or mitigate the extent of need in our world. I firmly and fully believe in the responsibility of every individual to give to, and care for, the world around them. I believe this is our responsibility every day, not just at the holidays. On the flip side of this, though, I don't know that it is appropriate to tell a child writing a letter to Santa that his desire for new toys is invalid...or shameful...because other children want a home or a mommy or food. Absolutely, give him the opportunity throughout the year to participate in making the world a better place for his fellow humans. But don't deny him his own innocence, his own experience of a safe, happy, joyful world just because not every child has what he has.

For now, while part of my heart aches for every child...every adult...every person...in pain or in need, the other part of my heart rejoices for and celebrates the fact that so many children have the love, the safety, the freedom, the peace, the opportunity, and the chance to be greedy, materialistic, selfish little elves at Christmas time.

I thank God that they don't know any differently.