From today’s Star Tribune:

When preteen girls as young as 5 get their first manicure, pedicure or updo at birthday parties held in Twin Cities’ beauty schools, it’s all about making them feel special and beautiful.

Because the best way to indoctrinate (yes, I said indoctrinate) girls into our consumer culture is to a) start her young, b) make sure she feels her value is equated with beauty and c) create an image of female beauty that is impossible to attain so that she continues to spend her money on products that promise to help get her there.

And I guess it works.

Fun!

Back. To. School. Time to be inundated with messages on what kids must buy to be cool this fall.

Summer’s just about over — time to get ready for a new school term! Back-to-school fashions for your kids are lots more exciting than they used to be.

Exciting? Really? A friend extols this writing rule: If you have to say it’s exciting, IT PROBABLY ISN’T.

Granted, parents this year are being more careful with their spending.

One mother, Clarissa Nassar, signed up for alerts about sales on a Web site called Shop It To Me. When she saw that her daughter’s favorite brand, Baby Phat, was on sale at Macy’s, she promptly drove to the department store to shop for school clothes.

“I got an alert for the cutest tie-dye pink top,” said Ms. Nassar, a mother of two, Mikayla, 7, and Joseph, 3, in Johnstown, N.Y. “Originally it was $36 and I got it for $9.75.”

Your 7-year-old has a favorite clothing brand? How? HOW?

For some perspective (and dare I say balance?) during the back-to-school shopping frenzy, read Kelsey Timmerman’s (@KelseyTimmerman) blog, Adventures of an Engaged Consumer.

Another gem: Why Parents Should Reject Back-to-School Ads in August by Luann Bradley (@inthegreenlane).

My goal this fall to to buy nothing new. Clothing from the thrift stores, supplies from the unused stash we’ve accumulated over the years. More ideas at The Not Quite Crunchy Parent.

Again this year, I lamented not being able to attend BlogHer ‘o9, *the* conference for women who blog.

Instead, I settled in to read about it from my Twitter feed, as I do for many conferences I can’t attend.

And I found out that BlogHer is not for *all* women who blog.

From the many other tweets that promised great product giveaways and invitations to swag rooms, I knew that I would never lament not being able to attend BlogHer again. 

I do get it. I understand the desire to make money while blogging. It’s my dream job. However, my passion and this blog does not lend itself to attracting advertisers. (For example, Webkinz did not send me a free toy.)

But I am so disappointed that women bloggers — or more accurately, mommy bloggers — have become synonymous with product promotion and endorsements.

See, women love to shop! And shopping for their babies! And writing about shopping! That’s what we do! We’re all momfluencers!

It’s a Sarah Haskins’ Target Women in the making.

Marketing Mommy was there: 

I attended a BlogHer 09 panel discussion called Sponsored vs. Unsponsored, and one of the moderators asked people to raise their hands if they thought getting paid to write a product review was okay or not. A lot of people voted okay, some weren’t sure and I raised my hand for Not. I was the only one.

I spoke my piece, reassuring the filled-to-capacity room that I had nothing against product reviews (hey, I’ve done a few) or giveaways, but that I felt that basic integrity demands we disclose if a product has been given to us for free. And if a blogger’s been paid to write a post or do a giveaway, it should be treated as an ad. Because that’s what it is.

Honestly, I thought my feelings were pretty mainstream. Not any more. The women in the room were afraid to post negative reviews. Even posting constructive criticism was avoided. They were terrified of pissing off the PR folks and stopping the flow of goodies. And besides, writing a product review or hosting a giveaway was hard work. They deserved to be compensated for their work on behalf of brands. An interesting argument, but if you’re turning yourself into a freelance copywriter, isn’t it a little unfair to your readers to post as just another regular, trustworthy mom?

There’s more from other attendees. 

For the record, I support the proposed FTC rules that would require bloggers to disclose their relationships with products and companies, and I was happy to join about 500 others in signing the Blog with Integrity pledge.

And now I’m on the hunt for a conference on blogging. Without the swag.

UPDATE: It’s come to my attention that my Contact form is not working. If you’d like to get in touch, please send an email directly to lisa@parentsforethicalmarketing.org.

“I worry that even if Michelle and I do our best to impart what we think are important values to our children, the media out there will undermine our lessons and teach them something different.”

During his campaign, President Obama acknowledged that he is among the parents struggling against an onslaught of corporate marketing that hurts our children—and makes it harder for parents to parent.

Today, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood sent a Father’s Day appeal to President Obama, signed by over twenty five hundred parents, petitioning him to launch a systematic review of the regulations on marketing to children to determine if they offer sufficient protection for twenty-first century families.  The petition, which was also signed by professionals who work with children and families, urges the President to direct the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission to evaluate current policies to determine whether or not they adequately protect children.

Since the 1980s, when children’s television was deregulated and Congress restricted the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to regulate marketing to children, the amount of advertising and marketing targeting children has exploded in volume and sophistication. The digital revolution and increasingly miniaturized technology allow marketers today to expand their reach far beyond television and to insert their brands in children’s lives in ways that were inconceivable just a few decades ago.  Taking unfair advantage of children’s developmental inability to understand the persuasive intent of advertising messages, unregulated marketing is training children to be consumers rather than healthy, well-rounded citizens. Many parents felt strongly enough about the commercialization of their children’s lives that they added their own personal appeals to the letter. 

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Sarah Haskins does it again with Target Women: Lady Friends. Watch through to the end for an example of how girls are indoctrinated into the beautiful women-mindless consumers culture:

New research shows that kids are eating healthier in restaurants when given the choice, according to an article in the New York Times.

“The food industry is always saying, ‘We’re giving people want they want; that’s why we’re giving you chicken nuggets, burgers and fries for your kids,’ ” said Leann L. Birch, director of the Center for Childhood Obesity Research at Penn State. “That’s not really true. If kids are given different options and if parents make them available and let them choose some of those things, I think quite often we see you do get shifts in eating.”

So much for the old supply/demand argument when it comes to children’s marketing.

A trip to the American Girl Doll Store in the Mall of America, courtesy mspmag.com. I suggest you watch curled up in a fetal position, as more than likely you will end up there anyway.

Cross-posted from Tracee Sioux at Empowering Girls: So Sioux Me.

“Kids close your eyes!”

How many times do you find yourself trying to protect your children from harmful and destructive images while watching family television?

Two years ago, while watching television, I was assaulted with an image of a woman wearing a see-through nightgown, nipples protruding and visible, erotic soft lighting, floating in a bathtub. It was intentionally erotic, except that she had been violently and bloodily murdered and this erotic woman was, in fact, dead.

“What the heck is going on?” I thought. “Why are my children and I being subjected to this kind of sexually violent imagery in a commercial?”

So, I wrote the FCC. The Federal Communications Commission used to be the people who governed our airwaves. They used to control when and what was allowed to air during times when children were expected to be viewing television. Remember when they wouldn’t let radio stations play George Michael’s, I Want Your Sex?

Many months later they wrote back.

“Each network or television station has control over what it airs during commercials. You’ll have to write each network to complain about every commercial you feel is inappropriate,” they informed me.

“What? Who made that stupid rule?” I wanted to know.

And now that I’ve read So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, by Diane Levin, Ph.D, and Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D, I know who made that stupid rule.

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