Life Made in China

It's extremely rare to get a date when you have four children. But my husband and I had the unlikely opportunity to get just that today, and we took the grandparents up on their offer so fast we left skid marks in the driveway. But we stupidly forgot, as we headed out, into the world that it was Black Friday.

I have not indulged in Black Friday since the fall of 1997, and I have not missed one moment of it. I don't care if laptops are being given away for free. I cannot usually be enticed. But today, the offer was a free moment with my husband, so off we went with very little direction (or care really) as to where we would be going.

There was one stipulation, outside the parameters of our very obvious budget, and that was to avoid anything, absolutely anything made in China.

No offense to the Chinese. I am, personally, very impressed with their ancient culture, art, their many contributions to the world, and, especially, their irresistible food. But I cannot condone their government's atrocious civil rights violations, and I cannot continue to purchase one more of the items made by their people at the expense of mine. Again, no offense.

So, my husband and I spent several hours walking around Best Buy and Target. We completely avoided the suicidal parking lot at the mall, and we found several items we were thoroughly satisfied with: A set of Tinker Toys at 50% off the regular price, Apples to Apples board game (so heavily recommended to us on conservative radio), some educational software for our son who needs a little encouragement in language arts, a wall calendar of Nuns Having Fun, and one more of the Philadelphia Eagles. I had turned down a less expensive geography board game, and we decided to pick up a Christmas doormat for the front door.

Just as we were nearing the checkout counter my husband asked, "Did we check to see if any of these items were made in China?"

Oh no. We hadn't. I had completely forgotten. The cheap prices. The easy access. The pure availability and encouragement of the Best Buy and Target staff had distracted me from verifying that one singularly important fact. This year we were not going to toss our shrinking American dollar at China. This year, we were going to buy All American.

I turned the Tinker Toys over. Made in China. Completely. Assembled and created in the land of the Great Wall. Apples to Apples? Made in China. The Philadelphia Eagles - named for the symbol of our nation? Made in China. The nuns? Yes, them too, and the Christmas mat. Well, that was made in India, but India is not America, and we had made a promise to the nation who had given us (and our huddled and amassed ancestors) the fulfilled dream of a free life in the United States. We had promised to invest in her this Christmas. We put the items back.

Back the items went. We had been so close to check-out. The line would grow as we tripped over people still in their pajamas at 2pm from pre-dawn sales. There would be many murmurs of "Excuse me." "Can you move that?" "Oh were you looking for this? You can have it. It was made in China."

That last line I really enjoyed repeating. Really enjoyed it and people gave me frightened and wary looks. No one took the items. Sorry China. Sorry Target.

Merry Christmas, America. We did not sell you out this Christmas.

In 2001, 2.7 million jobs were outsourced to China. There have been estimates that more than 90% of American household items - from clothes to appliances to even children's books - are made in China. Our cars are foreign, even the ones with the American names. Nearly all twenty-four hour technology phone support services are outsourced to India, China, Indonesia, etc...Our dollar is loosing its shine, and our bosses have realized, to our detriment, that Americans are expensive to hire. They require more expensive health insurance, better pay, and then there are those environmental regulations. It just makes sense, if you want to go really cheap, to go 100% outside of America for just about every purchase, every job.

But China doesn't give us our Constitution. China doesn't plan on repairing our near defunct social security issues, and she won't care about us when we complain about how she tortures women, religious, and murders children when they become too many.

We are selling our future to China, and she cannot determine anything for us, except that she will give us lead-laced toys and more reason to stand in the unemployment line. Want to give your children a real gift this Christmas? Invest in their future. Buy American.

After a few more minutes of investigation, we discovered that the geography game proudly displayed the bright red words MADE IN THE USA! Exclamation mark included, and after we sadly put the Chinese software back, we uncovered two books in the "30% off" section that were invented, printed, and being sold in America, and we thought maybe one of the antique stores in our small Pennsylvania mountain town might have a vintage Christmas welcome mat that would add to our family's holiday front porch greeting every year.

Our holiday greeting this year (besides Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukah)? Keep America a Super Power! Invest in her! It will work. If we all encourage the movement, the movement of America, it will work.