"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
If your parents were Depression babies like mine, you heard that more than once growing up. Now, there's a possibility the "influencer" trend might be getting a little bit threadbare.
There is a cycle to such trends and there are generational differences. Sometimes frugality is ascendant, other times we're urged to aspire to conspicuous consumption. Mass-market stuff or handmade, artisanal items? It's a trend -- or, often, a necessity cloaked as a preference, especially when the economy gets tight.
I am (mostly) the child of my parents. I'm still using Mom's old Revereware pots and pans, some of them gifts from her wedding in 1949 and others more recent presents from my Dad, merely thirty years old. On the other hand, I've got three trendy cookpans from an on-line start-up, so I can't claim to not have been influencered;* on the other other hand, they're supposedly lifetime purchases. And on the fourth hand, Mom would doubtless have pointed out that I already had perfectly good skillets and stewpots.
The culture: we're swimming in it. Probably better to shower afterward instead of pretending we're above it all.
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* This cannot possibly be a word. I'm not sure if it should be.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
2 comments:
I still have my mother's tea canister, potato masher, colander, stew pot and a sieve-all still in daily use.
In one sense, keepsakes and reminders of childhood; in another, proven in 70 + years of use and as good, or better, than I could buy today.
Glad I grabbed them when I still had a chance.
Well done that you don't jump onto the latest trend. I'm sure that your "old" stuff gives good service.
I often ask, "Just how many coffee mugs can one use?" in response to all the consumption. We still use hand-me-down furniture from my parents and grandparents (some from the 1940s, a little from the 1950s.) My favorite pot went to college with me in 1955, as did the clipboard that sees daily use. Similarly, our daughters and (40-year-old) granddaughter use things that we've passed down.
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