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Originally Posted by ZTAMiami
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Interesting, but they lost me with this:
CCFC supports the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant consumerism.
Like so many other groups and movements, CCFC seems to take a reasonable idea -- understanding and countering commercialism directed at kids -- and takes it to a ridiculous extreme. Where is it writ that children have a "right . . . to grow up . . . without being undermined by rampant consumerism"? I know of no such "right." I certainly did not have the benefit of that right in the 1960s. It's not that I don't think consumerism directed at children doesn't exist or isn't a problem. It's that I don't think the "solutions" offered by groups like Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood are actual solutions.
Drolefille is exactly right -- don't blame the companies for capitalizing on the fact that too many parents lack backbones. The reality is that commercialism pervades our society. My opinion (note: my opinion) is that kids are worse off if we try to shield them from it, because sooner or later they will have to face it. I think my kids are better off learning to see through it now.
How does my 8-year-old know to tell his sister not to believe everything she sees in advertising? Because we let him spend some of his valuable money on something he saw an ad for and had to have. We told him it didn't look worth anything, but we let him decide. I'm glad we did -- he was very disappointed in the product and learned not to trust commercials. Now when his sister sees a commercial and says "I really want that," he answers "You may think you do, but be careful. They make things sound great in the commercials so you'll buy them, and then they turn out to be not that great."
For my money, that's much better than spending time fighting for his "right to grow up without being undermined by rampant consumerism."
I'll have my Ovaltine now, Little Orphan Annie.