Are your children stuck in a "materialistic trap"? Your thoughts on Unicef's report about British children and family time, please!

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We wanted to let you know (if you haven't seen it already) that Unicef have just published a report in which they said that British children are caught in a "materialistic trap".

British children, they say, aren't able to spend enough time with their families (because British parents work such long hours) and their parents, feeling the pressure, "buy them off with branded goods".

"Consumer culture in the UK contrasts starkly with Sweden and Spain," say Unicef in their report, "where family time is prioritised, children and families are under less pressure to own material goods and children have greater access to activities out of the home."

What's your reaction to this? Do you agree with Unicef - or not?

And, if you agree, what could we all do about it?

I also agree that the concept of shopping as a leisure activity does not exist here. Shops only open on Sundays in the runup to Christmas and one Sunday a month (Madrid) too so Sunday has remained quite a family oriented day.

And working does not equate wholesale with chasing a materialistic lifestyle!

DP and I both work in a relatively low paid sector - we both need to work to pay the bills. But the reason we both work in a low paid sector is because we love our work! We work in it because we love it - how lucky is that? And DS knows we love our work and do it form passion, and he benefts from that - he understands that we work because we believe in what we do, not because we want cash to buy gadgets or have a bigger more luxurious house. So he knows what we value over and above material goods.

Some parents woh f/t because they need to do that to take responsibility for housing and feeding their family, some do it because they love the work, some do it because they want stuff, or more stuff, or better stuff (I presume) and maybe love doing it too.

I wonder about men who stay all hours in the office, work at w/e, travel constantly, never at home etc in order to gain salaries and bonuses way beyond what anyone actually needs even in order to live a very comfortable lifestyle. Personally once the living costs are taken care of I'd rather have a partner at home, spending time with the DCs. You see it a lot on MN, a woman pretty much stranded, doing all the childcare, parenting and household stuff, unable to do her own thing but living in luxury. That, to my mind, really is a trap. Albeit a 6 bedroomed, Farrow and Ball decorated trap

I don't understand shopping as a leisure activity at all but I realise that many people do it. And malls want people to spend ages in them hence making sure you don't know what the weather is like outside / what time it is (like casinos)

I do think alot of kids have way too much stuff. I don't have much spare cash floating around after essentials, so my two don't have every latest gadget & gismo. They put in requests at birthdays & Christmas. However, I think they are in a minority, as most of their friends seem to have nintendos, xboxes, wees, iphones, ipods, laptops coming out of their ears - or maybe that is all just boasting.
I work full-time but I don't feel guilty about that either & certainly wouldn't consider buying the kids stuff to make up for the fact I work. I am proud that I work to support my family of which I am the sole parent. I expect the kids to be thankful that they have a healthy, working parent & a warm comfortable home to live in. I also think you can work full-time and be engaged with your children. When I get home we eat together, we do homework together & then we all go upstairs together while they bimble about getting ready for bed. That way I can catch up with them, without interrogating them.
If parents in the UK are rampant consumers that is there choice & suggests maybe they have a higher disposable income than parents in Sweden & Spain. As far as I am aware, no one is forcing any of us to buy stuff - if you buy it, that is a choice you've made.

Most children like spending a lot of time with their parents, not necessarily interacting intensively all the time, but just being there together. And most children like spending a lot of time with other children and other families, playing games and having fun. All that is very time-intensive. Many people these days have more disposable income than disposable time, hence children getting more toys to amuse them within the confines of their home than time with others.

I think it's true that a socio-cultural factor makes British families very short on time - the fact that British families think a long commute to work and/or school is quite practicable and often families are hugely scattered during the day - parents in two different locations far from home, children at school. There is no chance for families to meet during the day and travel times eat into family times (and budgets).

Not many other European nationalities think such long commutes are acceptable.

Agree and disagree. We don't work (not quite filthy rich but comfortable) and yet we still overbuy for the kids. I think kids today are more aware of stuff than perhaps previous generations and are more exposed to advertising than my generation (I'm not that old either).

