Good Fourteen Year Old Values

Today after picking Carter and her friend Ashley up at cooking camp we stopped into Nordstrom to pick up some jeans for Carter.  The teen section, called BP has a brand of jeans that Carter likes so it makes shopping for them quick.  As we were checking out the new sales girl asked Carter if she had gotten this brand before.  After Carter sang the praises of these jeans the Nordstrom girl said, “I think I will have to try them because a $45 pair of jeans is so cheep.”

As we walked away both Ashley and Carter had the same adverse reaction to that comment.  Their feeling was that $45 was first of all not really cheep and they could not really put their finger on why it rubbed them the wrong way.  We discussed how much $45 meant to most Americans and how hard it is to earn.  Both girls said it was wrong of the clerk to assume that $45 was un-meaningful to them. I was really quite proud of their outrage.

We stopped by our mailbox as we pulled into the driveway.  The piece of junk mail on the top of the pile assaulted us all with the headline, “Unhappy with your Maid Service.”  Are you kidding me?  The girls and I had a follow-up discussion to the Nordstrom one’s about this direct mail piece.  Of course direct mail is segmented by neighborhood and certainly plenty of people have help cleaning their houses, but it struck us very presumptuous that we already had a “Maid” and maybe we wanted to dump her and get a new one.  If I were writing that headline I might say, “Unhappy with how your house is getting cleaned…?”  That way it could be about your own cleaning abilities or ones provided you by another.

The gap between the haves and the have-nots seems to be widening and I am worried that not enough people are concerned about it.  The clerk and maid mail were indicators, to the three of us in the car, that making class distinctions was just fine.  Where has the middle class gone?  I am all for people having opportunities to earn their way to riches, but I want everyone and not just a few people to be rich.

Mostly I am thankful that my child and her friend were aware enough to feel uncomfortable about the scenarios we had faced today.  When I moaning that  I needed to write my blog and did not know what to write about today Ashley said, “Write about that clerk and the maid service.”  I hope these good values from two fourteen year olds rub off on some adults.