Musings on a Moving Target

As these things happen sometimes, I found myself in the middle of a suburban Target, looking for plastic storage bins.  Since this Target has three different house stuff sections around the store, this wasn't the easiest thing.  But I found my bin and decided to meander through the sparkly stuff for fun.  And then I saw the sign:  Calypso St. Barth's for Target.  And my heart went pitter-patter.

I have to confess, I'm a fashion junkie.  I dress people.  I have fashion magazines all over my house.  My closet is filed by the Dewey Decimal System (okay, that one's not true.  But the rest are).  I love Target's capsule collections.  It's a way for many of us to reach for a little piece of glamour, for a glimpse of the extravagant lifestyles that celebrities flaunt for tabloids.  And just as the BS bandwagon was really getting revved up, reality intruded on my musing.  Reality in the form of a screaming, wailing child.

There must've been some kind of temper tantrum memo I missed, because as soon as the one went, they all went.  One father tried to leave his kid in the Home Improvement department (oh, the irony).  One mom trailed a kid with a startlingly leaky nose through Jewelry and Accessories like a guilty conscience. And many other children were just ignored in the name of Shopping, High Lord of Retail Therapy.  Just when I was seriously considering making my way over to Electronics for some earplugs, a tiny little lightbulb went off over my head.  So tiny, it could've been a dollhouse lamp.  But once it lit, a whole other strand of mini-lightbulbs followed, until my brain was lit up like a cynical Christmas tree (what color scheme would that be?).

See, there are certain things we're "supposed" to have in life.  Nice cars and nice houses being high on the list.  With kids, these things are nigh impossible.  So how does one mesh the dual must-haves of our society:  nice house/car with kids?  Easy:  Target!  No one will cast snide glances at your minivan because everyone has one!  Don't worry about driving to a large city for a design store, we'll do home design capsule collections right in your suburban store!  Don't worry about spending a bundle, we'll make it priced so right you won't care if the kids dump grape juice on it daily!  As for the car thing, well, I don't know what to do there either.

Anyway, my point is simply that most of us are prey to some vicious societal pressures, and parents are no worse off than we childfree folks.  The main difference is that we often have to prove we're not the selfish, hedonistic child-haters they say we are (and what's wrong with hedonism, may I ask?), but they have to live up to some Martha-Stewart-Tim-Burton-American-Beauty suburban nightmare of family perfection, and they have to do it around short people who are more destructive than a fully clawed cat on speed.  Not only do they have to have the big, beautiful house with the big, perfectly manicured lawn, but the inside has to look like something out of a lifestyle publication.  In this way, I really do feel sorry for those who try to keep up the "nice house" thing, because it has to get stressful and expensive.

Going back to Target for a moment, this is really is their perfect niche:  putting that unattainable dream not only within reach of hopeless fashion lovers, but aspiring suburbanites as well.  They have made the aspiration towards a glamourous life (if not the achievement of it) an egalitarian pastime, fully accessible to anyone within driving distance of that red-striped box.

I guess the whole point of this is just to say that while many of us feel the societal pressures for Stuff, parents have it just that little bit worse (and that's not even counting Stuff they buy their kids, check back around Christmas for some holiday cynicism).  We CF folks can pick and choose our pressures as money permits, whether it's saving for a new car, a nicer living space, or a fabled status bag.  Just one more reason why "childfreely" is the best way to live.