Wants VS Needs

I always wanted a Big Wheel.  They were the coolest ride for kids my age back in the day.  I swore that everyone had one, except for me.  I had an Inchworm.  I think part of it was because my parents were just flat out smart that I had no business with any Mean Machine on the very steep street we lived on that dumped off into another well-traveled street.  I mean it was bad enough that I lost a roller skate wheel once going down that death trap of a hill.

When we moved out to the country, I was too old for one but I wanted a new bike.  I knew exactly what I wanted. BMX type bikes were all the rage post high handlebars and banana seats and I did not do very well with that last biking sensation.  You see I wanted to be like the guys who had the jumping BMX bikes so I tried to jump my non-BMX bike over the curb at my first elementary school parking lot.  Can you say "bottom teeth through top lip" and holy blood? So when I outgrew my deathtrap of a bike I wanted something older, grown up.  To me, still in elementary school, that was just a cooler bike with maybe three gears.  I got a ten speed. but Daddy assured me that this would be a bike that would last.  And it did.  I had it until I was in my late twenties.  I was, however, the only kid on my block with a ten speed and lord knows I had enough accidents on that thing to prove I had no business on it either. 

I wanted a dirt bike.  That was a hard no.  I had a ten speed that would take me wherever I needed to go. Plus it offered me exercise and was much safer they said. 

I wanted a boom box.  One like was in the movies but more streamlined- more expensive.  The fad was to move away from the giant ones but it still needed to look cool and mix like mad.  I got one from Sears that was not cool enough to bring out to the neighborhood, but it never got stolen. It did what I asked for one to be able to do.

I wanted a moped.  Another hard no.  I had a car and "had no business trying to drive a moped" around our college town.  I had wrecked ONCE on a three wheeler, but to be fair, I was just the passenger.  My roommate had a great idea and knew that anyone was capable of driving a silly moped.  She let me drive hers as she rode on the back.

She was wrong.  I missed the hand break and we crashed.  Nobody was hurt. I swear. But I was never permitted to drive her moped again and she would not lobby for me or help me locate one I could afford on my own.

Maybe my parents were on to something by not getting me that Big Wheel earlier in my life?  I may have died.

There were so many things that I wanted growing up.  I was the type of kid who circled just about everything in the Sears Christmas catalog. And I was SPOILED. I may not have gotten everything or the exact thing that I asked for, and circled in that Christmas Book, but as an only child, and for a long time an only grandchild on one side, I got tons and not just for Christmas.

So why was it that I was so critical of what I did not get?  Are all kids so selfish?  Probably, but I did not think I was selfish.  I mean, I always said thank you and wrote thank you cards.  I never ever said a bad thing about any gift I received.  I showed appreciation and there were hugs and smiles all around. Nothing was ever returned or exchanged unless it did not fit or was broken and I used the gifts I received.

Later, after my father grew ill, there was little materialistic giving to be had.  I think I was still a pretty spoiled child in some respects, like on Christmas.  But the 80's mentality of more more more for me me me was flipped on its head.

I had to work to earn what I wanted from the mall more often than not.  My money bought my first car and my prom dress and tickets to the events I wanted to go to. I had to rely on myself and not my ability to bat my eyelashes at Daddy to get Mommy to cave.

And as an adult I think back and say, I had to pay for those things and I am so thankful that I did.  I am also thankful for the years of getting so many of the things that were not the perfect match for my want. In both seasons of my childhood, I got what I needed.  There was food, shelter, and clothing. And there was lots more, materialistically and beyond.

At some point I must have been taught to appreciate what I had and received.  No spoiled child I have met since receives a gift they don't like without some negative comment to somebody.  Somehow, I knew that we should find value in the effort of the gift and appreciate the value that the gift could bring rather than the deficits.  Try it out before you decide so to speak.

By having to work for things that would have been simply given to me had our lives not taken a turn taught me to value more deeply (maybe not right away but eventually).  It taught me to better differentiate between want and need.  I wanted a top of the line boombox that could do amazing mixing and look cooler than anybody else's.  I needed one that I could use to record from the radio or another tape- that's how we got music for free- and play both radio and cassette.  I got what I needed and the cost savings afforded my parents to buy other things that I wanted or needed.

I wanted a dirt bike and a moped.  I needed a safe form of transportation to get me to school and work.  The cost savings afforded my parents to help with other bills when they could.

I think back to the bratty thoughts of a young child and have no idea why they were not verbalized.  I am sure there were hard lessons taught at a much younger age that lay the foundation, but those lessons are lost to me know.

I wonder if those lessons were lost to many parents of my age and later.  I wonder if giving kids what they want and not forcing them to work for the want, and even some of the need, has created a generation not able to see and appreciate the gifts that we do have- metaphorically and realistically.  

It has been said by some that "it all started when we began giving everyone trophies and nobody had to learn how to lose" but I wonder if it started before that.  Everybody wants to win.  Did a generation forget to teach those lessons of appreciating even that which might be hard to appreciate?  Did we forget to foster the innate ability for our children and their children to differentiate between want and need?

We can want things to be like X but do we need that to survive and thrive?  I wonder.

PS- When I met my seester we knew we were kindred spirits.  We both wanted a Big Wheel and got an Inchworm instead :)