But It's for the Chil-dren...

[RisiaSkye]

I actually watched this horrorshow of an antismoking campaign ad which blatantly exploits a small child, who spends most of the time making cutesy faces (in a room full of "artificial smoke" I should ad) at the camera. Other kids (teenagers) are shown lighting up, and the screen flashes with children-as-criminals statistics, correlated to age of smoking. The end of the commercial is, I swear, "It's ALL for the children."

For a country which cares so much about its children, we spend an awfully lot of time buying them electronic babysitters and very little time actually giving a damn about what is going on in their lives--at least until they kill someone. This is the standard dose of political hypocrisy that I am used to seeing, but turned up to a disgustingly high pitched shriek of hysteria and useless finger-pointing. You're right, guys. Cigarettes are ruining your kids. Your lazy, ineffectual parenting has no part in it. You are not to blame.

Let us sell you absolution from your guilt about raising rude and ludicrously undereducated children. Let us exploit the anxieties of the dedicated parents who worry about their children's future in such a world by using it to pitch a commercial-political agenda sound-byte. If you really love your children, you'll cling with both fists to our political agenda as the only hope your child has in a morally eroding landscape of depravity. WE know the way.

I don't think this goes far enough. In fact, the government should do all of the parenting--censorship on the internet, in movies, on television, in bookstores, on campus; federally mandated curfews and babysitting subsidies; Million dollar settlements from companies trying to compete in a tight market when a child is exposed *in a public forum* to something "potentially harmful" meaning "anything we don't like".

Ridiculous? Maybe. Then again, the government (via tax dollars) is already doing the parenting for many--to the tune of $40,000 a year per juvenile delinquent. And look at the winning children Uncle Sam's been producing lately. Look at the healthy families created by government intervention and control. It's enough to make one need a cigarette.

Ah, humanity!

[Edited by RisiaSkye on 08-20-2000 at 12:44 AM]

 

[Whispersecret]

I agree with you wholeheartedly, RisiaSkye.

The government doesn't want to point fingers at the parents because they're the voters.

 

[Nogard]

Excellent comments. You should send it to the editor of your local newspaper. Unfortunately the ones that need to recognize the truth will fail to see that it applies to them

 

[Gil]

Hear! Hear!

Good post, RS.

Rob Reiner's got to do something with all those unaudited millions the State of California now collects for him and his private "For the Children" organization.

Angst and guilt make for foolish voters! It's so easy to turn responsibility over to someone else.

But the Meathead...why him?

 

[RisiaSkye]

I wanna play the bump an old thread game, too.

Let's talk about this...does it bother anyone else that children are used to sell us everything from soap to politicians? Am I the only person who thinks the blatant compulsory-reproduction bent of our culture is both hypocritical and offensive?

Hmm...

 

[bluespoke]

I wanna play the bump an old thread game, too.

Let's talk about this...does it bother anyone else that children are used to sell us everything from soap to politicians? Am I the only person who thinks the blatant compulsory-reproduction bent of our culture is both hypocritical and offensive?

Hmm...

Children are seen by both advertisers and politicians (advised by advertisers)as cutsie, cutsie. Anything that's got children is bound to work.

Wrong, it obviously angers you and it certainly pisses me off. They expect people to bringup children to be responsible well adjusted adults and yet they, the ad-men and the politicians, thinks its OK to exploit the children. Some sick minds at work there.

I think that there should be regulations ( I know that is not always popular) to restrict the use of children in advertising and political campaigns. You cannot completely eliminate their presence, that would be ludicrous, but you could restrict the way they are used and abused by advertisers wanting people to buy their product just because the have cute kids in it to blackmail the consumer.

Children are nor products or consumables, they are our future.

 

[kiwiwolf]

I wanna play the bump an old thread game, too.

Let's talk about this...does it bother anyone else that children are used to sell us everything from soap to politicians? Am I the only person who thinks the blatant compulsory-reproduction bent of our culture is both hypocritical and offensive?

Hmm...

It is blatant child exploitation Risia... kids are a powerful marketing tool and are used shamelessly to sell anything and everything.

There was a private members bill introduced into New Zealand parliament a few years back with the aim of regulating the advertising that kids could be used for. It never even made it to a second sitting. Big business interests basically stopped it before it's inception.

 

[RisiaSkye]

There was a private members bill introduced into New Zealand parliament a few years back with the aim of regulating the advertising that kids could be used for. It never even made it to a second sitting. Big business interests basically stopped it before it's inception.

Interesting...yet, I'm not surprised it didn't go through. And really, it's not that I want television even more regulated, the content more censored. I'm not trying to stop it so much as undercut its power.

