All Things Doodley
by Christa C. Hogan

I was in Target the other day, looking for a birthday gift for my niece, and I came across a drawing toy on steroids. You know the little magnetic boards you doodle on with a special pen and then wipe clean with the swish of a button? Except this one came with a collection of geometric magnets that would make the Lucky Charms guy jealous – blue stars, pink diamonds, green clovers. I exaggerate, but you get the picture. And as I eyed the overpriced little thing strategically displayed at eye level, I couldn’t help but think of my younger sister, Rebecca.

Now a senior in nursing school at a prestigious Upstate New York university, Rebecca still harbors a secret yearning for the ultimate drawing toy, the Magna Doodle. The Magna Doodle made its first birthday wish list appearance when she was 10. She must have hinted about it to Mom a million times, but when her birthday arrived, no Magna Doodle. Rebecca, buried her disappointment and decided to bide her time. At Christmas, she reopened the case for the Magna Doodle, only to be disappointed again. But she didn’t give up. The Magna Doodle continued to appear on birthday and Christmas wish lists for years, well beyond a time when it would have been considered a cool toy by her teenage friends.

Why this obsession with a fairly benign toy? It wasn’t the Magna Doodle itself, Rebecca will tell you if you ask, but the principal of the thing. It was the fact that our mom was the queen of, ahem, cheap. She rarely got us the cool toys we asked for – Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, My Little Ponies – unless they were to be had at bargain basement prices. Unfortunately for my sister, Magna Doodles were one of those perennially popular items.

Our family was solidly middle class, so Mom’s thrift wasn’t so much out of need as, well, the principle of it. Mom, a product of her European, post World War II upbringing, believed that going without taught children gratitude and self-denial, and battled insidious American materialism. The secret to life, according to her philosophy, was having what you needed and wanting what you had. A wise way to live.

Now as an at-home mom on a budget, I find that I’ve inherited her thrifty genes. I find myself asking, “How little can I spend and still be a good mom?” Yes, I want the best for my son. But I also want him to know gratitude, how to find happiness without “stuff.” I want him to understand that there are children in the world who have less and who still manage to go on – like his Aunt Rebecca.

In the end, I decided on a compromise for my niece’s gift: I bought the drawing toy when it went on sale. I think my sister and Mom would both be proud, and I don’t have to worry about my niece growing up with an obsession for all things “doodley.”