Thanksgivukkah Parenting All Year Long

              A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of participating in Shabbat Yavneh as I delivered a shiur/parenting talk on “Chanukah Parenting” all year long.  As I shared, our children might hope that Chanukah parenting means giving gifts all year every day. No.  Through the presentation,  I pinpointed some messages that the holiday of Chanukah highlight and how we can apply them to parenting throughout the year.

In thinking about the teenage years, one aspect that serves as a challenge is the teen's materialism.  The Holiday of Chanukah may accentuate this materialism since as the chag approaches each child creates a “list” of what gifts he or she wants.  This season in America is generally so commercialized and taunts the teen. Teens have a hard time distinguishing between needs and wants. They need to have a certain piece of clothing or technology to be like their friends.  Certain brands are a must.

There have been numerous studies on the topic.  Since the 1980's, when research in this area began, there has been a significant increase in marketing geared to teens.  Billions of dollars a year are spent at marketing towards teens.

As a result, “teens are inundated with so much marketing about the importance of brands to identity and image, it has changed the way they socialize with each other, interact with adults and view themselves and the world, says child psychologist Allen Kanner, PhD, author of the book Psychology and Consumer Culture: The Struggle for a Good Life in a Material-istic World.” 

Children in today’s world are being raised with the message that by purchasing the desired item one can solve all of life’s problems. Adolescents are the most susceptible as they are by nature insecure have low self-esteem, and are searching for personal identity.  Peer pressure and fitting in are primary. They are learning that if they have the right material possessions they will be “in.”

“’The problem,’ says Kanner, ‘is that marketers manipulate that attraction, encouraging teens to use materialistic values to define who they are and aren't. In doing that, marketers distort the organic process of developing an identity by hooking self-value to brands,’ he adds. ‘More naturally, you might develop your identity around, for example, doing good in the world or building a career out of an interest,’ he explains.” How sad.  Do we want our children developing their identities around the products they own?  Kanner continues to state that marketing also discourages being different or being an individual.  Marketing also encourages teens to reject the “older generation.”  These are all values antithetical to Judaism.

In addition, there is tremendous pressure on both boys and girls on how they plan to fulfill their gender roles. Much research has been done with girls particularly.  Advertising promises them beauty, popularity, happiness, relationships etc. if they simply buy a specific product, robbing them of “self-awareness and self-esteem and encouraging them to look outside themselves for comfort, values and direction.”

The majority of 9-14 year olds agree, "When you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are,”  and  "The only kind of job I want when I grow up is one that gets me a lot of money."A 2007 research study indicated that parents' are fearful that children  are become increasingly materialistic and less generous as they hit teenage years .  Research demonstrates this to be true, as it indicates that as children grow older they score higher on ratings of materialism and lower on generosity scales.  Something is going wrong.  American teens are truly convinced that the more material items they have they happier they will be.

Chanukah deals with the same battle against materialism. The Greek culture was known for its    materialism.  Greek culture worshipped physical perfection.  Judaism teaches that the potential for human greatness results from the ability to subjugate the physical to the spiritual. This is symbolized by the number eight- eight nights of Chanukah. The symbol for the natural, physical world is the number seven.  The number eight symbolizes spiritual transcendence, representing that which breaks through the bounds of physical limitation (symbolized by seven) and aspires for a higher reality, one that lies beyond materialism, beyond superficiality, Marisa N. Picker points out.  

At the Shabbat Yavneh shiur we spoke about some strategies to combat this materialism. One of them fits in perfectly with the Thanksgivukkah- or the combination of Thanksgiving and Chanukah we celebrate this week.  We can weed out the materialistic messages in a number of ways, but one way to combat them is by cultivating a sense of thankfulness and gratitude in our children. All the research indicates that raising grateful children can fight the materialism that surrounds us.

            Sorah Yocheved Rigler, in her article “Beyond Just Desserts- A Recipe for Thanksgiving” writes the four steps of gratitude: 1. Recognizing the good that you possess 2. Acknowledge that it is a gift and not something that you are entitled to 3. Identify the source of that gift- either G-d or a human being 4. Express your thanks. 

In Hebrew, the term for gratitude is הכרת הטוב-   Recognizing the good.  It is not easy to be grateful. One must stop and recognize how lucky one is. We can help our children stop and recognize the good they have already by training them to do so.

            One small way- insist on thank you notes, or thank you calls, or even an e-mail. It is important that from a young age children learn that not everything is “coming to them.”  When opening presents, focus on the giver, “Wow. Cheryl knew you loved purple and went out of her way to buy you everything in purple.”  Involve your children in chesed activities. They appreciate what they have more when they realize how much less others have.  Most importantly, as they grow older we need to remember to point out that the people we admire are not just the people who have the right “stuff” – materials, but rather our role models are the people who have the right “stuff” inside- midot and character traits.