North Star Writers Group

T.M.X. Elmo’s arrival also seems to have kicked off a record early holiday silly season. A 911 tape in Tampa, Fla., was reported to have one man calling police about another shopper in a Target store who threatened him with a loaded pistol because the caller took one of the last Elmo dolls and the black-clad, gun-toting stranger didn’t get one.

It’s déjà vu. Ten years ago, the first generation Elmo launched an absolute holiday buying frenzy. Parents went berserk hunting down this Elmo. They forked over inflated sums at charity auctions or agreed to humiliating promotional stunts simply to win one of the dolls. Employees at one Wal-Mart got into big trouble because shoppers noticed they were buying Elmo dolls that hadn’t been put on sale.

The first Elmo wasn’t the first such craze, either. Back in 1983, parents stalked the elusive Cabbage Patch Kids.

Let’s sort out our priorities here. We have a climate-change emergency. China owns most of our astronomical federal debt. The war in Iraq has destabilized the entire Middle East and aided terrorist recruiting. Our public schools and national infrastructure are crumbling for lack of funding. But we are threatening each other with loaded weapons because we don’t get the chance to buy a furry doll.

It’s tempting to just dismiss it all as idiocy, greed or, perhaps, an obsession. In fact, during the 1996 Elmo mania, a film starring none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger along with Sinbad lampooned two fathers locked in mortal combat over the last hot toy.

This begs the question, however: what drives our greed or our obsession? Most of us are far too overworked and overwhelmed to chase after a toy out of mere cupidity or even sheer stupidity.

Maybe there are different explanations for our seemingly endless capacity to go to outrageous lengths for our offspring. Maybe we are trying to buy our kids’ love. Perhaps we are also trying to prove to ourselves (and others) that we are good parents.

Most of us are only too painfully aware of our futile search for our parents’ approval. It’s a rude shock to become parents ourselves and then to find that we crave approval and acceptance from our kids, too. Their tears and pleas for the hot new toy fill us with the dread that if we don’t get it for them, they won’t love us anymore and we will look like uncaring, indifferent parents to the rest of the world.

One of the toughest aspects of being stewards of old souls in young bodies is the necessity of saying no on occasion. This kind of love is called tough precisely because it appears to involve the risk of rejection from those we love dearly and from whom we desperately want to feel love in return.

In such cases, however, saying no may not be as risky as it seems. Despite their protests to the contrary, children feel more secure and loved when parents care enough to set loving and consistent boundaries. Those boundaries, which of course change and expand as children become more mature, imbue kids with a sense of place and security in the world. Those boundaries let them know that their parents are paying attention to them and their welfare.

The not so good news? In order to be capable of saying no and setting boundaries, we need a sense of our own worth and place in the world that is not based on outward approval or acceptance. After all, it is the need for others’ approval of the job we are doing as parents that has so many of us chasing after toys in the first place.

If we cannot feel our own self-approval, however, then no matter how many toys we buy our offspring, we will not be able to feel our children’s love for us. We’ll be running on empty, pistols loaded.

To offer feedback on this column, click here.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column #CT11. Request permission to publish here.