Growing Up To Their Children

Everyone remembers the experience when they first learned the difference between being rich and poor, a gap that seems to be characterizing the American society nowadays. When Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (par 2) he probably did not think Americans would attempt to pursue happiness through material belongings. For some people, it seems to be more important to mist themselves with Chanel and accessorize with Louis Vuitton, than to have a nice meal on the table every night. The bigger problem is that new parents are subconsciously implementing these morals into their children, who will grow up to believe that people are defined by what they have, and that they can achieve …show more content…
The natural thing is for them to grow up to be parents themselves, and treat their own kids the same way their parents did, all because this is what they learned to be good parenting. Blue Ivy will probably grow up being a multi-millionaire and show business goddess just like her mother, because that what she is raised to be. When she has her own kids, they will have absolutely no limits for how much they are allowed to spend. The little girl from the second picture will probably end up with a closet big enough for a grown up human to live in, and then expand her designer collection to include shoes and accessories. This of course would happen under her parents’ supervision, until she eventually becomes a parent herself. When she does, she would believe that buying them designer clothes will being them happiness, just like it did for her when she was younger. The older girl in the last picture had already established her own definition of happiness and what products accomplish it. If it weren’t for this “truth” that became embedded in American families, how would gold infused face creams and quarter million dollars, diamond infused, nail polishes sell? Generation after generation, although it goes backwards in the pictures due to the parents’ financial abilities, Americans are becoming more obsessed with obtaining the more expensive version of everything thinking it is better. This results in what Juliet Schor discusses in her essay The Creation of Discontent when she describes how wealthier families are feeling poor due to the daily expenses of living, and what is expected for them as an upper class to obtain. She says: “[o]ne couple earning $115,000 tallied up their necessary expenses of 100,000 a year and complained that “something’s gone terribly wrong with being ‘rich’”” (Schor , 635). Regardless of whether they have