I think another problem is lack of focused attention, we are all much busier because we feel the need to keep up with technology and do much more than previous generations, it's not considered acceptable for example to dump your kids in front of the TV so you can do the ironing, you still do it but feel you should 'educationalise' the experience by sticking on a blinking Dora the Explorer DVD and instead of ironing, you are checking Facebook, doing dinner, ironing AND ordering the shopping online. So there are more distractions and perhaps because we are not used to being still and loafing anymore we feel our kids need more distractions, perhaps that come from shiny things we buy?

i really don't think its a british culture to sit and eat with our children anymore.

i think is really sad

i think to concentrate on the goods perse - such as a gamesstation or mobile phone - is somewhat misleading.

everyone has a telly - how many are switched off in favour of conversation - JUST wilst you eat your tea?

im not suggesting dining roomt able even - lord knows when my kids weree babies i couldnt afford a dining table - or have the room for one.

the table, the toys - even the food - these aren't the issues

the issue is parenting, investment in parenting, changing the culture.

or nothing will change - telly will stay on and not a word will be exchanged

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let me tell you this. i have done lots of bad things as a parent, i have done some god awful things.

but we always sat down for tea - telly off, and we took it in turns to ask each other wheat we did today. the children learned it was polite to listen to me talk about work even if they thought it was boring. they learned to take turns in speaking and we have had some terrific debates and monumental fun.

when kids do activities after school - when you walk in the door at 6pm ready to ddrop - often the only time you can carve out together - is that time to eat

its positively sinful imo to have the telly on and not talk

That report looses all credibility when they say that Spain comes out so well because though the dads work long hours, the mums stay at home.

That makes me and I'm a SAHM.

A serious case of deciding the answer they want then coming up with some duff research to prove it.

I completely agree with the report.

I think it depends on the area I am in the South West and dont know many people doing more than 40 hours a week if a man and part time or not at all if a woman.

I hardly know any mums that do full time and I know a lot as I work in childcare. having worked in holiday clubs for 5 - 11 year olds and day care for under 5s hardly ever met any child that does full time hours.

Also where I am is not like a lot of the demographic on mumsnet I dont know anyone with an ipad or anything fancy like that. Children are out a lot here mostly on the beach, in the parks or on the green often for very long hours and alone. (can be a good thing but not always!)

I only know one young child with a ds and the people who have spoke to me about it where saying they had never heard anything as ridiculous as a DS for a 5 year old. It was quite the topic of conversation at the time so wouldnt say it was normal in my area. I would say its quite looked down upon tbh.

I think in areas where no one leaves their parents it is normal to having your gps, extended family round the corner

And no doubt Spain comes out on top because a parent is around a lot, not necessarily the mother. Unicef is not anti women or sexist.

'perhaps that come from shiny things we buy'. Yes. But trust me they buy even more shiny things in Spain, there are mobile phones, facebook etc there too.
What i find different is that there is more spontaneous fun and more flexibility re routines. So they might go for an ice cream or pizza as a family at 8pm or they might keep the kids up till 11pm because aunty and cousins have visited. I don't think that commercialism is any more of a problem in Britain than other countries but the strict routines and bedtimes might stand sometimes in the way of family fun.

And what Bonsoir said about long commutes.

Just a thought but I can't help wondering whether parents in this country have any other option but to work long hours. The cost of living seems very high here - particularly housing (obviously) - but also in other areas. I also can't help wondering whether our highly developed consumer culture where we are actively encouraged to spend more on 'quality' products is exacerbating the problem. I have a decent salary and my husband does too but I get through it all - sometimes I wonder how I do it.

Yes, you are right, Laquitar. In France (where generally parents are quite a lot stricter IMO than in the UK) it is quite normal to keep children up late at night for a family event. Family events are considered a lot more important to a child's development than rigid adherence to bed time!

I teach at a British School in Spain, 95% of the children are Spanish. I was very surpried to read Spanish children are less materialistic. It is true, the children in my class do many outdoor activities, but I would be surprised if it was anymore than children in the UK. Family time is important here, but many family groups seem to stay together in the same city, or even village.

