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 agree partially - I think parents do need to spend more time with their children. However, it's not that simple.
I wish I could afford to cut my hours and spend more time with my son - unfortunately my salary only covers the basics. Any fewer hours, and I risk not being able to pay my mortgage or running out of food money at the end of the month. I imagine many parents are in a similar position.

Wordfactory and Blu I wholeheartedly agree about the 'outdoors' mentality
It breeds a contentment and a joy that is found in simple pleasures.
My younger three children are much better than my first at this - they play out all day doing almost naff all but they also have barely ever muttered the word 'bored' .I do think a lot is disposition as you say but they are so 'easily pleased' in the loveliest way....
My older children conformed much more to popular culture as youngsters and as such i would say were slightly more demanding for me as an adult but also at this age less content

I think it is already. I know I waste much less, am making do and mending and actually find it quite gratifying! I'd love a pot of Clarins face cream tho but!

all4u i am envious - it sounds idyllic!!

We moved somewhere where it's all a bit 1950s and Enid Blyton, with kids roaming around fields and building dens and being independent, but coming home for a big tea and lashings of ginger beer. I actually think my kids have a better childhood than I had. All the benefits of the modern age without such pushy parents and grumpy teachers LOL

I grew up in a place like that. It was so idyllic. Fresh air. Playing out. So as teens, there were loads of drugs everywhere and we shagged like rabbits. We were playing out and bored out of a skulls. I moved to a city and couldn't score drugs nearly as easily. It was most frustrating. I did far more drugs than most of my mates who grew up in cities.

Erm, have just started reading this thread and got a few posts in....

Can I make it clear that it is far more unusual to be a SAHM in Spain than it is here. That's why all those Spanish grandparents are up in arms: they are looking after los bebes!

last night eldest son and I went riding together after work and school on our ponies for a few hours chatting as we went. Tonight youngest and I mucked out stables and did fields together.. again chatting all the time.

My husband takes them sailing with him..

Yes ponies and sailing cost money, they are a passion .. we make sacrifices in other areas , but having a hobby in common is a wonderful way of spending time with them.

Plenty for teens to do in town a bike ride or short bus ride away, so best of both worlds. Drug situation not too grim around here, all things considered.

Keep telling yourself that, Senior .

Yes ponies and sailing cost money, they are a passion .. we make sacrifices 'in other areas , '

Plenty of people could sacrifice the milk in their tea, or some of the oxygen they breathe, and still not be able to do either one of those. Ever.

LOL @ this thread. It's gone all Boden and Country Living now. 'We traded our semi in London for the countryside of Devon, oh yahrs, it's grand now. Poor cogs in the machine in London, their children are destined to become modern-day zombies, glued to their mobiles.'

Have reliable inside info on the drug front

Have read loads of messages on here criticising UNICEF only talking to 250 families. But this is actually a lot for this kind of research. The beginning of the report says that it gives insights into the ways that families work, rather than broad trends. In this kind of research, you either do quantative research (which is questionnaires/online surveys) and you need at least 1000 people taking part, or you do qualitative research (which is in-depth interviews) and it's ok to do this with 45 people as it's so intensive. When you think about it, they spent 6 hours each with 250 families, and then took all their video/audio away, and spent a huge amount of time looking for trends/cross referencing/taking results to their adult and child committees and checking their findings. After that, they talked to 21 sets of friends in 3 countries, and repeated the process. This is a really significant piece of research.
Why Spain and Sweden? Because in the 2007 league table that saw the UK bottom for child well-being, Sweden was top, and Spain was 12th for material wealth and 2nd for happiness. The researchers wanted to see what gave rise to the bad results for the UK, and what we could learn from 2 other countries with different parenting styles. Interestingly, Swedish kids help out a lot more at home, and are more financially savvy. Spanish mothers talk about poverty=spending less time with your kids. Here, British parents talked about the pressure to buy stuff for their kids (eg, "if I don't buy a DS for my 6 year old, they might get bullied"). On the Continent, it's noticeable how few toy shops there are around, in comparison to here.
Having read the full report, I know I'm going to be thinking about my own shopping habits from now on. We definitely have too many toys! (stationary is my own particular weakness . . .)

My mum thought that, too, SW . We were such good children, as well. We rode our bikes everywhere.

Well, actually, my sister was the town bike for a while, but Mummy didn't know that.

@ Sansa.

Can someone explain to me how your children run in the fields after school when most of the year in uk it is dark (and freezing) by the time they arrive home .

mathanxiety Wed 14-Sep-11 23:44:10
"Any ideas wrt why the massive amount of risk taking on the part of British teens?"

At a guess I would say that it is partly because of poverty/lack of aspiration, partly because there are fewer approved ways of taking a few risks and gaining independence.

