I was going to write about this in my blog, but first I wanted to get some opinions about what you all see going on around you. We've discussed keeping up with the Joneses, but do you feel like your kids have to keep up with the Joneses' kids?

Parents want to send their kids to the best schools, expose them to the widest variety of opporunities, etc. Often the competition starts before they even enter preschool. In school things seem to intensify.

Does anyone see this going on around them? In what ways?

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I have to say yes 100%. Our son will soon be 9 and he already sees what the other kids have and thinks he needs it too. I can remember when we were in school not worring about name brands until JR or high school. In K-3 grades we have had to have Levi jeans, polo or tommy shirts, nike shoes you name it. Then so and so does this like karate and all of a sudden we are in that too. It is hard time ways and money ways to keep this up. But in our area and school you either do it or you are done it seems. Parents at ball games talk about how they just barely made the mortgage payment this month and I cringe! I could never live like that. He is by far not up with the joneses' but he is happy.

I really did not know how some parents could keep up until one night at a dinner they were talking about having 3 jobs and 2 mortages. WOW there is no way we would ever do that. With our son we do not have allowence for chorse he gets "privilages" like 4-H and karate and baseball. He seems happy with that. And thank goodness for Sears kid vantage club for the levis and nike shoes or he would not have those either. I would cry if he tore those 27.99 jeans and I had to pay to replace them

I see it more so with my daughter than I do my son. She definately wants everything her friends have...and then she gets, what I call, the sourpuss face when I say NO. I think that my reasoning sinks in...but when she gets to school and around her friends...I am not so sure. I have seen her wear something "dirty" instead of something "clean" because the dirty item is "cooler".

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I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are. ~ Frances Moore Lappe

I don't see it so much. My kids seem oblivious. My kids could pretty much care less about other people's clothes and stuff. They like what they like (Hey, maybe I am doing something right!)

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Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. James 1:19

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24

Yes unfortunately it is happening earlier and earlier I think. My dd is in the 1st grade and came home really sad because all of the girls in her class have been to Build a Bear except her. The closest one to here is over 1.5 hours away. All the girls got together and brought their bears to school and my dd didn't have one. To me it's nuts that every girl except my dd has one and there isn't even one near us. Granted we live in a small town and class sizes are smaller but still. My 10 yo son asked for a specific birthday present because the majority of his class has one but at least it was something inexpensive I could find at Wal-mart. So far we are lucky with clothes and shoes but "stuff" everyone else has is a pain too.

I do give my kids choices but they are really lop-sided. My kids have their picture taken twice at school in the fall and in the spring. Well I don't buy the spring ones. It just costs to much with 3 in school to buy them all. I get the fall ones because it comes with a class picture and then they get enough individuals to hand out. My dd was heart broken because she wanted me to buy them and thought they were really cute. The package price was $40 for all x 3 kids is $120. Well we had planned on getting a trampoline with enclosure. I gave her the choice of having the trampoline to play on or me buying all those pictures. Well of course she chose the trampoline. So far this logic has really worked well with her. They are far from deprived but we can't keep up with every Jones' kid.

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I have and my daughter is only 4 and doesn't go to preschool yet or daycare. This spring when we got her bike out she told us that she needed a Dora bike b/c hers is too old!!!!! She got this bike for Christmas the year before and it still looks like new and its still the right size for her!!!! Where on earth did she pick this up I don't know, but it made me really mad. she's not even in school yet and she needs to have what she sees at the stores? Our family doesn't have the money to buy new things all the time. I think that we all need to remind these kids that it's not what you have that matters.

Oh yes. I have mentioned in these recent Jones posts about where I live and the upper class mentality all around us. These kids live in the lap of luxury and they know it. The cars, the houses, the clothes, the birthday parties, the trips, etc. are all just crazy. I had dinner with the moms in our classroom at the first of the school year and the woman on my left introduced herself and I introduced myself and the next thing out of her mouth, I kid you not, was "we are building the most expensive house in Atlanta." Now what do you say to that??? I picked my jaw up off the floor and said "how nice for you." The kids pick up on all this. My kindergartener is pretty oblivious to all of it but did come home yesterday and ask if we could go to Florida next week for spring break. I laughed and said no, we would be staying right here, and he pouted and whined that everyone in his class was either going to Florida or Colorado and wanted to know why we weren't going. The gifted program at our school is going to FRANCE for spring break! Elementary school kids. It is crazy. My best friend has a 4th grader and it has gotten very bad for them this year. He is embarrassed about his house and embarrassed that they go to the pool at the Y instead of one of the "big 3" country clubs. Well, at $80,000 for initiation and $2000 a month for dues, sorry but it ain't happening. It is tough around here. We try to stay even keeled and hope for the best....

What I see in my friend's priviliged kids is boredom. They have everything, they do all sports, because they are supposed to, and they've had many, many travel opportunities. They seem to have a difficult time interacting sincerely with adults, and they just always seem to be biding their time until they can get back to their house and life. Their life is very quick-paced -- driving to activities or sports events -- or involves a lot of video game play when home. Any volunteer work they do is done with the knowlege that this will help them get into a good school -- there is a lack of a genuine, giving spirit. I have noticed, too, that their friends are very polished -- they have incredibly good manners in front of adults -- but they are different kids away from adults. Their parents, too, are involved in many activities outside the home.

My son thinks everyone in his school has gone to Disneyworld except him. Cracks me up. What he doesn't see is that some who have gone aren't able to meet their financial responsibilities. There is no way at 10 that he can understand the big picture, but we talk a lot about appearances and reality and wants and needs. He began to understand a little better when he saw that commercial on TV about the guy who has the big house, new car, belongs to the country club and then says, "Somebody help me, I'm up to my eyeballs in debt."

I feel so badly for the lady who introduced herself by saying she's building the biggest house in Atlanta . . . . She must have no self-esteem to have to use that as her opening statement!

I have to say that I also have friends who are the Jones who are wonderful, giving people who have WONDERFUL, balanced kids. I'm not one to judge people by their bank accounts, as I am glad that most people don't judge me by mine!

I have to say that it is interesting to hear about how some people live -- the elementary kids with a class trip to France? Wow! It's just so not my world!

Marlene

I experienced something like this at work one day a little while ago. A few women and I were on our lunch break. We all have daughters who are 3 and 4 years old. We were talking about activities and it was like it became a big competition of who's daughter was involved in more and how much it cost, etc. One woman's 3 year old was about to start COMPETETIVE CHEERLEADER. It was thousands a year.

I am sorry, that's a bit much.

Not really, but ds is only 5. He is a skinny one so I get his clothes wherever I can get a good fit, be it Wal-mart or Gymboree.

My friend though, her ds is the same age and wants "Sketchers" shoes ~ I am so not brand name label that I have no idea what they look like, but he wants them. When they went shopping and he found out the ones my friend was going to buy him weren't Sketchers, he didn't want them. I'm not sure if she ended up buying them or not, but I'd give my ds a stern lecture right then and there that we are not made of money and if he didn't want what we bought him that he could wear his shoes from last year.

He does go to an upper crust school, however, so I'm sure these issues are bound to come up. We are very up front with ds as far as material things go. It's not that we don't Have the $. We just choose to spend (or save) it otherwise. Eventually it will get to be that yeah, we're telling him he's not going abroad for Spring break (or maybe we will, since we might have saved up for it) but you know what? I have faith in ds that when he's older he'll see we didn't send him to the school he is going to because people with lots of money send their kids there. I have faith he'll realize that we sent him because it's an excellent school, and we're willing to sacrifice to send him there because it is a good school. He's only 5, but his personality already shows to me that I think he might just be this way.