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Has the world gone mad?

Bismillahi ir-rahman ir-rahim – In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful

When I was a little girl I had a Barbie doll.  I think she was the only genuine Barbie I ever had and oh how I loved her!  I had to beg and beg my parents to make the purchase.  I still remember the day they finally caved in, I must have been the happiest girl in the world. I spent countless hours with my new prized possession, trying her out in her various pink outfits, her high heels, and her diamond earrings.  I longed for her beautiful blue eyes and long blonde hair, but that is not all I longed for.

Barbie had become everything I wanted to be.  She was a role model that instilled in me a desire to possess nothing more than empty beauty.  No dreams, no aspirations, no goals – all I wanted to achieve was to be beautiful like Barbie.  It mattered little to me whether she was good or bad.  Inside beauty meant nothing – outside beauty was everything.  And of course I could never live up to that goal, after all I did not have the blonde hair and blue eyes that not only my Barbie possessed, but that almost every doll in my possession had. It is not something that I thought day and night about at a conscious level, but I do remember feeling sadness as a little girl with the knowledge that I could never be what I aspired to be.

I now have two little girls of my own, the older one is almost 4, and our baby is one.  They are blessed with everything that little girl wanted to be – they are blonde haired, blue eyed, and beautiful.  It has been many years since that little girl grew up, and I have since developed many different goals, but I am sadly conscious of a small part of me that is happy for them that they are naturally what I so desired to be.

As a result of the effect that dolls had on me as a child, I have become weary of the role and influence dolls have on little girls.  I am very careful with the dolls I purchase for them.  I do not want them growing up thinking that this is the only form of beauty there is.  Not only are other different shapes and colours equally (and sometimes even more) beautiful, but I also want my girls knowing that superficial beauty means little, and that what is important is that they are beautiful on the inside.

So I’m sure you can imagine how I feel about Bratz dolls.  I don’t think hate is a strong enough word to describe how I feel about them, I totally loathe them!!  Perhaps I am reading a little too much into this, perhaps their promiscuous clothing are not as obvious to little girls.  But then I remember when I was a little girl, how people underestimated me, how people dismissed me, how they didn’t realise I understood what they were saying, and how I sensed things beyond my comprehension despite not really understanding them fully.  Children are very smart, much smarter than most give them credit for.  They are like little sponges, absorbing everything around them.  Although they will not immediately look at a Bratz doll and interpret it like an adult, they may think that dressing like that is more fun, they may even notice that those who dress like that will attract more attention, and most likely they will want to dress like them…they will want to be like them in every way, just like I wanted to be everything that Barbie was.

Sadly, however, it doesn’t end there.  There is now a Bratz doll with the word “enter” on her belt.  Apparently a representative explained it as being like a seat belt, an explanation you might swallow if you were dealing in a cute innocent doll with pink frills.  A picture of the doll (as well as the story) can be viewed here, and I think most would agree that you would have to be a little more than naive to buy that explanation.

So where will this end?  Perhaps in the future we will have little girls playing with dolls dressed in lingerie ?  Where do we draw the line? And when will doll manufacturers take responsibility for something beyond the number of dolls they selll??  Little girls need to play innocently with dolls without the pressure to be something they are not, and certainly without sexually suggestive messages.  Childhood should be a time of innocence, let them play innocently without these adult concepts that will change their worlds forever.  It seems that with each passing day its getting more and more difficult for children to retain this innocence, but I for one will be doing everything in my power to let my children just enjoy being children for as long as I possibly can.

Consumerism at its best

Bismillahi ir-rahman ir-rahim – In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful

I have recently noticed something.  Something I am somewhat ashamed to admit, but something I need to be honest about.  I love spending money.  I don’t know why I love spending money, but there’s something about it…the excitement of a bargain, the smell of new things, the ability to go into a shop and take away whatever goodies I desire…I really can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, there’s just something about it that I find quite exciting.  I never really noticed this before.  I always knew I enjoyed shopping, but it took a shopping drought for me to notice exactly how much.  I didn’t buy anything other than groceries for about a month, and then visited a local shopping center, and I’m embarrassed to admit I found it somewhat exhilarating.

