It's Still the Economy...

Carol just told me that consumer spending on Black Friday turned out to be at least a little better than the dismal projections they were making before Thanksgiving, but today's stocks show (as if we needed it) that we're definitely in this for the long haul.

So just before the holiday there were a series of articles about kids and the economy. I saw the first in the New York Times, an article by Stephanie Rosenbloom about how mothers in particular will be going without this Christmas season in order to still get decent presents for their kids. This may sound like what lots of us have been doing for years, but on a macro level it's bad for retailers because Christmas traditionally sees a huge spike in women's apparel sales that most likely won't be happening this year, despite what happens to toy sales. 

Then I got home and saw two items in my inbox. KidScreen not only featured the Times article but also the results of a survey by Nodes Research that shows 84% of tweens and teens are worried about the economy. 

Finally, that same day the wonderful email newsletter Kids Off the Couch featured an article entitled "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow . . . Won't It?" which essentially gives advice on how to add economics to the traditional birds and bees that parents teach their children. And there are lots of films and books and media, if we stop and think about it, that can lend a hand in doing so. We recently saw Rob Marshall's Annie, the film featured in the article, and thought it relatively saccharine but certainly uplifting, and well done for a television budget (Carol and I came to it after both Chicago and Memoirs of Geisha, and though the choreography and visuals weren't as strong as on those later films it was still pretty much great). 

But that's a digression. The point is that hard times are here and there are plenty of resources for parents, from Dickens to King Kong, to help them talk to their kids.