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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Different hero, different war
John McCain's first wife won't say a harsh word about the man who dumped her. Is she a spineless wimp or a quiet hero?
By Jennifer Foote Sweeney
[03/06/00]

Lessons in consumption
Only by immersing our children in marketing can we teach them to choose.
By Nick Gillespie
[03/06/00]

Watching TV on the bus
Teen TV novelizations invade bookstores and void the teenage mind.
By Carina Chocano
[03/03/00]

The tyranny of "Abercrappie"
My brother is under the spell of a company that promotes the frat-boy free-for-all.
By Damien Cave
[03/03/00]

When the revolution comes
We invite readers to respond to the Family for Sale series with grand plans, brainstorms and blueprints for a better tomorrow.
By Jennifer Foote Sweeney and Amy Benfer
[03/03/00]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

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It can be as vulgar as the Chanel logo on a gallery-owner's shiny pants, the cell phone in a restaurant or the working-class solidarity indicated by Carhart, Dickies and Ben Davis brands. We all consume selectively and what we choose to buy tells us -- and the world -- what we value.

In some ways, choosing to put a Guess? jeans logo on one's ass is more honest, a cheap way to buy (or steal) social invisibility. Nevertheless, conspicuous consumption is frequently and loudly reviled: No one but teens, working-class adults with upward pretensions and our favorite whipping post for centuries, the nouveau riche, would dare partake. This is why those who hate logo tees, Louis Vuitton and Tommy jackets hate them with such a passion. Conspicuous consuming is frequently associated with billboard advertising; it's blissfully obvious and much less complicated than acquiring the social training to recognize that one's plain black sweater is merino wool.

But there's a reason that we demonize people who try to buy their way into other classes through conspicuous consuming: We are afraid they will "pass." We are afraid that we won't recognize the intruders like Melissa -- who passed the first test of junior high acceptance by being pretty and smart and then sealed the deal with the Guess? corporate logo.

Inconspicuous consumption is much more expensive and much more difficult to master. I know, because I managed to lose my class identity and had to negotiate ways to get it back. One way was by buying stuff, certain stuff, to rehabilitate my outward appearance.

I went from being a middle-class kid in a mostly working-class town to being a single parent living at or near poverty level for about six years. I did this by becoming a parent at a scandalously young age, one of the most efficient routes to poverty. My story is hardly original; the fear of falling out of the middle class is one of our great national phobias, mostly because it so damn easy to do: Have a child, get a divorce, become a grad student or a have an ill-advised outburst with a boss and you're there.

My plunge was particularly weird, because when I fell out of the middle class, I landed in the upper-middle class, arriving with a heavily subsidized education at a very expensive, very liberal, very private East Coast university.

I don't know what constitutes class identity for a teenage single mother from Idaho who is quite literally the only one of her kind at a private school. My school -- which was nicknamed "diversity university" -- took great pride in having a student body that spanned the "rainbow" of economic class, race, gender and nationality. In this rainbow, I was a particularly unusual shade.

In a more conservative school, I would have been suspect; in a less exclusive school, I would have been ordinary. In this school, I became something of a political symbol; my daughter, a minor celebrity. The college invariably had reporters call me, the token single mother, whenever they were preparing a story on our school. Just last night, one of my friends, who I haven't seen much since college, said that he remembered that it was "cool" to be friends with me or to baby-sit my daughter.

I sometimes did resent being viewed as an Instructional Tool for more sheltered students (After all, I reasoned, I was there for my own edification as well), but it wasn't all that different than the way I had treated my working-class friends when I was still firmly ensconced in the middle class.

Although my unusual demographics sometimes gave me something close to an elevated status, it only increased my proximity to the other students -- and exacerbated my desire not to play the role of uncivilized house pet. The amount of information required bordered on the absurd: I had grown up in a town of Budweiser and Coors drinkers, and found myself negotiating the difference between muscadet and port, grappa and cognac.

I learned what Melissa already knew: I learned how to lie through careful consumption. But I -- unlike Melissa -- was learning the art of inconspicuous consumption. It was much, much harder. I needed more than a simple pair of Guess? jeans.

Inconspicuous consumption -- the kind that I learned -- operates under the luxurious belief that consumption should occur in the context of noble ideals. One must consider quality, utility, longevity, ethical and/or environmental impact, safety and educational value. These are the qualities of good consumers and good citizens. The implication is that we are not choosing to consume to satisfy our egos, but to express our morality and good judgement.

The unfortunate side effect of this philosophy is: a) Quality is expensive, and b) People who, for whatever reason, do not consume in this manner become not only bad consumers, but bad people.

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