Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I am Scared

Tonight Rose #3 and I ran an errand to a retail store and it was DEAD.  Just DEAD.  This is a store that you would normally expect to have quite a few people in it on a weekday evening, and it was really, really quiet.

I am scared for the normal reasons - immediate fear about my job, H's job, the national economy, our infrastructure and way of life.  

But I am also scared for a new reason.  For a long, long time people have talked about how the American way of life has to change.  It is not sustainable, it is not gentle to our mother Earth, we overuse resources and we hog up everything without regard really to anyone or anything that gets in our way.  I have believed that and thought that change was inevitable and, in fact, needed. 

But when it comes right down to it, I don't know how to change.  I don't know how to envision a future for my girls that doesn't involve lots of THINGS.  I don't know how to lead them or raise them to be other than consumers.  Even though I try - I try to keep them away from the TV, at least mostly, I try to make them earn what they get and be grateful for what they have - I have no idea how to do it in a radically different way.

I guess we are queued up to learn this together.  I guess it depends on what actually happens with our economy, but I can't help feeling like a big change is about to happen.

No comments: