Now if you’re a parent of young children you must be living under a rock or travelling overseas (guilty eek) if you haven’t come across the Woolworths Animal Cards phenomenon.
Just before I left for my trip to France I did get some cards for my 7 year old. By the time I got back 10 days later it had EXPLODED. Everybody’s kids were into it. Hell, there were even parents on Facebook putting callouts for missing cards, offering to trade.
This I thought was hilarious. Not in a judgy way but just a “how things have changed” way. Back in our day our parents wouldn’t have been scouring around the playground on our behalf for missing cards. Ah Facebook.
But just as I thought I’d better get back into getting these cards for my 7 year old, who was clearly way behind the pack in terms of complete collection, the promotion ended.
I felt bad.
“Sorry sweetie, I think you’re going to miss out”, I said putting on a sad face.
“That’s okay”, he said. Oh my sweet mature boy. This only made me feel worse. He is so grown up, and he didn’t complain about missing out….”and because he’s so mature he so deserves to have the whole collection”, I wailed on the inside.
And then there it was. The headline. Cards selling for $100 on ebay. Now I know enough to know that I was not going to pay $100 for the cards. At least at Woolies I get my groceries for the $100 I’m going to drop at the store.
But let’s break this down. I still felt bad and really wanted my son to have the whole collection. However, the little voice in my head said this was not worth it for a variety of reasons. Really, buying them off ebay was to make me feel better; not my son.
Even if you have a whingey whiney kid (I feel your pain on that one too because I have another who is like that), kids just need to learn that you can’t always get what you want (and that goes for adults too….like me…cue The Rolling Stones) which brings me to the next point.
What happens when the Veruca Salt’s of this world grow up?
According to a recent study “Relationships Between Childhood Overindulgence and Adult Attitudes and Behaviour” Veruca will hold materialistic values about success and happiness; be ungrateful; and generally will not give a toss about the community she inhabits.
Lastly I remember this from my childhood, kids have short attention spans; give it a month and the shine of these cards would have worn off. Christmas is coming people; kids aren’t going to be worried about this damn card collection.
And just before you think parents and kids alike are going to hell in a handbasket for buy and selling these cards on ebay, a little something nice happened to my son.
A girl in his class, who had long completed her set, had plenty of doubles. Her mother told her to hand them out to kids who were still missing cards. No trades, no selling; just good old fashioned doing something nice and expecting nothing in return.
Good things come to those who wait.
