Terms like ‘slow life’, ‘detox’, and ‘mindfulness’
the demand for organic food and contact with nature
the rise of minimalism
All of these things have become dominant topics in our conversations.
And what they all seem to suggest is that there is a need to break with the vicious cycle of stress.
A stress which is full of people rushing around burying themselves deeper and deeper in an excess of technology and products.
But is it possible to live on the edge of this daily hurricane of stuff?
Is it possible to maintain a healthy relationship with our things,
and more importantly,
are we preparing our children
to be happy and free adults
as we immerse them in a society where image
is king and wild consumerism seems to control us?
We wanted to talk with some families
about how they approach raising their children on these issues.
[phone rings]
Hello
This is María del Rincón.
We would like to interview people from all around the world, with different backgrounds, with different situations.
We found out about 7 couples from 5 different countries
who were all attending a conference on family and parenting in London.
We agreed to meet there.
But before we met in person, we started our conversations with each family virtually
We asked the parents about how they had been raised. Specifically with regards to money or material possessions
We intuited that in this area of life as well as in many others,
we owe a lot to our parents and
at the same time, we project many of our own desires, insecurities and struggles
onto the upbringing that we give our children.
My dad would leave the house with a jacket and come back without it,
because he had given it to someone who needed it
We lived through some difficult years in Chile.
The biggest punishment I could receive was disappointing my parents.
Dad always says that we got richer with each kid who came along.
They always helped us develop a social conscience
In Mexico there was a serious crisis in 1984
and my father promised that the business would pay every cent they owed.
Material things were always a bit limited. Having everything… Well, you didn’t
I was rather aware that the school that I went to was quite a posh school.
My mum and my dad would always send money back to the Philippines.
My childhood was during war time, so we passed the day in a difficult time, but we had a very nice time.
When we moved to Santiago, just married, it was quite difficult for us.
You tell yourself: well, because I have 5 kids I can’t buy a fancy bike for myself, though I’d love it
Finally, we were on our way to London.
At last, we would be meeting the couples in person, although we had already spoken to them for hours.
They had told us about how their parents had raised them and how they were trying to approach their own relationships with their possessions.
And now we would tackle the exciting topic of raising children,
which is what we had wanted to talk about in the first place.
Some of these material things, and certainly I’ve certainly been guilty of this in the past,
is that it distracts you from the more important things.
Or it occupies your mind so much, that you can’t do other things well.
One thing I’ve been trying to work on since the kids have been born
born is talking less about things.
Because that gives it less importance for them. Talk about things that are important.
I guess yeah, if Daddy’s constantly talking about these things
they might think that is what’s important when it’s not.
To help our children have healthy relationship with material things
we try not to satisfy all their desires
or give them things before they desire them.
For example, now it’s trendy to go to Disneyland
well, we’re not going to bring them before they ask to go
and they don’t want to go because they don’t know it exists
There’s no reason to take them.
Rather, we can wait until they’re old enough to enjoy,
understand, ask to go, wait for it, long for it, and then achieve it
Speaking of trips, of Disneyland,
perhaps I’m the one who wants to see them having fun,
and I am the one who’s creating a need in them. I think it’s fair to say that.
Creo que me sirve que digas eso
Living in London you mix up with such an extraordinary degree of different types of situations.
Very very wealthy people who take helicopters and people who are very deprived.
Lots of poverty lots of homeless people in London
and you live you know shoulder-by-shoulder with everybody else around you.
And it isn’t easy actually to get a sense of where you fit into it all.
With material things,
sometimes the kids want to have everything or try everything it's a way to calm anxieties
you realize that they want everything technological right away
and sometimes, even though they can afford it with their own savings, which aren’t much,
you tell them: wait, you don’t need this
or going out with friends, does it have to happen three days in a row?
Keep calm
The other day one of our sons won a prize for academic excellence
and he asked, what are we going to buy?
Wait, because in three or four years
you could use this money to buy a laptop for university
linking usefulness and waiting
I guess essentially we want them to be able to have opportunities like we had.
But now I think mainly I was thinking about how can they be more resilient
or how can they be more loving, more generous.
That’s kind of the picture I have in our heads, in my head.
And we talk about, you know, how what we try to aim towards is those kind of virtues
and those kind of parts of their character we want to develop and that’s what we’re trying to get them towards.
I think the foundation stone can be to know how to love the others and to be loved by the others
And this is, I think it’s based on as I said virtues, confidence in themselves
And the value we received from our parents and even that they are receiving.
We’re transmitting it to our kids.
