Kids grow fast, it's a fact of life. Even for parents who appreciate quality themselves, sometimes it can be tough to justify the added expense of buying quality things for our children. However, the perceived “savings” of outfitting our kids cheaply might be misleading. Here's a case for buying quality, even for children.



1) Quality lasts. Just like cheap electronics, inexpensive clothing for kids is designed to fall apart. It generally makes it through one child, a little bit like the warranty period. If the $4 t-shirt falls apart in the wash after two months, we tend to let it slide – the “oh, it was only $4” phenomenon. It is easy to get sucked into the buy it new, use it a little, throw it out cycle. The difference became apparent to me when I bought some really nice used organic cotton clothing for my daughter. The clothes had already been through several kids, and they will last through several more after my child is done with them. Better stewardship of resources, and a lot less shopping for me.

2) Quality works better. Every kid needs a sleeping bag, and it seems like every parent heads to their nearest big box store to get one. For $20 (or $30, or $40), you get a sleeping bag that weighs 6 pounds, is useless when wet, and probably isn't any warmer than your child's bed comforter. For $60 (or $70, or $80), you get a 2.5 pound sleeping bag that will keep your child comfortable and happy in most outdoor conditions. My guess is that most parents suffering through a night of camping with an unhappy child would gladly spend an extra $50 for a good night's sleep.

3) Quality comes in more variety. I sometimes envy the parents I see shopping for shoes at the local discount retailer. My daughter has narrow feet, so nothing in those places fits her. I know parents of kids with fat feet, wide feet, stinky feet, different sized feet, who all have trouble finding shoes that properly fit their children. We've all found our way to a great little store carrying high end kids shoes. As with many other kids of products, quality shoes fit a much wider range of kids, cheaper shoes are made to fit the average foot.

4) Quality encourages care. In our “throw away” society, we don't worry too much when things break. Some of the toys my daughter has seem to have a half life of about 10 minutes. If I don't care about how she treats these toys, she doesn't either. I don't like the lessons that teaches. I'm much more careful with the handmade blocks her daddy spent hours making, and as a result, my daughter takes much better care of them too. I want her to become attached to her treasures, take care of them. That's hard to due if the treasure is due to break sometime in the next week.

5) Quality reduces clutter. Basic laws of economics say that the more expensive things are, the less of them we tend to buy. Those $60 shoes I buy for my daughter? I only buy one pair. The discount rack parents somehow end up with 5 pairs – no less expensive, and they have 10 shoes to stash, I only have 2. I don't know of any parent that isn't desperately fighting clutter. Buying good things, and less of them, is one good way to have a long term impact on clutter mountain.

Buying quality for kids isn't the answer every time. But the cheap stuff comes at a price too. You might be surprised at the nice side benefits of carefully considered quality purchases for your child.