Help! My daughter thinks we're broke because I haven't bought a Wii
Last night, I overheard my six-year-old daughter make a comment to my wife, that got me thinking. Just what I can conclude from this, I'm still working out.My daughter, Isabelle, saw a reference in some ad to Wii, the popular Nintendo game (as if I need to tell anyone what Wii is). And she made an off-hand comment to my wife that we can't afford to buy Wii.
It sort of stung for a variety of reasons. One, I'd like to think that I could afford to buy my girls a round-trip ticket to the Moon, if that's what they wanted. Two, I know Isabelle would love a Wii console and all of the games that go with it. Three, what killed me is that it isn't that I can't afford to buy a Wii; I just haven't decided if buying one is worth it to our family.
I mean, we only have so many disposable dollars in our income. We could buy a Wii, but then maybe we wouldn't go on a vacation this summer, or we'd go on a smaller one. Or maybe we could have our Wii and our vacation, too, but we'd decide to cut back somewhere else, whether on the restaurants or movies that we go to, or the books that we buy. It's an inexact science, just what our disposable income is, but I know we'd take a hit somewhere, even if we didn't necessarily feel like we were cutting back.But the main reason we haven't bought a Wii is that my daughters, especially Isabelle, are addicted enough to the computer games on children web sites like Nick Jr. If we get the family a Wii, I may never see my daughters -- or my wife, for that matter -- again. (In breaking the stereotype, I'm the one who rarely plays computer games, where my wife loves them.)
And so this morning, I've been thinking about some of the other things I "can't afford to buy" my family.
- A trampoline. Those giant trampolines that you see in some backyards -- like one of my neighbor's, in clear view of the kids when we're in our yard -- look like so much fun. They have the wall netting that protects you from careening into the sky and crashing on the ground, and they're obviously great exercise. I would have bought one for my daughters -- and for me, too -- long ago, but when I took on some new home owner's insurance a few years ago, one of the few questions that I was asked was if I had a trampoline in the backyard.I didn't ask my insurer, but I knew immediately that trampolines must be a serious accident magnet. And I just looked up some statistics a few minutes ago to beef up my argument. There's been a 50% increase in trampoline-related accidents in England over the last five years. Sure, I live near Cincinnati, Ohio, but that's good enough for me. (Like I have all day to look up trampoline-related accident statistics?)
- One of those giant playground structures for the backyard. Again, yes, I could scrounge up the money to put one in our backyard, and I'm a little envious and completely supportive of the families that have made the leap. But I know how my mind works, and I know how my kids' operate. I take them to a lot of parks, almost every weekend, and so suddenly, I wouldn't want to take them to play at a playground at a park after spending the money to build one in our backyard. But I have a feeling my daughters would eventually get bored with their own playground equipment, after becoming extremely familiar with it. And so we'd be in a stalemate. I wouldn't want to leave the backyard; they wouldn't want to stay. Still, one of these days, I probably should get some swing set or something. I had one as a kid and loved it.
- One of those inflatable swimming pools with the giant slide, that look a little like a kid's castle. I've seen them at places like Target and Wal-Mart. They're about $300 or so, although some smaller ones are considerably less, and they look absolutely incredibly fun. My daughters drool when they see them, and so do I, frankly. I love the thought of the girls out there, splashing around all summer in this giant inflatable contraption while I lounge around in a chair sipping lemonade or what have you. It's not that I can't afford to buy one of these, I keep explaining to Isabelle and Lorelei. What I'm sure I can't afford is to buy one every weekend. We have two big dogs with teeth and claws, one of whom loves to chew apart every bouncy ball that we've ever bought and thrown around in the yard. I keep picturing our dogs tearing the inflatable swimming castle within the first 10 minutes of setting it up.
- An elephant. OK, I really can't afford to buy one of those.
Anyway, clearly, one of these days, I'm going to have to explain more thoroughly to my daughter that not wanting or feeling able to buy something is more complicated than not having enough money. It's often not that original purchase price that's so bad, after all. It's all of those costs that come afterwards.
Geoff Williams is a business journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-21-2008 @ 2:06PM
Jack (SFC: 4983 4617 3409) said...
The Nintendo Wii is a video game console not a "game". Thought you did correct yourself later in the article. Weird...
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5-21-2008 @ 2:07PM
Jack (SFC: 4983 4617 3409) said...
Leave it to guy with the Luigi avatar to get nitpicky, lol. Anyway, take her to your local ghetto and show her what poverty is.
5-21-2008 @ 3:26PM
pete said...
stop being so cheap the wii is the cheapest of all consoles right now, at least she doesnt want a ps3 at 399.99 or a 360 349.99. as far as play time your the parent so you decide not her how long she plays and the wii has great parental controls as far as the games she can play and how long she can play them among other features. cheap bastard
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5-21-2008 @ 3:39PM
Oscar Yeager said...
This is just a sign that the 6-year old girl is already a victim of this materialism and consumerism ideology promoted by the multinational corporations, along with the Jewish supremacist media masters, and their bought and paid for Shabbos goyim and corrupt politicians.
Probably the best thing to do is to hunt around at garage sales looking for one of the older gaming systems that the owner doesn't want anymore.
You will probably end up with the console and a box full of cartridges for half the cost of the Wii.
Besides, if you buy the Wii, it will be considered "outdated" anyway, by the time you build up a sizeable collection of games for it, she will want whatever the latest, most popular system is.
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5-21-2008 @ 5:32PM
da governator said...
Yeah, Shigeru Miyamoto (of Nintendo) and Ken Kutagari (of Sony) are the jewiest of the jew run liberal media, right Oscar?
5-21-2008 @ 7:14PM
Stardancer2008 said...
Just tell your daughter that a Wii is not in the budget and therefore is not needed. You would much rather eat than play video games, right?
Kids always want stuff. It's up the parents to say "No." and mean it.
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5-30-2008 @ 8:31AM
Helen said...
I just sold my brand new Wii :( Took me over a week to find it for my husband's birthday and he could not care less for it. We didn't even open the box, I didn't even get to touch it. It is true though that secretly I wanted it more for myself and our 6 year old son (he he), but I also hoped that if my husband liked it we'd spend more time together as a family, as a Wii ("we"). However, on the flip side of that, I completely agree with my husband when he says that instead of sitting in front of the TV pretending we're bowling or playng tennis, we should go out and actually do it! In the past few weekends we have done so many fun things outdoors that Wii almost doesn't seem to fit our life style at this point. We go out, we do things together, we have a blast as a family.
The ironic thing is that after all that I asked my hubby to get me one fo MY Birthday in October. Hurry October, hurry.
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