Thanks to Lisa, over at Corporate Babysitter for these two gross posts that have my anti-childhood commercialism mind reeling. ARGH.
First, commenting on Shrek’s outrageous full throttle marketing blitz and near complete ownership of the Macy’s Day Parade, she goes exploring at amazon and finds: Read the complete Post.
Well, we had the big meeting yesterday and it went fairly well. Because the teachers in the preschool have Master’s degrees in child development or education and the director has an EDD, I made the mistake of going in ready to talk about solutions/alternatives, but presumed I didn’t really need to “teach” why this is a problem. In fact, I specifically avoided professor mode, since I only study media – they are the experts on Read the complete Post.
In preparation for my upcoming meeting with Thing 1’s preschool about Scholastic, I started sniffing out additional information. I couldn’t find nearly as much as I would like on preschool commercialism, but then I was magically referred to Rebekah Cohen and voila, paydirt! Cohen has a Master’s in Child Development from Tufts University (where she specialized in children and media) and formerly worked as a research assistant with Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. Her Master’s research focused on (drumroll) commercialism in preschools. She now lives and works in San Francisco. Cohen was gracious enough to let me interview her a few days ago. Her insights follow:
So, okay, tell us, how bad is commercialism in preschool? Read the complete Post.
Hmmm. I am summoning the powers of teh internets to help me strategize.
My daughter goes to a wonderful, wonderful preschool that impresses me every day. The profoundly qualified and committed teachers, the curriculum, the director, the families - it’s a place that I feel great about. Not only do they provide a rich setting and ample resources for social and intellectual development, they are also very progressive and deal brilliantly with issues of diversity - racial and ethnic, class, gender, ability, family structure etc etc.
The only complaint I have is that they currently Read the complete Post.
Advertisers generally respond to critiques of marketing to kids by calling it an issue of parental responsibility. If you don’t want your kids to see advertising, just don’t let them watch TV. Simple as that.
I’ve tried it — it helps a lot. Thing 1 has never seen commercial television, and I also work hard to keep her out of shopping environments (sometimes with comic outcomes…). I have also tried to have playdates at parks and playgrounds or museums or sporting events instead of at other kids’ homes where the world of Disney, Bratz, etc. may reign supreme.
Well, Friday, Thing 1 had her first playdate at a friends’ home. Janie is Read the complete Post.
Okay, so for the last month I’ve been obsessing in my own secret way over Halloween.
I love Halloween - it has always been my favorite holiday, because it asks nothing from you other than your creativity. What a delight. Over the years I’ve had some really great costumes too — I once went as a can of Tomato Soup, and made dh dress as Warhol, one year I was a picnic (you had to see it), once I was Molly Shannon’s Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL (smellin’ my armpits all night, with great Read the complete Post.
When I was a budding feminist, characters like Cinderella and the Little Mermaid, (the 9 Disney damsels - “G9″ he he - didn’t become “The Princesses” until a marketing overhaul in 2001), and Barbie made my blood boil. Their big boobs, mini waists, and glamourization of victimhood infuriated me — role models of the most irksome kind. Today, as a parent, they still get to me. Add to this world of warped femininity the marketing juggernaut that is Bratz, and kaboom, and there is a lot to make my skin crawl.
But (did she just write “BUT”?), I have to confess that my sensitivities have changed. When I see princess paraphernalia, I cringe, but if I’m completely honest, Read the complete Post.
The other day, I took Thing 1 to the doctor and she had to have her blood drawn by the phlebotomist. By her account to my dh, she was “very brave,” which is true only if you define brave as needing to be physically held down while bucking and screaming so that poor Nurse Dolores can get the needle in the vein. But pots should not call kettles black, so I will resist making fun of her (to her face). At any rate, in the early negotiations (pre-physical coercion), Dolores promised dd that Read the complete Post.
If I tried to start someplace coherent, it would be in the beginning, stories of my first struggles (many internal) with these issues, but I can’t remember where they began — debates over names, nursery colors, Christmas gifts..? I do know when they erupted — in September when my precious Thing 1 entered preschool (btw — that is an affectionate Cat in the Hat reference, not a callous disregard for her humanity).
After three years of constructing a tolerable pop culture world of carefully chosen books, a Read the complete Post.