Bust free from the Wal Mart mentality! I dare you!

So basically, this one girl who's brand new to this post crochets stuff to sell. It's really cute, like blankets, and little baby headbands, and stuff like that. Her prices are very fair when you consider the quality of materials and the time it takes to make the stuff. If this next baby is a girl, I'll totally buy some headbands from her, because it's really adorable for little baby girls to wear those crocheted headbands, with a big bow attached to it (like the bows we already have for Erin, which, by the way, were also all bought from private individuals, either at local craft shows, or on etsy.)

Well, this other girl totally gawked at the crafter girl's prices, which, like I said, were very fair when you consider the amount of time it takes to make this stuff. She said, "I can get 10 of those for $20! Why would I pay what you're charging??" First of all, how rude. Secondly, fine. Don't pay what she's charging. Keep buying stuff that was made in a sweatshop in China, but hey, it's cheap.

I think a lot of people have a really unrealistic view of what things cost, and it is because we can walk into any of these major retailers and get stuff for a totally impossibly low price because it was made by kids barely any older than the ones we buy this stuff for, in sweatshops halfway across the world, for pennies per hour. I know that nobody in this world lives an entirely sweatshop-free life, in this age of outsourcing, but when you have a choice between a product that's obviously made in good conditions by a person who actually wanted to make it for you, or something made in a sweatshop by child labor, how can you not choose the product from the local work-at-home-mom?

I guess since I used to run a business not terribly different from hers, I just identify with how frustrating it is to be expected to compete with Wal Mart all the time. People expect you to work for slave wages, and sell at prices that would actually COST you money in the end, just because things appear on our store shelves every day for cheaper than any American can possibly ever make them, and that doesn't occur to people. "Well, why CAN'T you sell me that for $3?" Well, gee, maybe because I don't WANT to work for $1.50 an hour.

It just offends me that so many people have gotten so used to things just being super cheap all the time that they ask really bad things of work-at-home-moms and individual artisans every single day. It's ridiculous, and people need to realize that paying what it really costs is the right thing to do. These same people, ironically, are the first ones to talk about how important it is to buy American. Buying from private individuals in your local area, is the epitome of buying American. Get with the program, people. That headband really does cost $7. Pay the lady for her time. You would want the same if it were you.