What's the matter with wimpy parents these days? I grew up watching ads for toys on TV, and I wasn't traumatized by a commercial-filled childhood. Back then, parents controlled the TV and could say NO without feeling guilty.
Posted on 11/29/2008 3:36:08 PM PST by Batrachian
NEW YORK — In a season that inspires earnest letters about toys, one notable batch is being sent not by kids to Santa's workshop but by parents to the executive suites of real-world toy makers.
The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children.
The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
These stories better stop soon. The Republican won’t be in office for long. In the meantime, stop your whining, MSM. We may be in a recession, but we’ve still got more toys than we know what to do with.
the real problem? weak parents that spoil their kids and give in to every demand. Banning commercials won’t make a difference.
What's the matter with wimpy parents these days? I grew up watching ads for toys on TV, and I wasn't traumatized by a commercial-filled childhood. Back then, parents controlled the TV and could say NO without feeling guilty.
Yes, our children should instead get gemutchleikeit by serving die furher Obama!
Parents need to be parents and turn off the stupid TV and start interacting with their children if the advertisments are sooooo terrible.
I also suspect this as a false story.
Mom Ping.........
aka Campaign for Socialism
Psht, that's my kid's favorite excuse! The other one is "That toy is the ugliest, most obnoxious piece of crap I've ever seen, and I wouldn't bring it home if you traded your leg for it."
They seem to have survived thus far...
Who are these whiny people?!? One of the great joys of my life is saying, "Are you out of your mind? There's no way on earth I'd buy you that, and you can't buy it with your own money, either! Obviously you haven't been paying attention for the last 8 years in our home, so you can clean all the bathrooms for the next week in order to focus your mental processes!" (Have a nice day ...)
I think I also say, "No, we're not getting another snake!" at least once a day, and you can't blame that on advertising.
I got the “wait until Christmas” line!
AH-HA.........So now I know where that "pet" idea is coming from..........
“We want pie! We want pie!”
I grew up in a middle class to sometimes upper middle class family. Every year we’d ask Santa for way too much crap for Christmas and every year we got some (maybe most) but not all of it. Somehow we survived w/o getting everything we wanted.
It also shows how maybe the best gift you can give is cash. Let the kids see how much stuff really costs, and then see how much they really need when it’s “their money” that’s being spent.
Would you like a snake? Tom could help you find one!
I’m sure Tom could, but thanks anyway, Jax is quite capable of finding them herself....
I have to keep reminding her the reason I keep feeding the cats, and allowing her to have more is because they keep the mice population controlled -— I don’t need snakes for that anymore.
Then you have pets already!
Oh, I’ve got pets alright........5 cats (for the moment), 1 dog, 1 child, and 1 husband.........
Only the cats live outside :(
You need reptiles. Would Jax like a dragon? We’re thinking of breeding ours next year.
They don't have a problem saying no. What they have a problem with is the Joneses up the street buying toys for their kids. They want to go into the Joneses living room and mandate to them what toys are equal and fair to buy. Oh, and that global warming big screen TV the Joneses just bought has got to go.
I’m sure she would love a dragon -— getting it past mom is another story!!!!
Reptiles are definitely NOT my thing. The cats keep the mice population down, which in turn keeps the snake population down, so feeding the cats is well worth it. It also keeps coolbreeze from shooting anymore holes in the barn roof when he finds a snake in the rafters.
They're just eating rodents! Tom would be very sad.
Dragons are really nice, if you don't mind feeding them crickets. My parents thought they looked horrible from the pictures (hard to tell the scale, for one thing), but thought they were cute in real life.
In the rafters???????
Tom would be very sad.
Then please don't tell him coolbreeze's attitude about snakes. According to him there are only 2 kinds, dead ones and ones he's never met.
Thank you for the kind offer of a dragon, but no thanks. I have no interest in being the caregiver to yet another critter that another member of this household desires.
I don't know how we got talking of living gifts on a thread about limiting kids and their Christmas wishes --- but what the heck, hijacking threads never bothered me before :)
I don't know how we got talking of living gifts on a thread about limiting kids and their Christmas wishes
The thread was about advertising, and nobody's advertising dragons for Christmas gifts. We're talking about getting what you want, as opposed to what a corporation says you should want.
I am so GLAD I’m done battling this stupidity.
Moms? Just. Say. No. Early and often. And that goes for our uber-consumer HUSBANDS, too! :)
However, one of our boys was a total Early Bird, who was up at 4am every morning, and once he could turn on the TV, he became an ‘Infomercial Zombie.’