My Swedish friends would nod approvingly at the sight of a bunch of 13yos going off on their own to jump into the sea from the rocks or skate at the local lake (the assumption being that at this age they will have learnt to risk assess); in the UK similar behaviour would lead to irate articles in the local paper, the police being called and possibly a few ASBOs slapped on.

Of course it helps that virtually everybody has a lake or a beach within easy reach.

As for pregnancies etc, my feeling from speaking to Swedish teens is that they expect to have a good time over the next few years and they intend
to make sure they don't miss out; they think they can do something better than being tied up in a tiny flat with a howling baby. There are pockets of deprivation and/or social unrest in Sweden too, but it's on a much smaller scale: most teens grow up expecting a decent life, because that is what they see around them.So I wouldn't say it is because they are less spoilt or materialistic: perhaps they are more so. If you know you have something to lose, you're not going to risk losing it.

But Swedish mums do work- SAHMS are truly rare. My db tried being a SAHD but gave up because there was simply nobody for his sons to play with: all the other kids were at nursery.

Fresh air is the solution to all British societal ills, Laquitar. Did not you know? If we could all just ride ponies, keep chickens, grow our own veg (since everyone has a large garden or an allotment, no waiting lists or non-availability, or landshares), knit our own lentils and play out, none of this would be happening.

Again, you see plenty of children playing out in sink estates. How come so many become ASBO holders?

Is it because the parents both work and they have iPods?

Hmm, so ...fresh air and playing in the streets but not any fresh air (estates), yes?

well me and dh spend too bloody much time with our dc's we are all sick of the sight of each other

will unicef give us a straightjacket medal?

TBH I think they've probably missed the mark with the research. I think the problem is that we have confused what a child is with what an adult is. We have hypersexualisation of young children on the one hand, and kidults on the other, with roles very muddled. Parents try very hard to be their children's friends rather than authority figures in some cases. Children sometimes have an over-inflated view of their position in their 'pack' at home. Parents are criticised and teens are feared, and men who relate well to children other than their own are assumed to be kiddy fiddlers unless proven otherwise. This country really does not know what it's doing with children, and indeed what its children are 'for'. Unless we start examining ourselves in a more constructive and extensive way, I can't see an end to the problem.

ssd thanks for the laugh!

seniorwrangler I totally agree. The role of children within the family is so confused. Teenagers without any life skills, babied on the one hand and empowered to act as adults on the other.

Sings 'Kumbaya' to ssd. I think you all just need a little fresh air.

Here's a radical thought - I strongly believe that a bit of witheld gratification is actually very good for kids (even adults too). At school, the kids who did well and were content were those who didn't own or get given the latest big thing going, and as teens they only got new clothes (not counting school uniform) once a year. Shopping meant being dragged along by your parents to help carry the grocery bags, or to hold the queue at Ikea. We'd never heard of shopping trips with teenage friends to browse the latest dresses or for boys, to gawp (or shock horror, buy) the latest gizmo. at the reports about buying a DS for a child under 10!

I hadn't really thought about it before SeniorWrangler but I think that you are right.
Parents work long hours and when they do see their DCs they want to be liked so they are almost buying this friendship with 'things' and they don't want to say 'no'.
Many don't grow up around DCs and you get posts where they say things like 'help my 3 yr old has teenage 'attitude'' and I think -'no-they are being a 3 yr old-that is what 3 yr old do!'
Teens are feared-at some point the sweet abused DC becomes the horrible abuser. There is a thread at the moment where a woman feared the teen stage when her DC was a toddler-her answer is to home educate and keep her away from peer pressure!
Men are all under suspicion. Certainly my DH was very careful when out and about with our DSs not to offer sweets etc. I hate to think how my grandfather would have fared,he loved babies and small DCs and was always befriending them-these days the innocent pleasure of an 80+ yr old would have been curtailed. According to MN women take their DSs into the ladies toilet for as long as they can get away with it.

Maybe in Sweden, Spain etc you get more of the healthy attitude of 'it takes a village to raise a DC'. In the UK they are possessions it seems to me with huge emphasis on my as in my baby, my DC and the mistaken belief that it is 'my DC my rules'. They want to control the entire environment and strangers are supposed to look indulgently on (whatever the behaviour) but not engage with the DC in any way. The lonely old lady who touches a foot of the baby is 'a dirty stranger' (they are never clean strangers!!)
You are supposed to not mind if the toddler gets down and comes and stares at you in a cafe but there would be hell to pay if you picked them up and had a conversation!! Then they wonder why the UK are child haters and they have a better attitude in Spain! (they touch babies in Spain-they are part of the community)

Any badly behaved DC in school knows their 'rights' but they don't appear to know that you don't get rights without responsibilities. (in fact a MNetter once said she hated that phrase)

I think that:
Children sometimes have an over-inflated view of their position in their 'pack' at home
is spot on. (not that you want to go back to thedays of 'seen and not heard')