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Today’s Frills Were Yesterday’s Comforts
It’s easy for me to look at what we indulge in today and feel guilty, comparing our time to the austerity of the past. However, historical narratives and artifacts tell me that our luxuries–excluding advanced technologies such as iPhones–are nothing new. I’m not including in this comparison the sumptuous lifestyles of the past’s wealthy families, who spent millions of dollars on multiple homes, handmade dresses, and fancy furniture and art. Rather, this post is about regular middle-class folks who pursued some of the same comforts you and I enjoy today.
Christmas Gifts. Sometimes, I feel a little weird shopping around late in the year to find an item for an individual who has already been blessed with many possessions. And with our entire extended family swapping gifts, our living room gets pretty full of brightly wrapped things. I do see that we often get plenty of use and appreciation for these, but have wondered sometimes whether we’re going too far.
Yet the story told in Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West, where a pair of young women from Auburn, New York travel to the Denver area to become schoolteachers, tells me that our 1916 ancestors were very much caught up in Christmas gift-buying. For sure the titular women’s concern is for the poor schoolchildren, but they put much energy into rallying friends back home into a gift collection effort. They saw the absence of presents as a real lack. If I’m remembering correctly, they also focused on finding the right gifts for family members. All their activity around the holidays gives me perspective on our buying patterns today, and I find the parallels between our culture and that of the young ladies to be reassuring.
Product Improvements. A dear older friend of mine once said that in the past, there weren’t so many disposable items such as tissues. Handkerchiefs and other things were created to be used and re-used, and to her, this frugality was a positive trait. This statement stuck with me, and I’ve been thinking it over ever since. It struck me one day that there have always been product innovations that often improve aspects of our lives, and we can appreciate these advancements without feeling guilty.
I read once about the introduction of toilet paper, which would replace corn cobs and catalog pages, and how it took time and more than one marketing attempt for Americans to believe in this new luxury. Toilet paper is an improvement (and given Americans’ emergency preparedness tendencies, apparently a major necessity), as it’s cleaner and more effective than what we used to use. Facial tissues, also, are simply an improvement over handkerchiefs for blowing one’s nose in a sanitary fashion, especially when one has a bad cold. Washing a used handkerchief just sounds gross. I hope the laundresses put those in the tub last.
In the same way, diapers and baby wipes are much better than the cloths babies had to wear in the distant past. I’ve heard or read that infants (in eighteenth-century England?) just had to sit in their dirtied garments until someone decided it was time to change them. While our more recent cloth diapers were an improvement, they had to be washed daily, and came with the hazards of safety pins. Absorbent disposable diapers make this a comfortable and more sanitary era for babies, even with the downside of all the extra trash.
Pets. We are crazy about our domesticated animals here in the States, and there’s a big market for toys, special little clothes, and carriers for our cats and dogs. We may be just a wee bit over the top with this passion for pets, but there is evidence that people in other eras bonded with animals, too. We have that example in 2 Samuel chapter 12 where the prophet Nathan tells David a story about a poor family’s little pet lamb being taken away from them, a story that turns out to be an analogy for David’s stealing another man’s wife. Moving forward in history, I recently saw a picture of an ancient family’s memorial to their dog. Then there are photos from the 1800s of sitters posing with their cats–I believe I’ve seen more than one. Wealthy people had animals–that’s no surprise. But it looks as if ordinary families cared for pets, too.
Face Creams. I’m a big one for various skin care products that claim to enhance one’s aging skin, block the sun’s rays, smooth out the face, etc. I’ve been known to talk about stocking up on lotions before any future economic collapse. So I was pleased that archeologists discovered a little pot of face cream from ancient Rome–with product still in it. I shared this picture on social media, wondering what would happen if I tried out the cream after it had aged all these centuries. The poor today pursue face creams, too, as I learned in Behind the Beautiful Forevers, where women living in a slum near the Mumbai, India airport valued them. And I’ve read about a somewhat poor American lady in the earlier part of the 1900s for whom it was important to purchase a product for her face. Whatever their efficacy, beauty-enhancing creams have been around for a long time.
Electronic Entertainment. I love listening to music, audiobooks, or podcasts while I’m working around the house. The portable entertainment makes time go by faster, and I actually get into vacuuming and dusting with high-energy music pulsing through my headphones. Yet I feel spoiled by this ability to access entertainment whenever I want in order to lighten the load our forebears carried in silence. But if I stop to reflect, I remember that the radio and record player have been around entertaining the masses for about a hundred years, and we still have recordings of the many programs and stories families gathered around to hear. My mom says that at fifteen, it was her all-day task to do the ironing for the family, and she spent this time listening to operas on the radio and falling in love with them.
Fast Food. Although we’re bothered by the excess and unhealthy habits wrought by the availability of convenience foods, we can take comfort from the fact that ancient Rome had its version of McDonald’s, too. Archeologists discovered a food vendor’s counter where a hungry passerby could buy a quick meal. And in medieval Europe, there is evidence of a brisk trade in ready-made foods. Add to that the prevalence of street vendors selling a variety of delicious hot treats in countries such as Thailand and China, and I have to conclude that fast food is not so unnatural after all.
There’s no question that we enjoy abundance like no other time in history. But a significant portion of what we have has already been around in one form or another–it’s not logical for us to feel guilty for our conveniences. However, the need for moderation and restraint seems to be the common thread in the frills we invest in today, whether we like to Christmas shop, use disposable items, spoil our pets, buy cosmetics, indulge in entertainment, or add a large fry to our drive-through order.
