When I was a child, my parents saved string. They saved everything, from nails and screws and rubber bands, to rags and newspapers. There was a drawer in the kitchen that had little bits of everything in it, because it might come in useful some day, like the wooden spools left over when thread was used up and rubber washers. They re-used paper bags, and clothing was handed down from sibling to sibling, as long as there was wear left in it. They darned socks and patched holes.
In those days, there were people who repaired vacuum cleaners and small appliances, and people got new heels put on their shoes and zippers replaced on their pants and jackets. My mother put leftover bread in the oven to dry it, then broke it up and went over it with the rolling pin to make bread crumbs. She did the same thing with crackers. Nobody wasted anything. We ate leftovers a couple of times a week, and stale bread went into bread dressing, bread pudding, and french toast, which my mother called egg-toast, because it was not sweetened. In the same way, thrifty French and Italian mothers made croutons and panzanella (bread salad). Now we buy croutons and throw stale bread in the garbage. In those days, when people heard the adage "Waste not, want not," they knew exactly what it meant.
That was in the 1950's, and my parents had been through the Great Depression and the Second World War, had experienced joblessness and rationing, and the habit of saving everything had been absorbed into every fiber of their beings. They had victory gardens and canned the harvest. They saved scrap metal for the war effort. They had done without butter and sugar, and experienced the times when people walked everywhere to save the little bit of gasoline they were allotted. Naturally, as times got better, some of these habits went by the board, even for "depression babies" like my parents, but even so, they always were averse to wasting things.
As the present economic crisis worsens, some of the habits of thrift will likely be rediscovered, but the adjustment is likely to be painful, because there are now a couple of generations of people who have no connection to this way of life beyond stories they may have heard from their grandparents. Now people are discussing and writing about parents who have always been overly generous with material things finally having to deal with the economic anxieties of their teenaged children and talk to them about money and inevitable lifestyle changes.
I am not a parent, and, much as some people might not believe it, that was a choice, not an accident. With my upbringing and temperament, I don't think I would have ever been an overly indulgent parent, but I certainly feel for the parents who are having to have these conversations with their children now, because I know they are not talking only about the children making lifestyle changes, but about the lifestyle changes they themselves are having to make, as well. Whether it is the disaster of losing one's job or one's home, or the only somewhat lesser disaster of seeing the value of one's retirement investments diminish daily while the price of everything goes up, everyone is in shock. People are having to teach their children how to save money. At the same time, people are getting rid of gas guzzling cars, insulating their homes, and learning to be more careful with their own money, and governments from the local level to the U.S. Post Office are trimming budgets and making cuts in services.
It seems as if the wheel has turned full circle again. I am much more careful about not wasting food, and I have hit the off-switch on impulse buying. I put fewer routine expenses on my credit card these days. Yesterday, I wrote a check for an oil change and tire rotation, when in the past I would have just handed over my card. I even saved a rubber band today. We're all in this together (except the super-rich and the people who never had anything to begin with), and we're all making lifestyle changes, both large and small. It hurts, but we'll just have to get used to it.
1 comment:
Funny isn't it how life seems to circle around and bite you again! The government is telling us that there is no depression and it won't happen like it did in the Great Depression - however I'm very leary of their promises. It is so true that we are such a wasteful society. Never saving anything and buying what we want when we want it. I remember that as a child that wasn't the way either. Hand me down clothes, eating what we grew, not going places, riding your bike instead of using gas, and on and on.
I enjoyed your post - so true about how it was then and what we have become.
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