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How consumerism eats kids

6:39pm Friday, 14th October 2011

Mark Hadley

It was the morning of my son’s seventh birthday when I first began to sense the true impact of consumerism on my kids. We’d woken up at the customary ungodly hour and were perched on the end of the bed watching him open his presents. Number Two son had made no secret of the thing he’d hoped to receive for the nine months preceding the big day. Happily we’d been able to both afford and locate that present, so we were anticipating some big smiles. We got them – he literally screamed with delight. Then just as quickly, he turned the box over to show his brother the pictures of the other things he wanted. What followed was an animated discussion about what they were looking forward to for Christmas, for their next birthday … The actual contents of the box had been forgotten. At the very moment they might have been celebrating what they had, an advertisement had moved them on to what they were yet to get.
I’m not idealistic. I don’t believe that in an ad-free world children would become models of contentment. I’m a Christian and a parent. I’ve seen resentment brew over the number of chips left on a plate neither child intends to finish. However, the increasing integration of children into a world shaped by consumption, and the earlier age at which this is occurring, has me wondering whether monasteries are not such a bad idea after all. Nowhere is it more obvious than in my particular area of expertise, the world of film and television.
At a recent preview screening of Green Lantern I arrived to find a showbag on my seat. Inside were complimentary snacks to encourage me to enjoy the film, as well as a selection of the toys that would accompany the film’s release. The DC Comics characters had been shrunk down, shrink-wrapped and appropriately labelled: “Suitable for Ages 4+”. Strange, I thought, considering the movie itself was rated M because it contained material the Australian Classification Board describes as “… recommended for people with a mature perspective.” Tortured, screaming death scenes were one example. Yet children who couldn’t see the film were actively being encouraged to engage in the storyline because distributors could see a potential market.
Parents may control the purse strings, but kids hold the heart-strings. The New York Times reported in 2005 that American “Tweens” (8-12 year olds) “heavily influence” more than $30 billion in other spending by parents, and so “…80% of all global brands now deploy a tween strategy.” The Christian Science Monitor reports that in the US the combined groupings of children under 12 and teens influence parental purchases to the sum of between $130-500 billion a year. Marketing to children has become a major cash-cow because of what Dan Cook, Assistant Professor of Advertising and Sociology at the University of Illinois, and the author of Lunchbox Hegemony, labels as their “pester power”:
“That high-pitched whining coming from the cereal aisle is more than just the pleadings of a single kid bent on getting a box of Fruit Loops. It is the sound of thousands of hours of market research, of an immense coordination of people, ideas and resources, of decades of social and economic change all rolled into a single, ‘Mommy, pleeease!’”
The cultivation of children as consumers won’t come as a surprise to Australian parents. Merchandise from Harry Potter, Star Wars, Cars and Toy Story fill whole aisles at K-Mart. Programs like Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob the Builder ensure our kids can eat, drink and dream about their characters around the clock. Clive Hamilton from the Australia Institute says that “Tinys” is now a recognised shorthand in marketing circles for children aged 0-3 years, and he refers to a recent British study that shows that for one in four children the first recognisable word they utter is a brand name:
“Babies too young to walk and talk are not too young to be imprinted with advertisers messages … The lounge room is the kindergarten of consumerism.”
And when they get to their actual kindergartens, consumerism can find further reinforcement. My children regularly bring home “book club” order forms that are virtually indistinguishable from Target toy catalogues. My favourite offerings from the educational giant Scholastic include the All-Access Totally Unauthorised Mega Movie Stars handbook and the Ben 10 Bingo game, which “… improves site-words and memory skills!” – of program titles, presumably.
A professor at Texas A&M University cited by Sarah Schmidt in Branded Babies has argued that there is an advantage in the development of young children as consumers because it helps them “… function in a marketplace at an earlier age.” It’s a place where they are likely to find the satisfaction of “… most of our needs.” However, I’d argue that whatever the perceived social or economic benefits for introducing children to retail therapy, the net result is a spiritual deficit.
Advertising’s fundamental doctrine is that whoever you are, whatever your means, you don’t have enough. Through it children are taught a lack of appreciation for what they have, and instilled with a consuming desire for what they don’t have. Marrying products with likeable characters and powerful storylines about life truths leads to mixed messages. As Clive Hamilton puts it, economic values are increasingly “colonising” other values, so that “… ethical decisions have become economic decisions, despite a nagging feeling that putting a price on some things actually devalues them.”
If children are raised with the understanding that they are what they own, then depression is not far away when their desires outstrip their means. In fact a study conducted by Britain’s Office for National Statistics found a strong link between low household income and mental health problems:
“Children in deprived areas were more obsessed with money and shopping than youngsters from better-off homes. More than two thirds (69%) of poorer children said that they only wanted a job with a high salary.”
Furthermore, if the ability to consume is considered all-important, then anything that comes between kids and their ability to spend will be treated as a challenge to their identity and right to self-determination later in life. And what might this say for the prospect of having children themselves? Ask Porsche. They promoted one of their new vehicles to Generation X with the tag-line:
“Porsche’s new baby. An excellent reason to delay yours.”
There are practical steps that parents can undertake to inoculate children against addictive consumption. We’ve tried a few at our place: resisting the urge to reward with things and substituting relationships instead; tying presents firmly to special occasions and associating them with their givers; talking about “pay” rather than “pocket money” so kids learn the connection between earning and owning. But beneath all of this lies the Biblical idea of a real lifetime warranty.