Do you know how the sample was taken?

The report doesn't make any sense to those of us with experience of Spain, though, Posie. Spanish women mostly work at least part-time; they are not mostly SAHMs. Spanish school children have compulsory schooling from about 3yo, so it's not like there's much point in being a SAHM for long when you only have the one child (rarely more) and they have to go off to school so young (but it is part-days, complicated scheduling!) ... well, historically. For today's youth it's going to be sharply different. They can't get jobs or places to live on their own, much less afford to start a family. :(

The birth rate is so low in Spain that there are lots of adults around to give time to children, but not necessarily parents, more likely elderly/retired people in extended family, aunts, etc.

Don't Swedish women all famously work from baby=1yo and being a SAHM is almost unheard of? Not having the stress of fulltime motherhood yet also having good affordable childcare sounds like a recipe for domestic happiness too.

(saying that as a long-time SAHM, myself)

I seem to remember as a child that adults did what they were interested in and that children were expected to tag along/muck in, no matter how dull they found it. I think that whilst parents may not spend as much time with their children these days (partly because more women wohm and partly because men work longer hours) the time which they do spend is much much more focused on doing things which might benefit or interest the children.

There was always peer pressure to "have stuff" and then as now sensible parents resisted a lot of it

I think the main problem here is we don't have a concept of money, everything is bought with a card, kids generally don't get pocket money anymore, they get given money and stuff when ever they bitch for it.

it sets them up badly for the future, if you can't afford something you shouldn't have it, or save for it, they see parents not doing that, putting things on credit and the magic card used instead of cash, it's all so distant to them, it's a very different feeling when you have cash in hand and know you will not get anymore until an exact date, makes you think about things more and have an understanding of how much cash is really there.

As for the rest of it, well we work some the longest hours in europe, on top of that the average commute is a couple of hours a day, that leaves very little time to spend with kids, what to do when you have the time anyway?, everything is extremely expensive, the cinema where I live is £11 for an adult ticket, the parks are full of dog shit and adult males playing football, very little to do in inner cities and the chances are you will be too stressed out and knackered to do anything anyway because we work like dogs and thats really what it all comes down to, it's a catch 22, we work like dogs and then spend what small amount of disposible income the government and fat cats let us keep on our kids to say sorry for the fact we are caught in this god awful rat race because thats all we know to do, because thats how we have been trained by our aspiration ridden consumer society.

"The article covers most of it early on with the line;
'The answer, it seems, is that we put too little store on family time and too much on material goods.'
That, and GB is the only place I have been where average people actually dislike children."

This comment from the comments section under the bbcnews.com article on the report rings very true to me. When you are new to Britain it hits you right between the eyes and it's a feeling you can't shake off. (Thinking of the ridiculous British bedtime and many other examples of children being treated like nuisances).

One aspect of the report that was very striking was the fact that Birtish youth were so much more inclined than others to engage in risky behaviour, sex, smoking and drinking.

I think it's obvious to state that children are happier if they spend more time with people who love them.

I am Italian and I lived in the UK for quite a long time. I actually don't find that children are seen as a nuisance in the Uk. Quite the contrary, actually, to the point that Brits seem at times really precious with their little ones (for instance: I've never witnessed much childcare angst among my Milanese friends).

I do agree with Bonsoir re commuting and bedtimes. I'd say that here there is a more relaxed approach (though Italian children tend to go to bed too late, and it's imo a case of parental uselessness rather than family gatherings) to routines and much more importance is given to friendships, family ties and togetherness than in the UK.
And I believe that this disposition to share more time with "others" makes us more cheerful.

I am surprised that the report finds we don't spend time with our children - in other reports we apparently spend hours in the car on journeys with our children taking them from one place to another rather than letting them walk on their own like we used to in the rose tinted glasses days of the 70's.

Oh, the Great British Bedtime. So that the parents can watch the soaps in peace.

There is a lot of talk about material goods

but it seems only childrens material goods are being mentioned here, not the new kitchen or new cars of the parents for example. It may not be the children that are gaining material goods but the parents themselves through the two jobs.