I should probably point out here that I’m not a huge spender or anything.  I can imagine you’re probably all thinking I just go throwing wads of money away on nothing, on the contrary I am quite careful with my money, and even my husband says I’m “pretty good” with money.  I look for bargains, rarely buy myself clothes, buy the kids discounted clothes at the end of the season for next year, and talk myself out of numerous purchases that we don’t really need.  I do, however, sometimes indulge a little more than I should, and I know I can do better.  So its not that I find my love of shopping troublesome in any way, its just that on a personal and spiritual level I find it quite disturbing.

What I find equally, or perhaps even more disturbing is another discovery I made about myself, today actually.  I love throwing things out!!  There’s something empowering about getting rid of objects, objects that you no longer need, and more often than not, you never did.  Objects that just sit around taking up precious space, making it harder for you to clean and tidy based on the overwhelming amount of things that you have.  Knowing that with each thing you get rid of you have created more space for yourself and made your life that little bit more easy. Today alone I got rid of approximately 3 garbage bags full just from the linen closet, and I still haven’t touched 2 shelves!  All that stuff has been with me for years, it has move with us 2-3 times, most of it I have never used.  Some will go to my parents, other stuff isn’t even worth passing on, but all of it will be gone from my possession, I just don’t need it cluttering up my house anymore.  And I have to say the more I get rid of, the better it feels!  As I declutter more and get rid of more things I can feel a weight lift from my shoulders.

Upon reflection I realised that this is part of what we have become today – the consumer.  We love to buy and obtain more and more material possessions.  The next bargain, the next breakthrough in technology, the next fashion item, and the latest gadget to teach our children.  Then, over the years, we realise we have accumulated so much that it becomes suffocating.  Subsequently,  we go through the cleansing process of eliminating that which we do not need.  We throw out what is not worthy of keeping, ‘blessing’ others with what is no longer of any value to ourselves and that others may find useful.  Of course this then makes room for more possessions and the cycle begins all over again.

How do you break free of the cycle?  I am not entirely sure.  However, I do have some ideas which I hope helps to partially remove me from the cycle, or at least weaken its effect.  The first step is being aware of this phenomena and writing this piece is a part of that process.  I know its become a cliche, but I really do believe that “the first step to a solution is acknowledging the problem”.   Before making any purchases I will ask myself “do I REALLY need this or will it just end up in a garbage bag, as so many things have before?”  “Is purchasing this akin to throwing money down the drain?”.  Insha’allah (God willing) this will help me to avoid useless purchases and keep me on track.

The second thing I plan to implement is to focus on quality instead of quantity or price.  I remember when I first got married I needed so many things so I just tried to get them as cheaply as I could.  Not having experience with buying many of these things, I couldn’t tell the difference between a cheap item and something that appeared to be the same, served the same function, but which had a price tag which was a few times higher than the cheaper item.  So naturally I would purchase the cheaper item.  It didn’t take me too long to discover that those cheaper sheets were cheaper for a reason!  They would pill and were horribly uncomfortable to sleep on.  I have learnt my lesson and now I try to only purchase good quality things.  They cost more in the short term, but you save in the long run.  You save money when you don’t need to constantly replace things, you save the clutter of having extra things laying around that you no longer use, you save the time and energy you spend having to go back and look for things to purchase all over again, and you save on the resources you have depleted by using twice as much of the same thing.  Now I don’t mind paying the extra money for something I know will be good quality and will last.  It makes it so much easier in the long run, and limits my role in this vicious cycle.

I doubt the results will be instant, but I do hope that within a year or two I notice a difference. Hopefully I will be purchasing less and throwing out less.  I don’t expect that I will ever cease to be a consumer, but I do hope that my role as one will become increasingly limited and that I can learn to live more simply.