We heard about the PBS special recently, 'The Merchants of Cool'. You can catch it on YouTube. If you are a parent of teens or even of young children, this should scare your pants off. Children are being targeted and marketed to like never before. Because parenting in this nation is so terrible nowadays we throw money at our kids. We are so busy working to try to pay for our 4000 square foot house that we throw money at our kids instead of spending time with them. We give them cell phones, laptops, iPods, etc. They spend 50 times more time plugged into television and the internet than they do talking to their parents.
But they are not alone. There are people making millions and millions of dollars to figure out how to best target the kids today, so that our kids will spend money on the coolest new thing. But what is cool? Pimps, ho's, drugs, sex, violence. All of this on a scale not seen in a long time. What is cool is always on the edge. Always pushing the limits of our sensibilities. Yet, since we feel bad that we have neglected our children what do we do? We turn a blind eye and give our kids more money so they can buy that new game, gadget or new fashion trend. We let our daughters buy the pants with something written on the butt. Forget the fact that those pants are not made for girls but for guys, so that guys can stare at her butt. You don't worry about that. She knows better right? Your son knows better right? Well Dad, if you haven't been spending time with your daughter, she'll get the male attention that is supposed to come from daddy from anywhere she can get it. If your sons don't have an example of real manhood at home, their example will be 50Cent. Then we ask, 'Why is my daughter pregnant'? Or 'Why does she have an STD'? We ask why our kids don't talk to us.
I personally need to do a better job of spending time with my children. Not just spending a few minutes. I'm talking about REAL, QUALITY time with them. This year has been better, but not as good as it should be. Most Americans need to do the same. If this does not apply to you, the reader, then that is wonderful, I hope it doesn't. But do you know what your kids are doing? Do you know their friends? Are they open with you? If not, spend time with them. They want it, whether they will admit it or not. They need to know that they are accepted by their parents, and the sooner the better. If not, they will search for acceptance elsewhere, and what is being offered by the world is downright scary.
13 comments:
The MSM.
Great points (you're wiser than your years), especially about parents spendn time w/ their kids. Fathers have a responsibility that goes beyond just providn material things for their children, that responsibility is attentiveness.
Gonna comment more on this important subject, but I'm off to the freakn dentist. Ouch!
Great post, Nestor. On board w/ this one 100% for a change! ;)
Teenage years should be interesting. I do think, tho, that even if you do all those things the best you can, kids are kids, and they still might go out and try stuff. Hormones are raging, peer pressure's there, etc. I just think it can happen no matter how good a job you did as a parent. I'm not disagreeing w/ you, just adding that.
Linda,
I definitely agree that as a parent you still run the risk of your kids going out and 'actin' a fool'. But it is so important that their greatest influence is the parents. That is just not taught nowadays. I also think the marketing that sucks kids in can suck us in as well. Kids are being marketed clothes, music, fast food. Parents are being marketed bigger house, bigger car, etc. We just need to spend more time with our kids and less money on them (and us). I think doing that gives your kids the best shot possible. They are going to make mistakes (and so will we), but hopefully they won't be so big, and hopefully they'll talk to you about them.
Yeah, I taught my kids early what marketing was and how the commercials were just trying to get them to waste their money. It was funny to hear a 3 yr. old tellin me, 'that ad just wants me to waste my money', shakin his head. Ha!
And you had to go and post that right before we get our Dubya refund! ;)
Them talkin to you is huge, I think. I never told my parents anything, too afraid of disappointing them I think. They were of the 'what we don't know won't hurt us' philosophy. Worked for them, not so much for me.
Well a good biblical philosophy is confessing sin. If you put things out in the light, you can get help. If you 'keep it to yourself' you are more likely to keep repeating the behavior you know is wrong. Since you feel bad about it you don't want to tell anyone. But you do it again because you are not getting help. Then you feel worse. But once things are in the open, you are less likely to repeat those things.
If our kids feel comfortable talking to us about things, they can tell you what they are feeling before things get bad. If things DO get bad, they can feel comfortable telling you before things get worse.
About our 'refund' (that comes out of our return next year) I've got my eye on a PS3. But we'll see. We will probably have more important things to use it on. But maybe we can be just a little frivolous. ;)
That's a very good philosophy and I think you're right as to how that works.
Nestor -
> About our 'refund' (that comes out of our return next year) I've got my eye on a PS3 ...
Yeah, like that's gonna turn around the economy, sending more money overseas.
Here's a suggestion: save your 'refund' for the next time you need to fill your vehicle with gas. Is it a SUV by chance?
Stan,
No I don't drive an SUV, but I know one thing that will lower gas prices AND food prices. Stop government subsidies for ethanol. If you are upset that your gas and food bills have gone up, how about the increased starvation in third world countries like Haiti? Prices of grains have tripled there recently. Maybe the pinheads in Washington will wake up and realize that it takes 1.29 gallons of oil to produce 1 gallon of ethanol, and stop subsidizing it until it is more efficient.
Hey, don't knock SUV's. Some of us need space for 2 kids, luggage, and a towing package for a trailer to pull the ATV. Awwwww yeahhhhh....
I have no particular love for ethanol, Nestor. Better than finding substitute fuels, is to lower our need for fuels in the first place.
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