Possibly Nonsensical Venting

In one of my major related classes we had a discussion about advertising to children. The topic was: “Do you think that it’s ok to market to children?”

I did not fair well in that discussion and it pissed me off. Then on the drive home I had a crap load of after thoughts that I could have used in class and that made me even more mad. So now I’m venting.

“Points” I made in class:

- Parents should be parents first, the child’s friend second
- Kids will judge their worth based on what they have or don’t have
- I can’t fathom what it’s like to be a parent

Yeah. Great points, huh. So in being mad at myself I mentally vented on the ride home:

Sure I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent, but my perspective is from someone who sees how parents interact with their kids. I see how parents cave when their kids kick and scream. I see how parents put their foot down when their kids kick and scream. Also, I was once somebody’s bratty 6 year old and I can draw from that experience. I don’t agree with advertisers marketing to children, however it’s a multi-billion dollar industry and so it’s not going to stop. Knowing that, parents need to step in and do something about it.


One lady in my class said that parents are busy and they don’t have time to talk to their kid about things. The fact is parents will just want their kids to shut up and so they get them the toy or the game. She mentioned that if you’re not a parent you don’t know what it’s like. I agreed with her there. (My third “point”) However like I said before, I’m coming from the stand point of someone who sees the kid interacting with the parent. I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent, but how in the heck do you justify finding the time to run out to the store and hunt for this item for your kid but you can’t seem to find time to talk to you kid about how their worth isn’t in material things? How are you woke enough to drive to the store and get your 7 year old “Grand Theft Auto” but you can’t say no and explain why or say the ever popular, “Because I said so, now do your homework”? How is it that you can find time to surf the net for bargains on an item that you don’t even want you kid to have for 10-20 minutes but you can’t find time to talk to your kid?

Kids are going to test their limits. If parents always cave for their kids even though they may not have talked to their kids about their decision the kids now know, “If I say ‘jump’ mommy and daddy will ask, “how high”. Like with any leadership position if you always bow and bend you will not be respected and if something goes wrong because you bowed and bended the people who encouraged you to do so will be the first to criticize you. Likewise with kids, if the parent allows the kid to eat everything under the sun (for example) and the kid gains weight the first thing the kid’s going to say is, “You allowed me to get fat!” (but the parent doesn’t have be a prick about it, but that’s another topic) If a leader stands his/her ground, makes the hard decisions even if people kick and scream in the end they will be respected ESPECIALLY if what they did was the right thing. Likewise with kids, they’ll get over not getting that pony, iPhone, or everything “High School Musical” under the sun. When they get older, and I know this from personal experience, they’ll respect you. They won’t ask you for everything under the sun because they know how mom and dad are. They know mom and dad aren’t going to jump just because they said jump.

One of my peers said that his mom’s boyfriend’s kids love Mickey Ds. Even if dinner is already made if the kids won’t eat it the dad will run out to Mickey Ds and get them food from there because he knows they’ll eat it. While I was searching online there was an article on an experiment that showed that when food was in a Mickey Ds wrapper kids were more likely to say they enjoyed the food as opposed to food not in a Mickey Ds wrapper…and it’s the same food. So maybe he should invest in some Mickey Ds wrappers. Lol! J/k. When I was younger and I wouldn’t eat what was at home my parents told me, “This is what we have take it or leave it” and you know what it worked.
(they may have tried to convince me to eat the food before resorting to the aforementioned line…moving on)

One of the solutions that were being thrown around in class was to have more friendly advertising. I really don’t see how that’s going to help. It seems that friendly advertising would just aim more directly at kids. Maybe I’m missing something here. Also they talked about having the government regulate the advertisements aimed at kids. We didn’t really talk about that in depth and I don’t know how that’s going to work.

There are studies that show that ads influences kids about big ticket items like expensive cars. In turn the kid nags the parent and the parent buys the car. Hold up! Your 6 year old can dictate to you what car to buy? If that’s true your officially a bad parent. Your 6 year old’s friend’s dad gave him a ride home in his Hummer and now your kid thinks that Hummers are the coolest thing ever. They see an ad for Hummers and they start nagging you about getting a Hummer and how cool it was that their friend’s dad has one so you should get one too. Now you’ve already said you’re tired when you get home from a regular shift. So now you’re going to work overtime to get a Hummer that will be under your name, that your kid can’t drive, and that your kid will be disenchanted with when the next cool car comes along. Your. Kid. Is. Mother. Fricken. Six. Years. OLD!!! You know what; even at 16 your kid shouldn’t be able to do that. (and if you nip it in the bud at 6 you probably won’t have that problem at 16) Someone in the class mentioned that some parents do it because they feel they have to keep up with the Jones. I guess this POV had a lot to do with the fact that I could give a rat’s butt about keeping up with the Jones. If the Jones wants to get a gas guzzling Hummer more power to them. If the Jones wants to get a huge house and they want to handle that huge mortgage then that’s their problem. If the Jones wants to spoil their kids rotten as long as they don’t ask me to baby sit then it’s whatever. But as for me I’m going to keep my little Saturn Ion. I’m going to get a house I can afford rather than try to keep up with the Jones and get a house I know I can’t handle just to say that I’m as good or better. (This is in no way a reference to the housing crisis our country is going through.) If I have kids my future husband and I are not going to buy them everything under the sun. They will not be spoiled. They can brag about the material things they have and I can brag about the drama I don’t have. :) Don’t let the Jones get you down! Lol.

So then after I finished mental venting about all the stuff a point that one of my classmates made came to mind. He said acknowledged that everyone in the class didn’t agree with advertisers marketing and selling to kids. He also said that a lot of us will have be in the advertising industry, so how do we have room to talk of we’re going to end up doing the very thing we swear we’re against? Why does money change things? Are your really against it if you’re willing to make it your career of choice? Another classmate brought up that there may be people in the industry who don’t agree with advertising towards kids, but they’re not going to tell their boss, “Hey, about 10 years go in this class I took I felt that advertising to kids was bad and I’m standing by it.” No, you’re given an assignment and it’s your job to do it. Imo, these points were one of the best points made in the whole discussion.

Whew. I’m glad I got that out of my system.