It wasn’t unusual for him to wake me up in the wee hours asking if he could use the phone and my credit card. It’s funny now; not so much so back then, LOL!
We didn't have any catz the last time he shot holes in the barn roof --- I got the cats to prevent that from happening again :)
The thread was about advertising, and nobody's advertising dragons for Christmas gifts. We're talking about getting what you want, as opposed to what a corporation says you should want.
Good point!
We're big into "need" as opposed to "want" in this house, so the advertising plays little role part in wish lists.
Jax actually has an "Auntie Mame" who has no children of her own and seems to dote on sending Jax the "latest greatest." She's actually my "Auntie Mame" as she is my mother's older sister and I have called her Mame all of my life. She never married and has lived all over the world.
We had been talking, via email, about the difficulties I had around here finding reasonable back-to-school clothes, particularly pants, for Jax. Mame went shopping --- holey moley. My never married, never a mom, 70something aunt was more in tune with the mindset of my 10yo than I was when it came to what she picked out and sent.
We get stuff from my parents, although this year I asked them to send Wolferman’s muffins, because we don’t have room for more Stuff.
Since we don’t have broadcast TV, the children aren’t really effected by advertising. They want things because they want them - cars :-), drums, snakes, books, and lots and lots of paper “so we can draw a whole zoo.” I think I’ll wrap a ream of printer paper for James (4) for Christmas. He’ll be thrilled!
ROFL!!!!!!!
With no cable or satellite, commercials on TV around here are pretty mundane -— the latest mattress sale, local car dealers, etc. Of course the national ads are there, but since program pickin’s are slim, the box isn’t on that much.
Her Santa wish list pretty much reflects the lack of inundation as much as it reflects Mommy and Daddy’s willingness to use the word NO.
I know what you mean about no room for more Stuff. I may have more land than she does, but Mame doesn’t seem to comprehend that my whole house could fit in her living room and she just keeps sending me STUFF. The major problem for me with the things she sends is that it is primarily things of my grandparents or hers that I remember from my childhood and I am loathe to part with it.
I mean really, there are only so many South American alpaca hand embroidered throw pillow covers a person can use, and considering my sofa is a futon and I have no other “upholstered” seating, I really have little use for 10 of them.
OTOH, the Bolivian and Peruvian blankets are a blessing -— and she sure as heck doesn’t need them in south Florida.
Our boys make Activities out of the sofa pillows, so we have to replace them about once a year. Wal-mart.
You evil anti-union woman you..........shopping in WalMart. How dare you!
HARRUMPHHHHH
Yes, I’m irredeemable. Turn me in to the Brownshirts ...
Will do -—— as soon as I get back from WalMart :)
No. It is a two letter word signifying a refusal. Parents should learn to use it.
We don’t have cable or satellite, either. The TV is rarely on so my kids aren’t really asking for much. However, I get a million toy catalogs in the mail. I give them to the kids and have them circle the things they like. It’s fun for them and then I have an instant wish list for the grandparents. They know they’ll never get most of the things circled but they have fun doing it. My husband is in advertising. He’s a writer and it pays our bills. I’d apologize to all of you but he doesn’t write commercials for toys. :0)
I’ll only blame you if he writes advertisements for front-loading, high-capacity, low-water-usage washing machines.
I wrote my fair share of commercial ads back in the day, so I have noting against those that do it, including those who write them for toys.
The “toy” catalogs that show up in my mail are not children’s toys, yet our 10yo finds more stuff in them she claims to want than mommy and daddy combined -— and they’re OUR catalogs! Go figger.
No, right now he’s writing travel ads to high end places I’ll probably never get a chance to visit. Of course, he gets to go check out most of them so he knows what he’s writing about.
Speaking of washing machines. I’ve begged for two washers and dryers at the next house if we can pull it off. Wouldn’t that be dreamy? I actually picture a laundry mat in my house instead of a laundry room. Just line the walls with washers and dryers. I could be done with laundry in a couple of hours.
My oldest daughter loves to browse the seed catalogs. She’s a funny girl! I caught my son looking at his dad’s gun catalog. Funny how they gravitate to certain items.
It would be great to be able to wash more than one load at a time. I think I did six loads on Thanksgiving, don’t know where it was all coming from.
If you do get more than one, make sure it’s a ground-floor laundry room, on a slab if possible. The front-loaders shake so hard that more than one would rattle the upstairs to pieces! We just have the one, and it sounds like a helicopter assault when it spins. Anoreth sometimes hums the “Ride of the Valkyries” theme from “Apocalypse Now” :-).
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