Nurturing Creators

Nurturing Creators, Not Collectors

By Lisa Bennett
Web Exclusive, October 23, 2006

While driving my seven-year-old son and two friends home, a conversation breaks out in the back seat and I listen intently, as I always do, to what children say to each other when they forget a grown-up is listening.

"I have ten sets of Pokemon cards," says the first boy.

"I have six," says the second.

"I have six, too," adds my son.

"You have six sets?" friend number one repeats incredulously.

I don't know whether my son has six sets or six cards, and I'm not sure he knows, either. He has never cared enough about Pokemon to figure out how to play. All I know is that for the next ten minutes the backseat conversation has one refrain: "I have..." I have..." I have..."

My son silently stares out the window as the other boys compare notes on who has more and better cards, and I think—with relief—that Aidan is not a collector, like so many of the kids he knows. This comes as a welcome recognition because we, unlike almost all of his friends' parents, are not wealthy. When we moved to San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America, we made a decision to devote the money we do have to a private school education for our two sons instead of trying to buy a house. I still feel good about this decision, although it has provided for some awkward moments, such as one time I was driving another one of Aidan's friends (who is the child of a good friend of mine) and they started comparing notes on houses.

"What is your house like?" asked my son's friend.

"We have one floor," Aidan answers, "I wish we had two. And we don't own it because my parents think houses here are too expensive."

"We have five floors," his friend said, "and we own it all. It's big, big, big!" Indeed, it is. I've seen it and never invited my friend, his mother, to our house because I'm still self-conscious about our economic differences.

I sometimes worry about what impact living in a community of people who can afford so much more than we will have on Aidan. But as I look in the car mirror and see him looking peacefully out the window, I think he seems to be doing just fine. After all, his bent is more as a creator than a collector: He can make up characters, stories and games all day long for days on end.

Then he spoke up—addressing me, though I suspect with another audience in mind. "Mama, when can I get more Pokemon cards?"

Surprised, I answered that he hadn't seemed interested in the game in a long time. "That's because I want more cards," he said.

Did he? Or was he just trying to get back in with his friends? And if so, what did that mean for the long haul as our children are so effectively indoctrinated into wanting more, more, more through advertising on television, online and on their clothing, and even, in some communities, on school buses—as public schools are forced to do anything they can to raise money. At 10, 13, 18 years old, will Aidan still be the same boy, driven by his own inner interests, or will he be in the backseat comparing notes, like his friends, about who has the latest, best possessions of the moment?