Christmas, a time for families and friends to get together in order to celebrate the time they have together. However, for some Christmas creates a time of grueling work or self-hatred. Among all holidays, Christmas prevails in dividing social classes the best.
While most children believe their favorite toys and accessories come from a magical workshop with teeny tiny elves, real people work self-destructive hours away from their loved ones. Sweatshops in China and other places are a main provider for toy manufacturing in the United States and the mistreatment behind them is devastating. Most workers in these shops reside in a poor state, working to make toys more fortunate people will use. Labor laws in these places are loose and create inhumane working conditions for their employees.
“I don’t think it should happen at all,” sophomore Will Ritter said. “My family’s been pretty good about this, we get stuff where we know it’s not affecting people like that because it’s disgusting to me.”
Despite the long hours and hard work, these families do it for a reason. They may do it to pay off taxes or to afford gifts for their children. Most parents go through with the commercialization of Christmas because of the look of overwhelming joy they get to see on their children’s faces. Here share similar emotions and feel delighted to receive presents, even grateful.
“I feel very grateful,” sophomore Macie Mendoza said. “Not a lot of people have the ability to get gifts.”
Children from lower-class families often go through the holidays without receiving a gift due to their parent’s economic status. These kids grow up thinking that in Santa’s eyes they were not good enough because Santa does not give presents to “naughty kids.” They might become spiteful of the holidays or lash out due to believing that no matter how strong their efforts are they would never be good enough. The idea of Santa presents an injustice to those who can not afford the expensive ideology, and it creates hatred inside those affected by it.
This feeling of hatred only gets worse in families with generational poverty. When in the presence of people with higher economic standing, they will see all the things they were unable to acquire. They will hear stories from other people’s childhoods about how great Christmas made them feel, and how they ALWAYS got a present. This will cause ill feelings towards others with greater amounts of money than them, making it harder to fit into social settings.
Christmas is controversial and creates an even bigger division of classes. With the injustice it brings to poorer classes, Christmas in itself is an injustice.
While one enjoys the season, it is important to remember others and to try and make a difference.