I think we’ve tried to connect it to having a good time,
enjoying life, because life is a gift
We laugh at ourselves a lot,
at nonsense, mistakes, funny memories,
simplicity.
Simplicity is really important. 0:07:31.878,0:07:37.671 When we go on vacation and suddenly
we stop by a supermarket, buy a loaf of bread and a banana, and that’s lunch.
I think simplicity,
not overdoing things,
that's what they remember most, the little things
I think something we know is that the more you give or give to other people, the happier you are
So bringing them up with that mentality which is very hard to do in this world, because it’s all about me me me
Like yesterday, we were listening to a talk on bringing up kind children.
And it got me thinking, are we doing that. That’s obviously something we would want to do.
for them to love each other, to love their parents when they grow up
I’d go jogging or biking all day
and I know I shouldn’t do it all day,
it has to be half the day,
and then I say: okay, what do you want to do?
Of course, we all want to rest at home
but if you don’t go out, you’re glued to a screen at home, or to your phone
so it’s the parents’ generosity,
to stop doing what I like, or what we like,
for the sake of the children
I think you have to be generous
and humble
to admit when you make a mistake
say sorry, ask forgiveness.
You have to go out on the streets
we do try, although it’s hard to do more frequently,
going to a home for the elderly
just to be there, to share,
it does us good, it does a lot of good as a family.
But yeah, I guess you know, I didn’t grow up with a lot of things and I felt like I don’t need those things
and I want the kids to have a very similar set of values
where they don’t necessarily need to have everything that they want right now.
We want them to be grateful for what they have, so they don’t feel like they have to have that.
Because sometimes they can be really really focused on missing out on that thing
I guess it was sort of freeing them from the need to have that thing.
Definitely they would like to have more but we don’t provide them more
Not because we don’t have the money or the means to get them
but this is a part of our education
to have the self-control to work on what they want
Not everything we want in life you can get it
So this is why we don’t give them everything
And we explain this and usually when we say “No” to get something
we explain to them, “You cannot get everything in life”
Or if you want to get something, you have to work hard to get it
If a kid of 10, 12, 15 years old has everything
when he is 20 or 25 after he graduates
what is he aiming for? What’s his perspective? What does he want?
If he has had everything before, what is the goal?
We’re trying to prepare them for real life.
and nowadays it’s difficult, because it general we don’t teach them these things
It’s like they grow up in bubble wrap, we say,
with everything given to them so they don’t suffer, so nothing bad happens to them,
and then they start real life and they’re defenseless
It’s not easy because we have to defy the child in us,
who hasn’t been strong, who’s given in,
taken the easy way out
Sometimes your children are in pain and they cry
and for you, Mum or Dad, it hurts. It’s painful to see your children cry
because they don’t understand what’s beneath the surface
So you want to teach your children
to be strong, but then you give in a bit,
make a bit of a mistake.
Sometimes you have to give in so you don’t become a dictator,
you have to choose your battles, where you give in and where you don’t,
explaining to the children that sometimes in life
in which you make a mistake
and the fall hurts a lot
and in others, not so much,
so you choose. You can decide,
we're not going to give in this
ecause it’s good for you.
You know, for the good of the children sometimes we have to say no
And they will to suffer in life and we can’t control it
It’s good for them and they will grow from it
and we can help guide them through it
It’s difficult this world and they have to be strong. They have to be very strong
So, I’m sort of a little bit hard to them sometimes
For me it’s always a struggle because you don’t want to say “no”
because it’s boring and you want to have a good time with your kids
Sometimes the kids want us to open a lid for them,
and sometimes lids can be really really hard and I don’t want to be able to do everything for them
so I just undo it a tiny bit, but still make it a little bit hard
and say, “Guys okay, you do it.”
Not being able to give them everything, to stop them from suffering, to take away their pain
It breaks my heart to see my daughter suffer 0:12:43.588,0:12:47.379 my first reaction is to try to help
if I give her this, if I buy her that,
then I stop and think: no, wait a moment
maybe my first reaction isn’t the best for my daughter
But I suffer over it, it’s difficult for me
and I have to remember how my parents treated me and how they helped me
I think it’s so natural that you take on what you’ve been brought up with
And then, obviously we’ve had many discussions
about the way my parents have raised me as opposed to how his parents raised him
We recognise a lot of our parents’ values and this is reflected in the way we are living
the way we are behaving together, or even raising our children
I know in my early 20s before I met Tamara, I had a very warped, not a very warped view,
but a slightly warped view of…
An unhealthy relationship with things
and thinking that’s what was important, or that’s what was going to bring me happiness
It didn’t make me happy
Tamara and these kids make me happy