If I had not experienced it myself I would have never believed it, but babes are so brand conscious!
And by babes I don’t mean the kind that wear black stilettos and drive red convertibles, I mean the kind that should be going “ma ma, pa pa, baby want milk” but instead go, “ Hardees! KFC! Baby want fench fies!”
One of the side effects of living in an environment that is so shopping–centric has been that kids in Dubai recognize logos before they can recognize themselves in the mirror!
Stand your two year old in front of the mirror and ask him who that is, chances are he will name his favourite playmate or a cousin of similar age. But take him to Deira City Centre and pretend Magic Planet is somewhere within Carrefour- let’s look for it while we buy fruit – no way. Not only does he clearly know the way to Magic Planet from Carrefour, but also remembers the strategically placed Baskin Robbins on the way, at which he has to make a stopover. What’s wrong with the Dh. 1 ice cream cone at McDonalds you want to know? But no- he only wants ice cream from that ‘pink shop’!
Toddlers of a few generations ago were happy if they just got colourful little knapsacks to go to nursery.
Today, it has to be a Mickey or Barbie bag. With matching water bottle. And tiffin box. And pencil box (he can’t even write yet!). And all stationery from pencils to erasers to rulers. Where does it end? I drew the line at matching tissue boxes!!!!
Initially I entertained the thought that I had given birth to a child prodigy. With both his parents being advertising professionals, this child was just born with the knack of knowing Gerber’s, mixed-fruit-ready-meal for nine month olds would taste different from Purity’s mixed fruit dessert. He had every right to turn up his nose at the wrong brand by a parent who only shops at 24 hr supermarkets, cause those are the only ones open at 1:30 in the night on the way back from work!
I beamed when he scoffed at diapers by lesser brands than Pampers and wriggled out of night shirts that were not from Mothercare. But my joy most definitely started fading when he started getting up in the middle of the night and demanding Al Rawabi fresh mango juice.
We’re out of mango juice how about apple juice by ‘x’ brand, can’t be very different at three in the morning. What does a two year old know anyway, you think. No compromise. Mango juice, bawl, bawl bawl. So you think this a good time to try some sterner stuff.
Sleep, kid or else… BAWL BAWL, Coke, I want Coke. Instead of simmering away to sleep, he simply upped his demand.
And my happiness distinctly seeped out of me when, at a particular party, an unsuspecting friend lovingly asked my toddler if he would like to go home with her. By this time my toddler was nearly three. He answered, “Which car do you have? My mommy’s BMW makes sooo many noises!
By the time I realized my kid wasn’t a genius simply because he named every mall we ever passed by correctly and recognized their logo in advertisements, it was too late.
His and our lives were not mere generic, flow-with-the tide lives. Actually Ariel.
But coming back to the matter at hand, shoes are not just shoes. They are Sketchers. Toys are not just toys. They are Lego or Action-man or Groovy Girls. When he asks for potato chips he says ‘Pringles’ and when he says ‘Dugong’, he doesn’t mean the mammal, he means his favourite play area.
In a world of choices, at three, my toddler had already named his, and reinforced them time and again to avoid any confusion his parent may feel!
As long as the choices are about clothes and toys and food, like most parents I tend to indulge him.
I thank my lucky stars that he isn’t a little girl who would insist on pink shoes with pink dresses and little pink hairclips from Claire’s. Topping it with pink ice cream from Baskin Robbins!
I am grateful that when he is thirteen, I won’t have to stay awake nights wondering what was in that bag from La Senza.
But every once in a while I do wonder if he will enjoy rain in India just as much as in the Maldives. And then, wonder immediately, if it is enough to just send him to school or whether it should be Choueifat!
What do you think?