Family Economics in "Bluey"

A deeper look into our buying impulses

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In my previous post I talked about helping both parents and kids avoid avoiding impulse buying. Can a shopping list’s negative space tell you what not to buy? Sure! Will it always work?

Well, let’s see if it would work in a test case. As an example, I’ll use the chaos of a family shopping trip as depicted in the “Hammerbarn” episode from the megahit kids’ show, Bluey. 

Bluey is a show about an anthropomorphic family of cartoon dogs. Each seven-minute episode shows simple, believable family dilemmas. It’s been described as a show for adults disguised as a kids’ show. I know I’m not the only parent who’s kept watched it when their kids have left the room.

Here’s a clip from the episode. The family is at the “Hammerbarn” store looking for a new pizza oven. While you’re watching it, ask yourself: why does each member of the family want what they want at the store?

Bandit (the dad) wants a pizza oven because their neighbor has one, and he is not willing to bear the disgrace of being the only pizza-ovenless dad in the neighborhood. Chilli, the mom, reasons that a pizza oven is no good without a cutter, but while she’s looking at cutters, she’s drawn to buy a pizza stone as well. The kids just want whatever their sibling has, so they want duplicates of everything. On reflection, you can see that the adult’s motivations aren’t so different. One thing leads to another, and in the end, the family exits the store with a huge pile of things that they don’t need.

Oof, it hits home. The episode reminds me that when we buy things, we don’t just buy the thing. The choices that all of us make (even kids) are wrapped up with values, goals, self-concept, prejudices, rivalries, and social expectations.

That’s why it’s so important to have a buying plan before you enter a store. It’s why you need a budget. It helps align your values with your actions. Bluey’s family didn’t have a plan. They found themselves at the store believing that they were looking for a pizza oven, but they were actually looking for a pizza oven + status (Bandit’s choice). Then they were looking for a good cooking experience and to keep the kids happy (Chilli’s choice). Then they were searching for the soul of justice itself, which the children believed was violated if one sibling possessed a single item that the other one didn't. (“That pizza flipper is all I want in the whole world!”)

Kendra Adachi aka “The Lazy Genius” advises people to “name what matters.” It’s important to talk through family buying choices when making a spending plan, to find out what values are driving our decisions. You might be able to meet those same goals without opening your wallet.

So how did my advice about impulse buying from my previous post hold up in light of Bluey’s trip to Hammerbarn? Pretty well I think. I’d just add that talking and thinking with the kids about what’s on the shopping list is a good first step. It's important to find the real “why.”

Bluey has a lot more lessons about family economics, which I’m happy to share below. I’ve written a journal article about teaching economics using Bluey. It’s called “Bluey-conomics: It’s Not All About the Money,” co-authored with Alexa Quinn (whose idea it was to do the article) and Lauren Shifflett of James Madison University. I can’t share the full article with you yet, since it’s now making its way bravely through the Fire Swamp of peer review. But I can share some conversation-starters from it, with links to video clips:

Family conversation-starters from Bluey. (Quinn et al., in review.)

• “In ‘Fancy Restaurant,’ why does Bandit eat the yucky food that his children make? (Because Chilli and the children being happy is more important to him than eating something that he likes.)

• In ‘Grannies,’ what does Chilli mean by the question ‘Do you want to be right, or do you want Bingo to play with you?’ (It means that when we make a choice, we have to give up something else. In this story, Bluey had to give up winning the argument if she wanted Bingo to keep playing the game.)

• In ‘Mr. Monkeyjocks,’ why did the kids suddenly like a toy so much that they never played with? (Because they didn’t like the idea of something being taken away from them, even if they usually didn’t play with it. Also, Mr. Monkeyjocks is the toy they might actually lose; the other toys are safe. It was the ‘marginal toy.”)

• In ‘Hammerbarn,’ the family becomes sadder even though they go shopping. Why can shopping sometimes make us grumpy? (Because sometimes shopping reminds us of things that we don’t have, rather than letting us be happy with what we actually do have.)

• What are some things that you want, but you can’t get with money? Does it take money to have friends? (No, you don’t need money to make or keep real friends. Other things that you can’t buy with money are better rules in a playground game; family time; or giving someone a hug!)”

C.S. Lewis wrote that “a children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children isn’t a good children’s story.” Everyone enjoys Bluey because it reflects our own lives so vividly. That’s why it’s such a good resource for thinking more deeply about why we make the family decisions that we do.

I’ll do another post on Bluey later, when the article comes out!