Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: We'Re going to close with Think Fast though. Something we kind of were doing there for a while, but it was always rapidly tacked on to the end of the episode. We're actually back in the day when Think Fast started, it was a standalone segment of kind of the news of the day that we would put out on Thursday nights. And what we're going to do now is we're going to put these out as standalone clips on YouTube on on Thursday. I might even put it on Friday, might even put them in the podcast feed for you to just have something to listen to at the end of the week. But they are going to be also at the end of your episode. So you might listen to this on Friday, listen to the podcast on Monday and you're like, I already heard that thing. But that's fine.
What we want to do is the advantage of doing it on Friday is we can react to the current events of that week. And so this week one of them we want to talk about. There's been so much about the tariffs and we're not able to analyze. I mean it's going to take a long time to determine if that's a good idea or a bad idea. Obviously the short term pain is the one obvious thing is whether or not it'll pay off is what's being debated. But I thought was interesting is Trump and he drew some heat for this where President Trump said maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. Talking about the Chinese toys and goods and all that stuff that our houses are filled with and about people's kids feeling deprived that they're not going to have this stuff.
Some people took that to say, hey, this is a guy that lives in a gold plated mansion telling me that my kids are going to have less toys and that's not ok. Others kind of went the other way about materialism. And so what do you guys think about that idea of doing with less of if, if these trade wars do lead to some of that, you know, obviously we don't want to starve or have like real needs. But where things stand, if things went backwards, standard of living wise or, or toys wise or things wise, would that be a good thing? A bad thing is that something that we should look at is like, hey, don't endorse this or this is a positive. What do you guys, where would you go with that?
[00:02:03] Speaker C: It's easy to, you go, it's easy to say it from this side instead of the other side. And people, that's what people are going to say is, oh, well, you know, you haven't lived it and, and so therefore, you know, you're just naive. I'm okay with it. I think our materialism, our consumerism is off the charts. I think it's. It's to an insane level. And I don't personally think that's a good thing. I think us getting back to, hey, yeah, maybe, maybe my kids have two or three toys. They last longer, but they cost more the way that most of Americans had it for most of life up until in the last couple decades, few decades. I think we are better off that way. I think it does create a level of contentment a lot more. Parenting is going to get easier in a consumeristic world where everything is handed to you immediately and it's cheap and it's available and yes, it's Chinese and it's garbage and it'll fall apart in two months, but who cares? We'll just buy another one because it's so cheap. That creates this consumeristic Amazon being a bazillion dollar company. Like, we have a lot of that in America. I don't think that's healthy. We don't talk about that in the church. Materialism is a problem for a lot of Americans. And I do think that, yes, it's easy for me to say it on this side, and I know life could be a lot harder, but from a Christian perspective, I think this actually might help for us to really define what is it that matters. Can I be content in what I have when my kid doesn't have 45 toys, you know, floating around my house every single day? Like, yeah, I think we can find contentment in those moments. So that's my take on it. Will, what are your thoughts?
[00:03:31] Speaker A: This is probably my biggest old man take that I have. And that is, kids really don't need a lot of toys. They need to be playing outside. They need to be playing with sticks. Give, sure, give them a football. Give them a baseball, basketball, whatever. They can be playing, playing with those.
Other than that, I really don't think they need a lot. And I've even transitioned or like taking that into my own home. I've told Rachel, and this is mainly because I look around at the toys that we have, and all my kids want to do is, you know, play ball with me and they want me to read books to them. It's like they don't care about the toys. They really don't. And so I've told her, like, hey, if we have, you know, we're going to have birthday parties and stuff for our kids, like, please tell everyone, do not bring my kid a toy, do not bring them a present, don't bring them a gift. You want to bring them something, bring them a book or something like that. I do think, because the other thing, you think about it too, when you're opening presents as an adult, you get somewhat of a dopamine hit, right? You don't think kids have that as well, like for the shiny new plastic toy. And, and you see them, you see them at birthday parties and Christmas too. Like the open one, it's cool onto the next one, cool on the next one, cool on the next one. It's like, there really is to me a lack of appreciation that we are instilling in young and young kids when it's just 14 toys for their birthday and then 24 toys for Christmas that they're opening. And so I think this is just kind of a larger discussion, the points about, you know, Trump and how wealthy he is, trying to say that, you know, I, I see where people are coming from. Like, it's a reasonable take, I suppose. But at the end of the day, from an overall perspective, I do not have a problem with that statement of like, yeah, maybe they don't need 30, they can stand with two. Especially when, again, my overall take is like, send your kids outside, man. Send them out in the dirt. Let them go play, you know, let them, let them go run around, let them get their energy out, let them be in the sunlight, let them again, entertain themselves. Imagine we're ruining imagination. Imagination, yeah, don't stick them in front of a screen. Like, again, probably my biggest old man take, but like, I am not, I have zero problem with whoever it is, Trump or whoever, saying, hey, maybe your kids could use a few less toys. Like, I will, I will second that 100%.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah. The thing for me with this, on the whole thing is like, if the trade offs work in the sense of, like, economically, if the trade offs work, but same with this, of if it's fewer gadgets and toys, but they're higher quality and they last and things like that, I, you know, I, I agree with you guys. There should be fewer, but if we get fewer and it's still garbage, that would be a pretty significant bummer. You know, that's something we need to get back to as a society. And I think about that we're talking about this with kids and toys a lot, but as adults how much junk do we pile up that we just don't need? And I think about the things around the house I really appreciate are the things, you know, longtime listeners might remember me envious that Joe had, you know, acquired an espresso maker. I'm like, I gotta get one. So my wife and I saved for like over a year because those aren't cheap. You know, we wanted to get a good quality one that would last us a while. That's one of our favorite things in the entire house. You know, it's like, it's quality. It costs more. We didn't go out and get it right away. You know, I mean, it's very expensive, but you save and it matters to you. And it's the same thing for kids, like, when they've got one toy that they really love that's really cool. When they've got 50 and they just don't even know what to do with them. Well, the same as adults, we're surrounded by junk. We're surrounded by materialism. And, you know, to bring it back to the scriptures, I think in First Timothy 6, where Paul says that godliness with contentment is a means of great gain, it doesn't mean you're. It's not Joel Osteen, like, you're going to get rich. It means it's that old phrase about not having what you want but wanting what you have. And that's easier to do when you're not inundated with something new every week and something like that. So economically, who knows if it's hard times ahead, But I think it could be a better reset if we get back to something like that. So, yeah, that's our Think Fast for this week. And if you're watching this on YouTube, the full episode on Prom and Rites of Passage will be out on Monday. So be sure to tune in for that on the Thing Deeper podcast feed or here on the FocusPress YouTube channel. And with that, we're going to wrap right there and we'll talk to you on the next.
