The focus of this thesis is to understand the influence of affordability and social media in the decision of Swedish parents regarding fast fashion decisions for their children and how parents experience the tension between practical constraints and sustainability. Using semi-structured interviews with ten Swedish parents, the data were collected and examined using thematic analysis and provides an insight into how parents make decisions about consumption in the complexities of digital consumer societies.

In total, five themes were identified that together, capture parental decision-making: Affordability as the Organizing Logic, Selective Sustainability, Digital Complicity, Emotional Tension, and Aspirational Movement. The themes indicate how parents navigate competing priorities within practical limitations and demonstrate some agency and vulnerability in their decisions to consume.

The findings establish that affordability was the most significant organizing principle for parents' decision-making, determining what parents ultimately decide upon but also determining how parents perceive different choices and how they rationalized their decision-making. Parents practice sustainability, selectively rather than holistically, and are creative in demonstrating their values under financial constraints. Parents exercise a complex relationship with social media, actively engaging with digital media while using filtering strategies to separate social media sources based on authenticity and relevance. Many parents experience emotional tension around the discrepancy between the ideals or values they espouse and their consumption behaviors creating a variety of societal justification strategies and future-based narratives for maintaining an acceptable self-image.

The findings add to theoretical knowledge, extending upon Consumer Decision-Making Theory by introducing the idea of dual agency complexity, through Social Influence Theory by illustrating parents' selective receptivity to digital influence, for studies on the "attitude-behavior gap", by demonstrating how parents compartmentalize sustainability practices, and introduces the notion of "temporal ethical framing", where parents ethically frame their current choices and behaviors as trajectories of aspiration towards more sustainable purchases and consumption practices.

The findings have real-world implications for fashion brands, policymakers, parent communities and parents themselves about the potential for sustained children's fashion consumption that recognizes parents' situational constraints and to better support parents working to align their consumption behaviors with their values.