Published in Culture
This is easy in my family. Our agreement is to give gifts only to children and to trade bottles of wine or champagne to families of adults. It’s always fun to see if one gets the same champagne that one gives.
Thanks, Sawatdeeka, wonderful post. My biggest smile came from the picture of you as a prepper with her own genteel priorities.
Yes, this is a great time to be alive.
Electronic Entertainment: Last week a friend helped me replace the radio in Mom’s 20 year old car. It would play CDs but I don’t listen to them in the car anymore. I replaced it for the sole reason of being able to listen to podcasts, which are recorded on a micro SD card. What a luxury!
Pets: Below is a picture of my Grandfather from about 1920. The caption says the dog has just been sheared by a neighbor. Not very stylish but he’ll be a lot more comfortable.
Product Improvements: The car in the background is Grandma’s 1918 Chevy. She bought it before she was married to commute between home and her school teaching job on the weekends. It was less than a 40 mile journey and there were trains, but they were slow and took most of the day. She taught Grand dad to drive it. I don’t know who taught her. I once asked why she didn’t buy a Ford Model T. Dad told me the Chevy had an electric starter, which freed Grandma from having to crank it.
Thank you for sharing, Gerald. Now it would be illogical to feel guilty that our cars are more advanced than the one your grandma had to drive, even though it was a great innovation for the time, and I’m sure she was very thankful to have it.
Slightly off topic.. I just noticed that Grand Dad is wearing his Army campaign hat from WWI. It is looking pretty battered. He was known for wearing beat up old hats. No point buying a new one unless absolutely necessary.
I’m fully with you except in the pet category. Many pets are a great comfort and source of joy for people. I certainly loved the cat and the dogs we had when I was growing up. However, I think it’s pretty disturbing that these days I see so many people spoiling their pets and treating them as if they were people and, in many cases, better than they treat people, even their own family.
And these pets are as bad or worse than spoiled children – barking continuously at visitors, begging for food at the dinner table (and being given it), and on and on. People who insist on bringing pets when visiting others and refusing to come if they can’t bring their pet. This happens even when the pet has a history of biting and bad behavior. People who fake certificates claiming that their pet is a service animal to take them on public transportation, thereby making it harder on people with true service animal needs.
I was at Home Depot the other day trying to buy shelving. Someone had their Golden in the store, unleashed. He ran up and even though I tried to sidestep, managed to jump hip on me and lick my arm and my purse. The owner just looked on and kept saying, “Now Tim, come back.”
If someone wants to spend money on cute outfits and toys for pets – well it’s their money. But when they force others to put up with these sorts of behavior I start wanting to ban all pets in public.
@eb I do agree with you about the excesses of pet ownership nowadays. My thought is that having pets as companions and showing them affection are not new. And then I had to add the disclaimer at the end of my post about moderation and restraint. I’m not sure about calling pet owners “parents” or “mom and dad,” and about grown-ups pushing little dogs around in prams or carrying them strapped to themselves like they were babies. And I’m definitely against encouraging everyone to register their cat or dog as a support animal so that rental restrictions and store access rules don’t apply to them (although I think there may be different types of registration). It’s definitely annoying to see so many dogs in grocery stores (my daughter and I once noted a noisy dust-up between two dogs in Walmart). These extremes may indicate that we have more time and money than we know what to do with.
I think the biggest game changers are shopping and music. I love the convenience of Amazon both for products and books. Finding pretty much anything and everything and getting it delivered in 1 or 2 days saves so much time/gas/hassle driving store to store. And being able to get any book rather than the crapshoot of finding it at Barnes & Noble. Or god forbid in the olden days when your only options were B. Dalton or Waldenbooks at the mall with their much inferior selection.
With subscription services, I love being able to listen to pretty much any album or artist at no additional cost without buying a physical CD or cassette tape.
One thing I do miss is magazines. I had a big monthly habit of an eclectic mix of computers, electronics, radio, bodybuilding and music magazines. They have mostly died out and the current ones are ridiculously expensive. The modern magazine apps on a computer or tablet don’t hold the same appeal. I used to get a monster sized Computer Shopper that was phone book thick mostly of ads.
It even had an index for the ads. Looking to see who has the best price on Maxtor hard drives? You could see all the pages that had an ad for them.
I remember Computer Shopper.
The thing that concerns me regarding pets is that we don’t know who may have allergies to these animals. If my small grandson was approached by that Golden in a store he would love it, but his mom would be reaching for his epi pen.
I do understand that many folks have an issue with exuberant animals especially dogs. I don’t. If someone’s Golden Retriever runs up to me, jumps up and starts licking? It just makes me happy. I don’t carry a purse but, if I did, I really wouldn’t care if it was licked. I would be loving on Tim as much as he loved on me. That’s just me and, I guess because I’m ok with that, I wouldn’t want to ban all pets in public. No, that’s not true. I wouldn’t want to ban all pets in public because that’s just silly even if a few might lick me…or a purse.
Nerds.
I have concerns about so much of this. Should grocery stores not be allowed to stock and sell peanuts, because some few people are allergic? etc.
I still prefer physical magazines. I tried a couple of electronic subscriptions, and reading them just wasn’t the same. I usually read magazines when I’m in the john or eating a meal . . .
This is an interesting topic. It’s not even close to a good idea to use cloth diapers anymore.
hmmm. my kids are now late 30’s in age. We used a diaper service back then, because it was cheaper, “earth friendly” and the cool thing to do. What has changed? Now, later in life, I traveled in China for some time, and observed they didn’t use diapers at all, just crotchless shorts. Their infants just peed and pooped on the streets.