Autism and consumerism

I have a kid who just turned 3 years old. So there were presents because that's what our current American culture says to do for kids who have birthdays: buy them toys. My kid got a lot. And the thing with 3 year olds is, especially when they're neurospicy, you can't open them all in one day. It has to be spread out over the course of several days. Maybe even several weeks if your parents are also neurospicy and have no energy.

And I noticed something: my little baby autistic kid was getting exhausted by all the hyper focusing they had been doing for the past week.

Consumerism is fairly new. I have memories of my grandparents house that had the same pristine post modern architecture and decorations in it from the original post modern era. I remember my grandfather separating his recycling and burning his paper goods in his home furnace. I remember him cutting up old milk cartons to use for compost to take out back. I remember my grandmother drying ber wet paper towels to be used again later. None of this was because they couldn't afford to buy new toys for themselves. None of this was because they grew up poor. They just grew up pre-consumerism. This was a world before cheap plastic trinkets in the $3 isle at Target that fall apart within minutes of taking it home. This was the era before Wayfair and IKEA furniture that's made of MDF board and made to fall apart within 5 years SO THAT you'll buy more.

And the thing is, Autistic folks are known for their penchant for getting easily overwhelmed. So consumerism and autism don't mesh that easily. And my kid showed me why: because the truth is we don't need that much stuff.

Of course we need our nests. So whatever that looks like, create that nest. But outside of that, does it make sense to get more stuff? Get overwhelmed and overstimulated by it all?

I'm going to ponder the lesson my child is teaching me and do a bit of purging and then maybe work on rethinking my relationship with stuff.