Materialism in our Kids Generation

A recent article ran in the Chicago Tribune entitled “Material Kids: Wealth is a Top Priority for Today’s Youth“. How do we counteract this trend in the church?

The key statistics in the article were:

UCLA’s annual survey of college freshman, released in January 2007, found that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed in 2006 thought it was essential or very important to be “very well-off financially.” That compares with 62.5 percent who said the same in 1980 and 42 percent in 1966, the first year the survey was done.

Another recent poll from the Pew Research Center found that about 80 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds in this country see getting rich as a top life goal for their generation.

Key Takeaways:

“Our kids have absorbed the cultural values of more, easy, fast and fun,” says David Walsh, a psychologist who heads the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis. He’s also author of the new book, “NO: Why Kids — of All Ages — Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It.” As his book’s title suggests, he believes parents have played an integral role in encouraging their children’s materialism. His research found that, when adjusted for inflation, parents are spending 500 percent more money on kids today than just one generation earlier.

Ann Fishman, a generational marketing consultant in New Orleans, also has found that baby boomer and Gen X parents are much more likely to spend money on their children than parents who lived through the Great Depression and World War II.

Even Oprah has felt frustrated at the materialism of the kid generation:”If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers,” Winfrey told Newsweek, referring to visits with students in inner-city school. “In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.”

But does materialism get people satisfaction or satiation?

Tim Barello, a 24-year-old New Yorker, agrees that his generation has gotten caught up in wanting “more and more and more.”Having grown up on Long Island’s wealthy North Shore, he thought he’d arrived when he got a job as a publicist and was able to rent an apartment in an exclusive apartment building in Manhattan. “To be completely honest,” he says, “I don’t even appreciate everything I have sometimes. Yes, I have a nice apartment, a great job, a great degree, great clothing. But I feel empty inside rather often.”