Page 153 - Purchasing Power Black Kids and American Consumer Culture

138 . Anthropologist on Shopping Sprees
of wild-child consumer who pitches fits in supermarket aisles and runs
amok in Toys-R-Us. A lack of self-control, especially in stores, was not
tolerated by the Newhallville caretakers I knew, and when kids pressed
their luck by whining, wheedling, or crying they were most often dealt
with harshly. As a result kids learned early to keep control. Certain ten-
sions and realities are made visible and present for Newhallville children
that for their middle-class counterparts are more often hidden and secret.
The cost of being fed, clothed, and cared for is one of these things. Kids
in Newhallville are frequently expected to spend part of their allowance,
birthday, or Christmas money on buying things for themselves that they
need, and their purchases during shopping trips reflect these patterns
and expectations. While most kids certainly seemed to be attending to
their desires in their shopping, what is most striking is the degree to
which practicality on the one hand, and generosity on the other, influ-
enced their shopping trips.
In the presence of caretakers children rarely, if ever, asked for things,
whined, or wheedled, and only once during shopping trips did a child at-
tempt such tactics with me. Teyvon, who in the classroom demonstrated
world-class cadging abilities, tried his skills out on me during his shop-
ping trip, hounding me to buy him an ice-cream cone. I bought him one,
and he later told me he'd just been testing me to see if I'd give in. "You
weak!" he crowed, laughingly. More often, rather than Teyvon's calcu-
lated exploration of my weak spots, children instead seemed to take care
not to impose upon what many saw as my largesse—not only because I
was giving them twenty dollars to spend but because I was taking them
on an outing and spending time with them when it seemed to them I did
not have to. At the outset of each trip I would buy kids a snack and we
would sit and chat for a bit. Some children, however, insisted on using a
portion of their shopping money, paying for these snacks themselves. As
Tarelle said, "I don't want to be spending up all of your money, Miss
Chin." Children were extremely careful not to incur debt with me by
overtaxing what they saw as my generosity (I usually reminded them
they should be thanking the government, not me, for the twenty dollars)
and this kind of mental recordkeeping in relation to social and monetary
debts was the norm: once Nyzerraye came to visit me at my apartment
and got soaked in a sudden downpour. I lent Nyzerraye a pair of socks so
that she could have dry feet during her afternoon with me. I told her she
could keep them and forgot about it after she went home. A week later,
her grandmother sent Nyzerraye back to return the socks, which had
been washed, neatly folded, and enclosed in a Ziploc sandwich bag.