The Lifestyle Creep

I am not an eloquent extemporaneous speaker. I get over-emotional. I stutter and add "um" and "like" and say stupid things that I don't mean in my efforts to circle around to what I do mean. If I come across half as bumbling and tongue-tied as I feel sometimes, then people must be wondering how I got that diploma that hangs so proudly on the playroom wall.

The answer: I wrote my way through college, and oddly enough, the above scenario does not happen if I am in front of a large group of people.

That random intro was to set up this bit of thought. A few weeks ago in small group, I attempted to explain to the girls what I was struggling with that week. I talked about raising my kids around affluence, and my disdain for the misused affluence I see everywhere right now, and the tension that comes with knowing that we are headed for an affluent lifestyle. I tried to get at the fear of crossing the line, turning wants into needs and misleading my kids. But I think it came out like, "we don't have a lot of money now, you know? but, like, someday we're probably going to have more money, and how do I teach my kids to not care about money when everyone else, you know, like, reeeeaaally cares about money?"

Basically, I have been wondering how it happens - at what point will we decide that we can't live without cable and 2 cell phones and family ski trips? When will we not think twice about everything from paying a babysitter to remodeling a bathroom? I heard a name for it on the radio the other day, and I think it's one of the most descriptive terms I've heard. (And helpful! I wish I'd known it when I was babbling through my struggles that night). The Lifestyle Creep.

This is one of those touchy things to talk about in South Florida, because The Lifestyle Creep is essentially The American Dream. Here, we *need* a room or two, a kitchen, a car, insurance, etc. The multiple cars, cell phones, cable, private schools, ipods, mortgages "creep" up on us, and instead of recognizing them as things that keep us from being able to give more, we thank God for our many blessings. That's what I hear more often than anything: "That's just how God chooses to bless that person." "There's nothing wrong with having a nice house...car...vacation home (which in SoFla language means a 4,000 sq ft. waterfront home...$40,000 SUV...5/4 mountainview cabin), if that's what God has given you."

And I just can't make that make sense. I don't want to say there's anything wrong with having a "nice" house/car/whatever - even by SoFla standards, but ...Biblically? What does that say to the parents of the 5,000 kids starving to death each day around the world? What are your thoughts?
(Excuse me, that would be the 16,000 children dying every day)