Regional
(2009-03-16)
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FT. COLLINS, CO
(KUNC) -
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The economic stimulus bill is just over four weeks old and everyone's still waiting to see if it's really going to work. In the meantime - KUNC commentator Laura Bridgwater has an idea on how to help her children understand the financial turmoil.
I was driving in my suburban neighborhood recently when I noticed some red American Girl Doll boxes in a few curbside recycling bins. Apparently these wildly popular 18" inch dolls are continuing to sell in this economy even with their $100 price tags.
At our house, my two daughters play with these dolls and read their historically-accurate books. My seven-year-old favors Kit Kittredge, the plucky girl who hails from the 1930s. When the girls play with Kit, they play a game they made up called Let's Pretend It's the Great Depression.
It goes like this. I get to be Kit's mother, Mrs. Kittredge. In imitating Mrs. K.'s Depression-era survival tactics, I'm charged with cutting each slice of toast into four triangles. This makes the bread look more bountiful on the plate. I haven't, however, figured out how to sew dresses out of chicken feed bags.
In another scenario, when the Kittredge family takes in boarders to make ends meet, Kit gives up her bedroom and moves into the attic. Her new hang out has dormer windows and space for her twin bed, a desk, and her trusty typewriter.
Our attic is not like Kit's walk-in suite. It's a crawl space filled with insulation. We enter it through the ceiling in one of the bedroom closets. This stumps my seven-year-old. Every so often she asks, "If we have to take in boarders, will I have to move there?"
I assure her that she'd bunk with her sister or sleep in the basement before she would relocate under the eaves.
But I've been thinking about her question these days with the state of the economy. What can we do to modernize this game of pretending it's the Great Depression in the event that one day it's no longer a game?
Now that the Fort Collins City Council approved a zoning amendment that allows urban homeowners to keep up to six chickens in their backyard, we could sell eggs like Kit. Instead of building our nest egg with a 401(k), we could actually build a nest for our eggs.
Or we could plant a garden like Kit's mother, but I gave up gardening a few summers back at the peak of the West Nile virus. I'm now only a fair-weather farmer.
Hoarding was popular during the last Depression, but I can't remember what people squirreled away. Was it sugar and coffee? Milk and money? Lipstick and pantyhose? Then again, we live in beautiful but unglamorous Colorado. Does that mean that the new hoardables will be T-bills and microbrews? Or chapstick and wool socks?
But that's all I can come up with. Besides living vicariously through Kit and recalling a story about my grandmother buying eggs one at a time, I don't have a framework of experience to base the current state of affairs on. And if I don't have a reference point, our children certainly don't, which is why this generation of girls needs a financially savvy role model. As Kit is reminding us, history repeats itself.
So I have a request for Mattel, the company that makes American Girl dolls and releases a new one each year. I would like the 2010 doll to come with a budget, a savings account, and an economic stimulus in the form of a $50 coupon good towards your next purchase. She could be named Penny Pincher or Polly Profit and she could take a stand on universal health care and No Child Left Behind in the Attic.
I'm sure my kids will agree that it is our patriotic duty to spend money on a new toy even though I don't understand how more spending is going to get us out of this mess. Maybe Penny or Polly will be able to explain it.
After our new purchase arrives, we'll be sure to recycle the red box because as long as the recycling bin is full, the economy can't be that bad, right? It's when the bins are empty that we'll know we need to build a chicken run.
In the meantime, I'm mentally rearranging the furniture in the basement just don't tell my seven-year-old.
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