After all, local businesses have been supporting kids’ sports teams forever, right? What is possibly wrong with that?

The girls lined up for a photo of their backsides to prove to Graco yes, we are wearing the uniforms you provided.

One team member was overheard saying: “I feel so used.”

And no, it wasn’t my brainwashed daughter, either.

For your future Annie Leibovitz, Disney introduces the Disney Pix Jr. digital camera especially designed for the youngest photographers — your three-year-old.

WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

Don’t worry, little girls, there’s a Disney Princess version just for you!

Of course, no family memories are complete without proof that a Disney character was there: With the Disney Pix Jr., kids can place Disney characters into all of their photos. Imagine Mickey joining your family reunion! Or Minnie at your sister’s bat mitzvah!

Some “child advocates” question how a $60 camera contributes to a three-year-old’s learning and development; they obviously did not have the benefit of taking Rationalization 101 in marketing school:

“We saw kids wanting to take pictures with their parents’ $300 Sony cameras,” says Lisa Mancuso, vice president of marketing [at Fisher-Price]. “We filled a gaping need in the marketplace.”

Emphasis mine. The key word here is “gaping.”

Here’s an idea:

Make a camera using a small rectangular box or small animal cracker box. For the lens, glue a piece of felt, fabric, or cardboard on the front center of the box. You can even use a lid from a plastic milk container . . . .

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Read The Princess Problem: There’s More Than One Way of Being Pretty

I made my daughter cry. Not the regular, no-you-can’t-have-a-second-donut tears but the gut-wrenching sobs of a truly frightened child.

It had already been a trying day. In the morning she was gazing at her Scholastic book order form and wishing for the Care Bear book/stuffed toy combo pack, just like so-and-so has at school.

I’ve gotten pretty good at talking my kids down from these requests, but today she would have none of it.

But mommy, you let me have a Care Bear before . . . .
I know, honey, why don’t you play with that one?
Because the dog took it outside and now it’s ruined!
Oh, well, that’s too bad, honey, but Mommy does not like Care Bears.
But — but — but, the blue one is EVERYWHERE. I see it EVERYWHERE!

Of course she does, I gripe to myself, that’s part of the 17 BILLION DOLLARS spent to make sure she sees it everywhere. So I launch into my usual talk about the toy companies and how they want her to want their toys so that can make money, etc. etc. and we move on.

Later in the day she finds a pair of old sunglasses and brings them to me. She has just learned to read and is proud of it.

Look, mommy, Hello Kitty is everywhere, too! she says, pointing to the words on the side of the sunglasses.

So now I’m annoyed.

Finally, we are getting ready to walk out the door to a birthday party when I hear a crash in the bathroom. She has pulled out a drawer too far and all its contents are spread on the floor. As I help her pick it up, she grabs a small mirror compact, a trade-show giveaway, and says she wants to put it in her pocket.

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After monitoring the music and ads, parents and school officials say Show could be over for Bus Radio on Seminole County school buses

I’d like to take a stab at what Heather Armstrong wanted to twitter after the embarrassing debacle that passed for a mommy-blogger interview on The Today Show. Such a lost opportunity to introduce the blogosphere to the rest of the world.

Parents involved in the study kept video journals which documented families’ frustrations with game websites and virtual worlds that draw kids into games and require a purchase to continue playing, among other things. Watch a few of the videos. I’d be surprised if some of those scenarios haven’t already been played out in your home.

Many online games and virtual worlds violate at least two of PEM’s standards of ethical marketing:

1. They interfere with the parent-child relationship by enticing young children to hand over an email address (and other personal information) without parental permission.

2. They take advantage of a child’s inability to understand that advertisers want their money by making the ads indistinguishable from the game itself.

Aaron Delwiche identifies one of the major problems with kids’ virtual games:

For the most part, so-called “virtual worlds” aimed at youth are little more than paper-doll worlds in which players are encouraged to spend virtual money on their on-line avatars. In almost all of these spaces, the pattern is mind-numbingly familiar: Create avatar. Play games. Earn money. Shop for your avatar. Earn money. Shop for your avatar’s house. Earn money. Shop for your avatar. Earn money. Shop. Work. Shop. Work. Shop. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The only thing that really differentiates each of these worlds from one another is the quality of the art direction and the intellectual property rights secured by the world’s creators.

The developmental benefits of childhood creative play are lost when the play becomes scripted. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to participate.

Katie L. at the New Media Research Studio at NYU hits on my biggest gripe with virtual worlds:

Although I felt that I had a firm grasp on the way things worked in the WebKinz World, I spent some more time throughout this past week exploring the site in hopes of uncovering more redeeming qualities that could potentially counteract its overwhelming focus on promoting consumer culture. Unfortunately however, all I could find was more evidence that the virtual component of Webkinz functions as a mini-capitalist economy, priming children to think first and foremost about getting more money in order to buy more things.

It feeds into ‘you can never have enough, and the more you have the better it is.’

The game creators have no incentive to make the games better — they want to encourage early consumer habits in order to maintain customers for their advertisers — unless we stop playing. And buying.

To help wean away from the virtual world and game habit, try WolfQuest, created by the Minnesota Zoo and eduweb. No ads, no cost. And no mini-capitalist economy.

photo courtesy Spigoo

Back then, you could walk through the living room. Today, it’s much more exciting. You can actually skateboard through it by hitting – at just the right angle – an open storybook and sliding to the back door. It’s a quicker trip that way. Not to mention, my balance has improved immensely.

Then, we had a fully stocked bar in the kitchen. Within arm’s reach, we had my favorite Pinot Noir, my husband’s Jack Daniels and ingredients for the perfect 007 martini. And on the bottom shelf, hand-painted cocktail glasses I’d picked up at a market outside Monterrey, Mexico on a business trip.

That cabinet – open shelving and all – now lives in our bathroom, serving as the perfect home for girly and manly shaving creams, living together in harmony. It had no business being in the kitchen anymore, unless we’d planned to stock it with animal crackers. Which by the way, are way too crumbly to use as a substitute for a lime slice in a margarita.

I did have a Sam Adams on hand to offer Tony that day. Of course, I neglected to tell him it had been in the fridge since October.

These changes at my house had been the obvious ones. In fact, my husband and I discuss the pending reopening of our bar – in 18 years – on a regular basis. But Tony made another observation, one that we, frankly, had not noticed.

My son’s coloring book? Handy Manny. His storybooks strewn across the floor? Thomas the Train and Elmo. His current favorite thing to carry around? A Mr. Incredible doll. The crackers he was munching on that day? Scooby snacks.

In completely innocent fashion, Tony said, “Wow! Everything they make for kids today is so commercialized. They must choose the shows they put on TV solely on their marketability as toys.”

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