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Once upon a time there was a little girl whose only wish was for a Barbie Country Camper. This was 1971. For simplicity's sake, let's call the little girl Beth. Beth had seen the Barbie Country Camper in Saturday morning TV commercials, and she wanted her Barbies to have the fold-out picnic table, pop-out tent, sleeping bags, and camper kitchen. The Barbie Country Camper was the first and most important item in her long list of wants that she secretly wrote and mailed to Santa Claus. And for two weeks before Christmas, she dreamed about the Barbie Country Camper when she went to bed at night.
Christmas Eve, she didn't even go to sleep at all. Butterflies danced in her stomach and Country Camper thoughts raced through her head. When Christmas morning finally arrived, she raced downstairs to find under the tree the Barbie Country Camper she'd been waiting for! She raced over to the Barbie Country Camper, grabbed it to her chest, and hugged it. And then she looked at the gift tag.
"To Fran, Love Santa"
WTF? Okay, she didn't say WTF because there weren't text messages in 1971, and she wouldn't have known what F stood for anyway. But still, WTF?
Turns out her sister Fran was the smart one. While Beth had secretly written her letter to Santa and had faith that the old guy wouldn't let her down, Fran had told Mom and Dad directly what she wanted. Man, talk about your lesson in handling disappointment. I mean, check it out. I watch this commercial now, and I STILL want that plastic Barbie Country Camper with its toxic vinyl pull-out tent!
So obviously there were toy commercials back in the 70's targeted at children and pressures on parents to provide their kids with what they saw on TV. What I'm wondering is whether that pressure is even greater today than it was back then. I don't have children myself, but I've noticed among some of my child-rearing friends that while they try to live as simply and "greenly" as possible during the rest of the year, holiday time can turn into "The Story of Stuff." One of my relatives (who shall remain nameless) routinely puts himself into debt every year at Christmas and spends the rest of the year trying to pay it off.
In his article "Everything You Know About Going Green Is Wrong", Dan Shapley reviews two articles whose main contention is that
the stuff we buy and the packaging that comes with the stuff we buy represent our biggest contribution to global warming – far more so than the amount of electricity our stuff uses, or the amount of fuel our stuff burns on the highway.
So if that's the case, do our holiday purchases cancel out the green measures we take during the rest of the year? And how can parents resist the onslaught of advertising that they and their children are subjected to every day? According to the Media Awareness Network,
Industry spending on advertising to children has exploded in the past decade, increasing from a mere $100 million in 1990 to more than $2 billion in 2000.
Parents today are willing to buy more for their kids because trends such as smaller family size, dual incomes and postponing children until later in life mean that families have more disposable income. As well, guilt can play a role in spending decisions as time-stressed parents substitute material goods for time spent with their kids.
That was 10 years ago. Child-targeted advertising can only have gotten stronger since then. Not only are kids exposed to advertising on television, but advertisers reach them via the Internet as well as through access to advertising in schools in exchange for program funding, technology donations, and sponsorship of educational materials.
So I put the question to a range of other bloggers -- those with kids as well as those without; those who write about green issues and those who focus on other topics. The question generated a flurry of conversations on various list servs. I wish I could post everything! But since that would take many pages, I'll just highlight here a few of the responses I received.
Liz Gumbinner, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the consumer blog Cool Mom Picks wrote me:
At least with our readers, we've seen a strong move to more
