Friday evening I had the pleasure of being a guest on Fathers are Forever, a radio talk show broadcast from Montery, California. Although the topic was the sexualization of children (Diane Levin, co-author of So Sexy So Soon, was the guest during the first hour), the conversation expanded to cover many aspects of marketing to kids.

One caller, Mike, complained that the clothing he wants his daughter to wear — modest and without suggestive words or phrases — is more expensive than the current fashion. I’d add that it’s harder to find, too.

So in answer to Why do parents buy that stuff for their kids? one reason may be cost and availability. Many people need to shop in the most convenient locations (big-box stores and shopping malls) and don’t have much money to spend. They’re stuck with what is available to them.

When we cannot find appropriate clothing for our kids, we need to complain. We need to talk to store managers. We need to write to customer service representatives. We need to let companies know that we want something else.

Retailers want to please us. They want us to come back to their stores. But they can’t give us what we want if we don’t ask them to.

Read also: What if back-to-school shopping didn’t require selling ones feminist soul?
Photo courtesy Clean Wal-Mart

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Child Sexualization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.