Vent: My niece wanted a $12 dress from a viral haul for her birthday, so I looked into the brand.

I found a report from last year showing their main factory in Dhaka had two major safety violations, so I bought her a $30 dress from a smaller company instead. She loved the dress, but I'm still thinking about that factory report. How do you explain this kind of choice to a kid who just wants the trendy thing?

4 comments

4 Comments

hannah_wells2mo ago

Totally get why that report is stuck in your head. I had the same thing happen when my nephew wanted those popular light-up sneakers last Christmas. Found out the company was awful to its workers, so I found a similar pair from a better brand. He was happy with the shoes, but I still felt weird explaining why the "cool" brand wasn't an option. How do you start that talk about where things come from without it sounding like a boring lecture?

alice_allen52mo ago

I tried explaining supply chains to my cousin once and her eyes glazed over like I was reading a phone book.

holly70910d ago

Start small and connect it to something they already care about. When I talked to my grandson about his tablet, I didn't start with shipping routes. I mentioned how the minerals in the screen came from a place where kids his age weren't in school, and that got him listening. You have to find that little hook, like the price or the fun factor, and then slowly build out the bigger picture from there.

jenny_lee2mo ago

Read a book that framed it as choosing the kind of world you want, which helped me avoid @alice_allen5's phone book problem.