Anyone else walk into a big box store and feel like they’re the only ones awake in some sort of toxic capitalist matrix?

[doubra]

Sorry for the rant but…

Sometimes I have to go to a Safeway super close by to grab something though it’s not my default place to shop.

They recently reorganized the whole store, and I feel like we’ve just about reached the doomed society depicted in Wall-E or Idiocracy. The center aisles are now twice as long and all the super processed foods are strategically placed where you have to pass them to get to anything else. It’s like a maze of neon packaging and terrifying ingredients, and most people are none the wiser. It’s also incredibly sad to see things like baby formula and toothpaste locked up to deter theft but that’s a whole other issue.

My first kid is about to be two and I now understand why there are little sweet treats and toys hung randomly in an aisle and obviously at check out. It’s all trash and I’m not afraid to explain it to her, but it breaks my heart when I see other kids screaming for more Cheetos and screen time and mom doesn’t care, she’s loading up on crazy concentrated juices that she thinks are a healthy choice because the label screams “200% Vitamin C!!”. Obviously I mind my own business, but I can’t help but feel bad and scared for our future.

I also watched real TV the other day and the commercials all seem so dumbed down and misleading. We don’t need lime green super scent laundry blasters, but there’s people out there buying it all up!

Anyone else feel this way or am I just being too crunchy?

EDIT
Follow up rant to my rant:

Thanks for all of the deferring perspectives. I am by no means trying to judge the hypothetical mom I made up in my rant for buying juice, I’m mad at the juice. Why can’t it just be juice? Why does it need to be tetracornhydroglucocide#40 with “natural apple essence”?

The issue I feel hopeless against is the lying to us, the marketing, the store trapping me in these aisles, us as consumers not having the time or information readily available to make better decisions for ourselves. Why do we need to dig to find the truth behind our juice choices?? Not everyone has the time and the means to do so I 100% acknowledge that and my own privilege, but it’s killing us.

I’m not sitting around, milking my own dairy cow in a hand loomed cotton dress with my nose turned up at everyone else (an exaggeration don’t come for me but also if you have your own cow I am jealous!). I only recently woke up to how toxic and terrible everything we are being marketed is once I had my first kid and started doing my own research for her benefit. I can’t afford the best most organic local produce 100% of the time, I don’t have the time to scratch make everything, and every once in a while I love to wolf down a big Mac and fries with some extra nuggets on the side.

We’re all just trying our best (this shit is hard), we can’t do it all, and we have no idea what is going on in other peoples lives, hypothetical juice mom included.

I am frustrated that this information is not more widely known, that we are overworked and underpaid and can’t afford better, that we are being marketed to by these big corporations that don’t have our best interests at heart and the FDA in their pocket. They make things the cheapest and most toxic way possible for profit and throw it in our faces and scream “Buy! Buy! Buy!”. That is where my judgment lies.

 

[mymichelle21]

@doubra I feel the same way about the holiday sections in places like Target and Walmart.

I was in the Easter section at Target the other day looking for a certain kind of candy for my toddler. Everything is just plastic garbage. The overconsumption is astounding. Just about everything that gets purchased in those aisles is going to be in a landfill by next Easter.

Same thing applies to Halloween and Valentine’s Day stuff. Christmas seems to get reused more than other holidays but still has a high level of overconsumption

 

[brazilianchristianlady]

@mymichelle21 Same I was looking for some nice, high quality, fairly low key Christmas decorations but almost everything is very loud and looks cheaply made. Also glitter, so much glitter. Microplastics everywhere

 

[doubra]

@brazilianchristianlady It’s all so sad. And it’s hard not to let the weight of it all get to you. Going to the beach with my toddler turns into a clean up effort from all the bright colored plastic pieces she finds and hands me.

 

[charlesbarnes]

@brazilianchristianlady I've been looking for decorations to reuse every year and it's hard to find anything worth while. I would love just a small collection of high quality, beautiful items to pull out every year for each holiday.

 

[cnsgrl]

@charlesbarnes I started a Christmas tradition where the kids pick one high quality ornament a year. Our initial plastic baubles that I got off Buy Nothing (or a similar page) 10 years ago are slowly falling apart but getting replaced annually by decent ones.

I saw a video of a guy who sliced up his Christmas tree and painted the slices for the next year.

 

[giants]

@mymichelle21 I just make a point of not getting anything like that myself and when inevitably someone gets stuff for my kids, use the HECK out of it. My mom got my 2 year old one of those extra large wind up hopping Easter chicks last year. He LOVED that thing, played with it for months before I stored it away. Its winding mechanism is broken, missing a wing, matted from spending a few days in the water table outside. I pulled it back out last week and he was STOKED, back in the regular toy rotation. She saw it and was shocked I didn’t throw it away and is threatening to buy a new one

 

[bfdd6988]

@mymichelle21 I begged my father to not buy my daughter plastic crap for Easter. Please. I don’t want more junk in my house or in a landfill. I don’t want to deal with my child getting overly attached to a cheap toy that she’s going to break within a week and then cry about for two more weeks.

NONE OF US ARE EVEN CHRISTIAN. The only Christians are my father’s evil ex-wife and my in-laws. Get her a package of Peeps IF YOU MUST, but this isn’t our holiday.

He said he’d just “keep everything at his house for when we visit next.” Sigh.

 

[apor2017]

@doubra You're not crazy! I struggle with how different my approaches to some of this stuff are than my friends. I feel like I can't talk about being low screen time, or being against tablets for kids, or limiting sugar, or etc etc etc because I make different choices than my friends and I don't want my choice to make it seem like I am judging their choice. I don't want to sound snotty. So I just never talk about parenting choices like that. It can feel little lonely!

 

[doubra]

@apor2017 Agreed, I do not judge others for their choices and do not try to preach my views on others, I figured this was a safe place to vent.

 

[apor2017]

@doubra I don't think your post came across as judgmental! I commiserate.

 

[hurrix]

@doubra Yeah, but I try not to feel too superior about it.

 

[katrina2017]

@hurrix That’s a good take.

 

[nonamend]

@hurrix Exactly. In a country built on the backs of poor people, I know those in poverty don't have better choices to make.

 

[doubra]

@nonamend That’s digging down to some of the roots of the problem.

 

[inj]

@doubra For sure… it’s sad

 

[doubra]

@hurrix Sorry if I come off sounding superior. I’m feeling more hopeless, depressed, and angry at the system we’re all subjected to.

I by no means have the answer to fix it all and am not above anyone. It was only recently when I had my first kid that I kind of “woke up” to all of this.

 

[hurrix]

@doubra There's a lot to get down about in the world. This quote from Howard Zinn is one I go back to a lot:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

 

[hopeatl]

@hurrix This is gonna seem kind of ridiculous but thanks for your comment, it reminded me that I meant to donate to International Rescue Committee this week. This is definitely a plug but I’m not an employee of theirs or anything. I just think they’re a great non profit doing great work supporting refugees and people in poverty around the world.

You can give a general donation that they decide how to allocate or you can donate to a specific set of refugees. On Mother’s Day I’ve previously made donations that go to help women in economically disadvantaged countries receive prenatal care or better schooling for girls and young women where it doesn’t already exist.

Anyway, I hope I’m not rambling but they’re a fucking great org and they’re super transparent about where the donation money goes (to projects, vs advertising, vs executive pay, unlike other orgs that often don’t share that info).

But because of your comment I’m choosing to “act in a small way” to make a difference.

 

[hurrix]

@hopeatl I’m glad my comment inspired you! Thanks for living your values!