Ocotober
2002 Editorial
Instant
Gratification
I grew up with a fairly good idea of the value of money. It didn’t grow on trees—that much
I knew, or if it did, certainly not on my parents’ trees. I had an allowance for which I performed
many chores: cutting the lawn, watering the yard, cleaning my room, washing dishes, and sometimes
ironing my own shirts and pants. Working was not foreign to me. Having a paper route, doing other
peoples’ yards, and selling Christmas cards door-to-door earned me money to buy records, a bicycle,
a basketball, and a Heath Kit radio. For the most part, if I wanted it, I had to earn it. And earn
it I did.
The work ethic instilled in me by my parents helped to develop a healthy perspective of things financial,
things earned. I wasn’t the type to try to shake their tree, hoping that maybe a dollar or two
did linger in the branches. In the case of my basketball, I saw it in a catalog, ordered the
Christmas cards I would have to sell to earn it, waited for the cards to arrive, sold the cards door-to-door
in my neighborhood, sent the money back to the company, and awaited the arrival of my hard-earned
prize. That involved 100% my participation. An invaluable part of the process of earning anything
is the anticipation of attaining one’s goal. I didn’t think of the ball, snap my
fingers, and instantaneously have it in my hands. The anticipation in every step of the way, consciously
living each moment of purpose, made the basketball’s eventual arrival all the more meaningful.
The only time I can remember really complaining about not having something was in my junior
year of high school. I was carless, with no prospect in sight. The cost of such was beyond
my teenage capabilities, and I was inconsolable because most of my friends had cars. By then I had
a job working in a music store every day after school and on weekends, and had already saved for and
purchased a new set of drums, but in no way could I possibly earn enough for a car. Finally, after
hearing just so much of my moaning and complaining, my father showed me the title to a 1962 English
Ford Anglia. I remember being completely confused because our family used to own just such a vehicle
when I was younger. My father explained that what I held in my hand was the title to my first car.
He was the Head of the Albuquerque High School Vocational Department and had arranged for the auto
shop, as a class project, to rebuild an old car from the ground up, and when it was in running order
my folks were going to present it to me as a gift. I was floored, speechless. I didn’t know what
to say. My father had spilled the beans only to finally shut me up. It was perhaps one of the most
profound experiences of humility in my life. After all the crabbing I had done I felt about two feet
tall.
Years later I was at my friend Stan’s graphic design studio when a woman and her four-year-old
child came in with a job. While the woman was talking to Stan about the specifications of the project,
her son kept nagging her for a treat. She repeatedly told him that he would get one when they got
back to the car. He became more belligerent as time went on, to the point where he was jumping, trampoline-style,
on Stan’s black leather couch screaming at the top of his lungs, “I want a treat, I want
a treat!” His overtures were so deafening that work in the entire suite of offices came to a
standstill. The poor woman had to finally apologize and leave with her little tornado screaming all
the way to the car. Poorer still was Stan, who eventually emerged from his office ashen-faced, eyes
bulging, and catatonic. When he was finally able to speak he instructed his staff to lock the door
and turn off the lights if they ever saw her return.
The woman obviously had never taught her child the virtue of patience. The boy was a classic case
of one who expects and demands instant gratification. He was used to having his every wish immediately
granted. It was evident who wore the pants in that family. There could not possibly have been
any regard on the parents’ part for instilling in the child a very crucial building block of
character development, and unfortunately it remains absent in too much of today’s generation.
In raising my son, who is now in his twenties, I do not recall ever seeing an example of any of his
friends having had to work for something, much less develop a savings plan toward the purchase of
a desired item. The parents usually bought the child the toy, the video game, or the movie-on-tape.
In most cases it was purchased either the day of the request or the next. Those children were not
made to be financially responsible for any part of the purchase, and, as a result, the true value
of the item lost all significance. If something is so easily attained, then how can it be of any value?
Some kids of today want a free ride: they’re reluctant to apply for college student loans because
they don’t want to be saddled with debt upon graduation. (My generation did it, and we survived
somehow.) They expect their parents to foot the entire bill. How valuable will their education truly
be to them in the long run?
Some toy stores now issue scan guns to little shoppers who can walk through the aisles and “point
’n’ shoot” each item they wish to add to their birthday or Christmas list. Aunts, uncles,
and grandparents around the country can consult the “registry” and then buy something the
child wants without duplication. A mother who was interviewed about this new feature was thrilled
that finally her son would not be disappointed at Christmas either by getting something he
didn’t want or by not getting the toys he did want. Where has the element of surprise gone? When
our children know ahead of time what they will receive, why bother to wrap the gifts? And how dare
we risk disappointing them by not giving them everything they ask for!
We can’t really blame our kids entirely for this sad state of affairs. They are merely emulating
their elders with their “I want it now” attitude, possessing the same false sense of need.
Credit cards, mail-order catalogs, telemarketing, home shopping channels, and on-line services have
fueled the sense of immediacy by which it is possible to order something at five-o’clock in the
evening and have it on one’s doorstep by breakfast the next morning. I did just that in
the purchase of a new scanner. From the time I placed the order to my first full-color scan, the earth
had barely completed two-thirds of a turn. It seemed as close to immediate materialization as it could
be. I want it—POOF!—I have it. Because we can obtain something so quickly we feel that we
also need that something—whatever it is. Effort of any kind has been removed. We no longer
have to wrestle with our conscience whether or not we should purchase a product because the credit
card in our pocket—which only postpones the inevitable—and the overnight delivery services
make it too easy to justify our amassing material things, items that the process, by its very nature,
persuades us we need.
I heard of a father trying to convince his little son that he couldn’t afford a certain toy.
The boy asked to see his father’s wallet. Upon seeing no cash the boy suggested writing a check.
The father said that even though there was some money in the bank, there wasn’t enough for the
toy and the bills he had to pay. The boy then told him to use the ATM because he always saw
Mommy get all the cash she needed from that machine. Aside from the ridiculous situation of allowing
the little one to even question his father’s “No” and submit to an examination
of the wallet (another case of who’s really wearing the pants in the family), there had
been no education whatsoever in the basics of money. That father is forever doomed to financial servitude
to the son. I can just imagine Junior’s future lawyers demanding to see Senior’s tax forms
to determine ability to pay for whatever Junior wants. Similarly, in a letter to Ann Landers, a young
man complained that as he had reached the age of eighteen, his father’s child-support payments
had terminated, as per divorce decree. Financing his college education was very tough on his poor
mother, and he felt that Congress should pass a law dictating that fathers continue to pay until their
children graduate from college. Ann Landers asked if the boy had ever heard of getting a job.
In spite of their wonderful availability of instant cash, ATM’s are actually the devil in disguise.
They provide us with the means to satisfy our immediate cravings without stopping to consider the
ramifications of such an expenditure. No longer do we take pause to consider if we can really afford
to buy X, Y, and Z. We also no longer plan a purchase by putting aside fifty dollars per month
until next September, a buffer that could also allow us to change our minds over time and realize
that maybe X, Y, and Z were not that important after all. If we can’t control our own styles
of spending, we shouldn’t be surprised when our children think of ATM’s and credit cards
as the answer.
Gone are the days of earning the build-your-own Heath Kit radio. Not only will an aunt, uncle, or
grandparent buy the item for the child, it will already be assembled and painted. No muss, no fuss.
If it breaks, so what? There are always plenty more where it came from. And if not, one can always
jump up and down on someone’s black leather couch and scream, “I want it, I want it!”
©2002
Stuart Vail
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