A Cluttered Life: Middle Class Abundance Video Analysis

The video “A Cluttered Life: Middle-Class Abundance” illustrated the overwhelm issue of keeping toys and gifts within an average American family. According to the video, middle class families were represented as they lived in their own house and had both parents working at least 30 hours a week. The video illustrates that those families have too much material possession, it said that toys “spill out” everywhere inside the house. It actually describes this act as a “material culture” towards toys and memorable gifts. This material culture issue doesn’t evolve only from the children as they have too much unnecessary toys, but also from the parents who are also part of this issue, described as they are sentimental towards the toys. Including those factors, the video explains that it creates child culture as a whole, a “child centered house”.
Parents as well as the children have hard time leaving with certain items. Those items could be old toys, gifts or even a piece of clothing. These old items are left out thought out years in individual’s life, which makes it harder to find additional space for the new items. Hoarding is not only a problem of getting a cluttered house, since constant purchase of new items could lead to cluttering the house.
The clutter issue also includes old clothing. The media constantly imposes new trends. Because of it, clothing companies come out with new clothes every season. This is a highly noticeable act especially among the teenagers, since their clothes usually determinates what group of friends they will