judgement day

Call me old-fashioned if you will but one of the things I struggle to understand in modern day Britain is the insistence of people to have the latest gadget and the refusal to mend anything, preferring instead to buy a new whatever.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m not an old lady and I spent a large part of my formative years wasting money on gadgets and new things and had a complete disregard for reusing anything.

When David was born I started to think about the environment beyond the 70 years or so that I will occupy space here and found myself changing my ways to try to ensure a better way of life for him in the future.  When I talk about a better way of life I actually mean that he should be able to enjoy the same pleasures as people do now such as running water and plentiful supplies of food.

The first thing I did was to start using cloth nappies.  It was a struggle at first to get Alasdair to agree but he gave in stating that he wouldn’t be touching them but I could do whatever I wanted…oh, how the times have changed!  Anyway, it was a short time before I realised that it would be cheaper to make them than it is to buy them new.  And that was my contribution to the whole environment debate…not very good eh!

Our decision to use cloth nappies was met with shock and dismay from our parents…why on earth would we want to use stinky cloth nappies when we can keep Pampers’ executives in the manner to which they have become accustomed.  Didn’t we know that they smell, cause nappy rash, take forever to wash, and are very inconvenient?  I’m not a preacher on this matter…I think the nappies speak for themselves…but didn’t they know that cloth nappies are not only funky and fashionable, they also are as easy to wash as a bundle of clothes, smell less, and contain everything a child can thrown at them…without fail.  Not to mention the fact that when my son and daughter stuff (a clean) one into their mouths I can relax in the knowledge that they won’t swallow a lethal dose of absorbent crystals.  Our families know now to leave us alone on this matter and perhaps even one or two of them has come to accept that maybe we were right and they are the better option.  Ask yourself, when you are old and incontinent would you like a piece of plastic wrapped round your butt or a nice piece of absorbent fleece?  Hmmm, I thought so.

As an aside to that I found it quite remarkable that the staff at the nursery we sent David to in his formative years refused to empty the dirty nappies, telling me that it was dirty and they shouldn’t have to touch that!  Have they not heard of soap and water then?

We have had to cut back dramatically in the past couple of years and especially since moving to the country last year.  A welcome side effect of this is that we tend to really think about our spending and not buy anything simply because we want it or it would be nice to have.  Iona is now at the stage David was at when we decided to keep all of his old clothes for the next baby, including his socks.  As a result we struggle to find a single girly outfit for her to wear.  Not a problem to us, she looks like a girl even in her brother’s cast offs and who cares anyway?!?

In a recent visit to a family “do” we were challenged as to why our daughter was wearing boys’ socks.  Now we had searched that morning to find the one pink outfit she owns so that we could appease them of their need to ensure she looks like a girl and the truth is she didn’t own a pair of girls’ socks…why would she?  There are a dozen perfectly good pairs left over from when David was a baby.  It was disappointing that they had picked up on the socks however we simply stated that she doesn’t have any pink socks.  This is apparently not good enough and this weekend we were presented with several pairs of pink socks for her.  My first thought was what a waste of money…she has socks, they fit, they keep her feet warm and dry…she is not deprived in any way…let me check…nope, she’s not growing a willy!

A similar discussion surrounded our decision to rid ourselves of broadcast TV.  We are apparently somehow depriving our children by not having crap beamed into our house day and night.  This I really don’t understand…we talk, read, play games, watch DVDs, etc…what is there that they could possibly be missing out on?  Oh, I know it must be the high speed dubbing to make them go a bit doolally.  Of course this assumption that our children are deprived was backed up with the inevitable tales of deprivation because when they were children they didn’t have a telly…now given that there must be an extra 20-30 years between my childhood and theirs I’m guessing TV was very new at that point and wasn’t filled with hour upon hour of crap mass-produced and marketed drivel whose only purpose is to drive sales of plastic dolls and toy cars so maybe it was a useful educational tool in those days, however I fail to see the education in watching birds on the TV when one can simply look out of the window and watch them feeding at the nuts you put out for them two minutes ago.  In some sort of way I find this quite amusing.  My parents rid themselves of the TV years ago and understand why we have too, but Alasdair’s family are avid TV watchers and like to take every opportunity to ask just what it is that we do all day…as if there’s nothing else in the world except for a TV and I’m sure it seems quite wrong to some people to talk to each other and enjoy stories of the day but that’s what we do and we’ve not grown horns yet.

It just all seems very odd to me that we (as a society) have been brainwashed into believing that new is best and we are somehow inferior if we don’t spend all day at the shops and all night in front of the gogglebox.  Of course people by their very nature will judge the actions of others, I do it and I’m sure you do too but for some reason these days we are on the receiving end far more often than not.

The inspiration for this post was the recent release of the iPhone and the stories of people queuing all week to get their hands on one…I just wonder why…what’s wrong with the phone they undoubtedly already have?