Wine, Technology and Expectations About Money

Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1093478

A friend visited an exclusive Melbourne restaurant last weekend. When we caught up on Monday afternoon, she couldn’t wait to show me photos of her evening. I was expecting the usual food porn shots, but instead I was presented with an image of the wine list where she showed me the price of the cheapest bottle of Chardonnay ($105) and the most expensive ($4800).

Yes, you read that right. Almost $5000 for a bottle of wine to go with dinner. Personally, I hope that for that price the bottle was plated in gold and delivered to the table by both Brad Pitt AND George Clooney. A chorus of angels singing and a shaft of light shining down from heaven onto the bottle would be a nice touch as well.

I found it mind-blowing that anyone could justify spending that much on so little. I understand the wine connoisseur thing (I actually have family involved in the wine-making industry), but I still cannot reconcile such an excessive cost for something that is a luxury (ie want not need) at $20 a bottle let alone $5000.

I was a bit eye-rolly but had more or less forgotten about it until an email arrived in my inbox today from my children’s school that got me all fired up again about society’s attitude about money.

The school is hoping to implement a new tech plan over the next couple of years that will include integration of individual technology devices into the classrooms. Their suggestion was that iPads would be a good Christmas gift idea for primary school aged students who could then bring the devices along to the classroom for their lessons. The school would be ‘encouraging’ parents to provide their primary school-aged children with iPads for classroom use.

I should say up front that I totally agree that our attitude to technology and education needs an adjustment. Computer Studies is no longer something that can be sectioned off into a 45 minute lessons three times a week. Technology is part of our everyday lives. It is part of how we communicate, process information and generally function. I think kids should be learning how to competently and meaningfully use technology in the way they learn.

But, the phrase ‘a good Christmas present!’ after stating that parents would be encouraged to provide iPads for primary school-aged children made me both angry and incredibly disappointed. What does it say about our attitude to money as a society that a school executive could so casually suggest that the purchase of an expensive piece of technology for a child? Is $700+ for a single gift for a child for Christmas (or any other time) something that we should regard as commonplace, even expected? Something that a school could reasonably expect, and actively suggest, that parents to do?

I have so many friends working long hours to pay bills and keep their families functioning. Some families do this out of necessity, of course, but I see it happening in so many families so that they can afford after school activities, school fees, overseas holidays and the latest gadgets because these things are no longer seen as luxuries and treats, they are regarded as routine and necessities.

I’m not saying that we should all opt for the cheapest option all the time. While I am nowhere near prepared to pay a four figure sum for a bottle of wine, I was also hesitant to drink the $4 bottle offered to me at a family BBQ recently with the reassuring comment ‘It doesn’t taste all that good, but we don’t want to waste it and it was a bargain.’ We don’t need to budget ourselves into the dark ages, but I do think we need to ask what our expectations about money say about our attitudes and priorities, especially if those expectations are then extended to affect others.

The two issues, the wine and the iPad gift, bother me for completely different reasons although both reflect an attitude towards money that I find offensive.

I think anyone purchasing the wine needs to take a good look at their priorities and perhaps help out at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter occasionally to gain some perspective. It is obviously a matter of personal choice, although if I knew someone willing to buy this wine, I think I would pass their phone number along to the extremely awesome Cate Bolt so that she could tell them just what their $5000 could achieve for the children in her orphanage.

The iPad statement coming from a school highlights a whole range of expectations that I find extremely disappointing. We are to subscribe to their chosen brand of product and their timeline for offering that product to our children. We are, apparently, to regard $700 as a reasonable amount to pay for a Christmas gift. Of course, they could argue that we as parents can choose to not provide that device. I have to wonder what the impact of that would be socially and educationally for the children whose parents choose to not supply the equipment requested by the school.

I know I’ve squished two different issues together into one post, but they are both about money and both made me cranky, so they kind of ended up on the page together. I’d love to know what you think about parents providing technology for kids to use at school, your price limits for Christmas gifts or just tell me who you would choose to have deliver your bottle of wine to justify a $5000 price tag.