My mother came over the other day. I’d asked her to come by and help us sort through Rio’s wardrobe, get her room set up for kindergarten and make a list with us of morning and evening routines to support school success. When she arrived, Rio asked her to take us to Target and buy her a Hello Kitty backpack and matching lunchbox.
Guess which one we did?
I’d love for this to be a post about how consumerism is bad, but it’s not. It’s a post about how it was kind of a genuinely magical moment with my mom and my daughter when we rounded the corner of the school supply aisle, having run the gauntlet of the shoe section and the toys, and saw hanging on the wall The Hello Kitty Backpack. A bit like Christmas morning, without the wrapping paper.
A little more exploration turned up the matching lunchbox and thermos. As we wended our way back out of the store we wandered almost by accident into the girls’ clothing section. It is a sign of how little shopping I do that the kids did not even ask me to stop and look at clothes.
My mom is not bound by any buy-nothing-new Compact, though. She grabbed a t-shirt and said, ‘Rio, do you like this?’ Rio liked it, and the next thing I knew all four of us were pillaging the back-to-school sale racks like pirates. That child walked away with a lot of bounty: half a dozen brightly colored outfits.
We got her loot home and Mom declared it was time for a “fashion show”. I remember this ritual from my own childhood. I could practically taste our old living room, and hear the 80s pop music from our tinny stereo while my little sister and I pranced in front of the couch in our new school duds and my mom oohed and aaahed appreciatively.
I also remember that we didn’t always do this, when I was a kid. There were the lean years in the middle, when we had no money for new clothes. We lived with my grandparents, and got by on hand-me-downs.
That was a long time ago. My mom has spent the past two decades working hard by day and expanding her education at night. Today she makes a good salary doing work she believes in. She can take her granddaughter shopping for kindergarten clothes if she wants to.
It’s easy for me to be cynical about “mainstream America”, especially the aspects that are about shopping. But this trip reminded how powerful and valuable family traditions are. I’m immensely grateful for my mom, for all the hard work she did raising me and my sister, and for her bravery in taking two little girls to Target for a back-to-school shopping run.
Thanks, Mom. I know I don’t always show it these days, but I still kind of want to be you when I grow up.
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