It’s funny how I don’t know things. I realize how egotistical that sounds, but sometimes I do feel like obvious things slip past my grasp. For instance, in December I asked for some advice on Twitter regarding how I should explain to Miles that we were going to donate his old toys — if I should explain it to him or leave it be. I mentioned taking them to Salvation Army; I figured this would be a good deed, considering I’ve gotten most of Miles’s clothes in the past year at Salvation Army.

I was informed (kindly and by a person I respect) that Salvation Army has a pretty skeezy track recording regarding it’s stance toward homosexuality and abortion. I tend to be a little more lenient toward religious organizations — I get it. People and businesses are entitled to their religious views, and those don’t always align with my own personal and religious views. But some of the nasty business surrounding their views on homosexuality bothers me more than I’m willing to overlook. Plus: I discovered they’re Protestant. What kind of Catholic am I?¹

So. Now we need a new poor people shop, stat. Which got me thinking: when we’ve got a great big nation full of people whose wallets are getting thinner and thinner, how are we supposed to shop consciously and socially? I mean, let me be honest here: it’s been an ugly couple of months for us, and most of my shopping is done on a “Where can I get this cheapest?” basis. This means WalMart and the Salvation Army.

There’s great things about shopping at a thrift store: reusing, reducing demand for shipping new goods, reduced costs. All I have to say about WalMart is that if I shop carefully, I can get my groceries significally cheaper than anywhere else. If I’m not going deeper than that — and I often don’t — then I can gloss over the fact that I’m giving my money to organizations that do not share my values. Because these organizations help me keep my family above water, so to speak. As my toddler goes through absolutely comical growth spurts, I buy his jeans from Salvation Army and his shoes² from WalMart and think to myself, Someday I’ll do it better, when I have the chance.

During my brief stint in college I had to write and read an argument that WalMart keeps communities poor. Unfortunately I don’t have the handout anymore, because fuck that Expos class, but I disagreed with it. While WalMart is most certainly an evil, its an evil that gives people jobs and more food than they’d get at the grocery store.

I love the idea of shopping locally, of sticking to goods that have been made in the United States, of shopping to my values within my means, but I think it’s largely glossed over that this isn’t always the most practical option. While you most certain can feed a family organically and locally without spending your entire paycheck on groceries, you do end up spending more time with your food than I believe the average poor person has at their disposal. Shopping consciously requires a certain amount of education — not necessarily in the classic sense, but in that you need to know why it matters, you need to know why a particular shop is bad and another is good. You need to know how to shop and where to look.

I don’t know how to make it better. I think that’s what’s the most frustrating. It was as simple as “If everyone did _____, it would all be okay!” then I could get behind it. But it’s not. When we need to go pick up some household staples, we’re going to head out to WalMart to do it because it’s where we’ll spend the least money. Because while my values matter, so does surviving — and I need enough to feed my gigantor child.

However, I do have a solution for the toys: Freecycle. No one profits from it, it goes to families in my community, and I can feel like I’ve done a good deed. I haven’t gotten around to doing it yet, mostly because I’m lazy as fuck, but that’s the way I’m going to pass these toys on.

1. If it’s your first day here: that’s a joke. I don’t know if it’s a joke all Catholic families have, but for a laugh I should have one of my fathers-in-law share his views on Protestant whiskey.

2. He just jumped in shoe size from a 7 to a 9. I was flabbergasted. Also: children having growth spurts are expensive.

2. If you happened to see the big ol’ block of text version, sorry about that; I’m trying out a different blogging client. I gotta stop doing that.