Putting Your Money Where Your Kids Are

For this week’s blog post I took to heart the conversation we had in class about advertising to our children topic, I may have run it down a rabbit hole and ended up somewhere only related to the discussion but I liked it so much I made it my essay 2, rather than try to condense it and put it on the blog I thought I would post my essay 2 here for you to get my impressions on the discussion, if this is a no no, I’ll take the grade hit and learn from my mistake, so here goes…

Dear Editor,
The advertising companies know you do it, so why wouldn’t they advertise to your children? Many households do everything for their children, protect them, feed them, put a roof over their heads, and buy them everything they ever wanted that they see on TV. You do buy your kids everything the TV says they need… don’t you? Did you feel that? It’s a reality check, it’s exactly what this essay writer could use. It’s not the children being advertised to who are handing over the money which is buying what the advertising companies are selling, it’s the parents.
The essay, “Own This Child” by Jean Kilbourne says shame on advertising executives for targeting the nation’s children for their products. I say shame on you parents who raise their children to think that anything they see on TV is what they want and if you don’t buy it for them you don’t love them. I say shame on you again for thinking it’s the responsibility of the government to censor your television’s commercials to stop your kids from bugging you about the new Sugar Bombs cereal THEY MUST HAVE, it’s called parenting people, get over it.
Don’t blame the advertising companies for doing their jobs, they did some testing, they got results, and they make money when your kids go kookoo for Cocopuffs. You wouldn’t blame a leopard for having spots, you expect a leopard to have spots, as well you should expect an ad exec to do everything he is paid for, to make money. I am not condoning advertisements focusing on children, far from it, I find it a dirty and under-handed trick exploiting the fact that our nation, as parents, find it easier to plop their kids down in front of a television rather than taking them out on a bike ride, or to play go fish, or hiring a babysitter to play with them. We live in the age of the digital babysitter. How easy is it to tell your kids to go watch TV when they are standing next to you with their curious little faces asking you the ever infamous question of, “Why?”. The hard thing to do is to tickle them, lift them up into your lap, and spend five minutes explaining to them how to pay the bills or whatever it is that you are doing at that moment. Parenting takes patience, and in this digital age of instant gratification it’s hard to realize there is no nifty gadget that fits in your pocket to raise your children the perfect way. It’s a hard, long, involved process where you WILL make mistakes, you WILL buy your kid that new cereal they wanted because what‘s the harm in cereal if it makes them happy, and that’s the mentality that the advertising execs are taking advantage of.
Jean Kilbourne would like the government to ban advertising focused towards children, that’s a keen idea that should be in a common sense code of conduct, but money does a funny thing to annoying things like morality. That money is the reason we are in this mess and money is the way to get out of it. You wouldn’t treat a snake bite by putting a bandage over the wound and treating the symptoms, you have to remove the poison. So, parents remove the poison; take the money out of the advertising. Say no to buying the latest and greatest Sugar Bombs cereal. Your children aren’t making the advertising companies millions, you are. Quit treating the symptoms and take care of the source of the problem, learn to say no, be responsible parents, and teach your kids the difference between what they require in life, and what the TV says they need.
From,
-Reality