‘90s Family : Top Dollar Can’t Really Buy Them Happiness

Kids know it’s the wrong season to cry or pout. And yet, they can see it works miracles.

If they whine, beg or even just make a long list of demands, their parents respond by bringing home a $400 Sega Saturn, a $50 pair of jeans with holes or maybe even a 1995 Happy Holidays Barbie, a Baywatch Barbie and a Baby Sister Kelly.

What are these parents thinking?

According to psychologists, they want to be “good” parents and “meet their children’s needs.” Maybe they give in because they feel guilty.

On the other hand, marketing experts say parents are worried about their children’s futures and want to make sure their kids are keeping up with the neighbors’ kids. Maybe they give in because they’re too exhausted to argue, or because they figure at least they won’t have to spend the time returning a present the kid doesn’t like.

Or, maybe, they just enjoy seeing their kids gloriously happy for a few minutes.

In any case, despite the leaner, meaner economy, today’s children are more likely than ever to get exactly what they want.

The economic influence of children has been growing 15% to 20% a year, faster than any other market, said James U. McNeal, a marketing professor at Texas A & M University.

Last year, children younger than 12 directly influenced $187 billion worth of spending in the United States and indirectly influenced $450 billion more, he said. Just 10 years ago, kids influenced only 20% of the clothing their parents bought them; now it’s 70%, McNeal said.

“It’s a direct result of Mom and Dad bringing kids into the decision-making process,” he said. Not to mention a result of the advertisers who target kids for everything from toys and fast food to family cars.

Children’s nagging has also increased over the previous generation, said Massachusetts psychologist Anthony Wolf, author of “It’s Not Fair . . . A Guide to the Tougher Parts of Parenting.” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995). Wolf thinks it’s partly because children are less afraid now of being hit by parents for appearing to be greedy and piggish.

But while whining for stuff is “100% normal,” he said it can get ugly. “One hears of kids saying to their parents, ‘I’ll never love you again if you don’t. . . .’ ”

The worst are the kids who won’t let up. “They will say, ‘If I could just get that, it’s the only thing I want. If I don’t get it, I’m really going to be sad,’ ” he said. “At that moment, if you came down with a lie detector, it would show they’re telling the truth. Yet, if they don’t get it, they’re not that sad at all. Their actual needs are not exactly what they think they are.”

Even after a successful tantrum, some kids realize total victory wasn’t mandatory. An acquaintance recalls giving in unhappily to a nagging child, only to have the child ask later why she was so grumpy. “Because I didn’t want to get you that toy. I can’t really afford it,” she replied. “Well then,” said the child with perfect logic, “Why didn’t you just say no?”

The real secret in turning down pleading kids is to let them know, without emotion, that they don’t have a prayer. As parenting techniques go, “Nothing even comes close to being as effective,” Wolf said.

Speed in decision making, one way or the other, is also crucial, he said. “If it goes on for 10 minutes of whining and fussing, it gives children the message that ‘If I hang in there long enough, I can wear them down.’ ”

In many cases, the begged-for toys are discarded, stuffed in a closet or forgotten within weeks. No matter how much or how little they get, kids, like the rest of us, will ultimately face the reality that whatever it is that makes us truly happy has nothing at all to do with stuff.

* Lynn Smith’s column appears on Wednesdays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. Please include a telephone number.