How can shopping be a hobby? Well, let me tell you how: You are raised with shopping as a main activity in your life. Trust me-this is possible. I know. I was raised in an environment where what you own is everything. How you look is everything. Whether a weekday, weekend, or a vacation, my family's main activities were centered around watching tv, shopping, eating, or talking about tv, shopping or eating.

The level of materialism in my family is overwhelming. I am working so hard to rid myself of the pull towards that life because I do not want my child to have those values. The fact of the matter is I will always have that pleasantly warm feeling when engaged in those activities because it is a comfort of my childhood. A deranged childhood but mine just the same.

What frightens me so much about marketing is how it manipulates one's perspective so completely. My nephew is a tv and video game junkie. The way that he plays, thinks, and dreams is entirely derived from these mediums. My husband's godson was raised with a video every now and then but no tv and no video games. DH's godson still owns his mind. He is more creative and innovative. He acts like the little boy he was born to be and not what the advertisements have told him to be. I want my son to be free. Not to live within the confines of tv culture's boundaries.