It strikes me as incredibly, offensively hypocritical that children are such effective little marketing tools. Allegedly, every damned change we make in this country is to protect children. Our rights are washed away in a sea of "protect the children" bullshit--what we can say, read, buy, talk about, and sell are all regulated in the interest of "protecting" children.

Yet, the same people who coo over babies and buy a mini-van because Dodge told them it would be good for their kids--those same people have no fucking clue what their children are doing on any given Friday night. The same people who think Tinky Winky's gay and that the question actually fucking matters, those same people have loaded shotguns around their unstable teenagers. That bothers me.

Then advertising feeds on the guilt of those high-earning yet under-achieving parents...turning their guilt into big paychecks for corporations by continually suggesting that there's some magical fix to their lousy parenting. As if their children would suddenly be better cared for if the world had less Eminems and smokers. As if rap lyrics beat them up, as if the parents are not responsible for the kind of children they produce. That also bothers me.

 

[SweetBrat73]

Excellent comments. You should send it to the editor of your local newspaper. Unfortunately the ones that need to recognize the truth will fail to see that it applies to them

I think that sending it to the editor of the newspaper is a good idea. People need to read and see that sort of thing.


Brat

 

[alltherage]

Child abuse extends to so many areas in our society that it is frightening to sit down and truely think about it. Advertising is one area. It really is sickening. I see babies floating in tires across a t.v. screen and I can not help but wonder where mom and dad are. Cashing a check more then likely and making their child a cash cow in the process. Has anyone noticed the growth in beauty contests for children. That is, by its very nature, abusive in my view. I am raising two smart, and beautiful children but by god I cannot imagine the work it would take to control their natural kidness to get them to proform at such a thing.

The government is partly to blame for this but I believe at the core of the problem is an economy where the majority of parents work. I am a single mom and I know how hard it is to be their for my kids and eat at the same time. There is not an hour that goes by when I am away from them that I don't think of them. I wonder if we have become so oriented toward material gain and social status that we have forgotten our kids along the way. I don't know the answers. I do know that our children need better from us. I am a teacher. What I have noticed from many parents is a lack of understanding or concern for the progress of their kids in school. I cherished those parents who would become involved, and treat the education of their kids as a team endeavor. They were far too few. I wonder how we can ever change that.

 

[Calamity Jane]

Yet, the same people who coo over babies and buy a mini-van because Dodge told them it would be good for their kids--those same people have no fucking clue what their children are doing on any given Friday night. The same people who think Tinky Winky's gay and that the question actually fucking matters, those same people have loaded shotguns around their unstable teenagers. That bothers me.

Yeah, and I see minivan moms driving around with pro-life bumper stickers on them while 5 kids bounce around inside with no seatbelts on. I want to pull them over and shake them.

Somewhere, our culture adopted a philosophy that personal responsibility no longer mattered. It's all about blaming the clothing/music/games/education system/justice system/racial attitudes/television/movies... blah blah blah ad nauseum.

No one is willing to step up and say "I fucked up".

I'm raising my kids the best way I know how. And they're learning about responsibility. They're small, so the lessons are small... but they learn them. They're compassionate, intelligent, amazing kids. And when they're older, I'll know where they are, who they're with and why. I hated my mom for being nosy, and they'll probably hate me, but I can live with that.

 

[RisiaSkye]

pagancowgirl & patient1--I'm not trying to attack parents with this post, at least--far from all of them. I know there are many active parents in the world. I think both of your posts reflect caring, involved parents. As such, I wonder--does this kind of blatant exploitation of parental fears for the future of their children anger you? Not effect you? What do you think about it?

And pagan, I definitely agree about the personal responsibility issue. Thank you both for your thoughts.

 

[PrincessSalome]

Wow, where to start? I'm a junior high teacher and we spend every single day trying to make sense of the messed up kids we deal with. I think it all comes down to the choices we as a society have demanded for ourselves. But you can get so depresssed playing the "we have to take responsibility" game. The greatest thing out there right now is a trend called service learning where schools encourage (and provide opportunities for) youth to get involved in community service. Today I walked 29 seventh graders to the elementary school down the road and we taught third graders how to multiply using rectangles of colored blocks. All the way there (20 minutes on a road with no sidewalk) and all the way back I had a heart attack (one of my kids cut his hand on a fence, one wiped out in a muddy ditch, one kicked a plastic cup into an on-coming car, etc.) but when the seventh graders walked into the elementary class and became role models for the younger kids, they stepped right up to the plate. I was so impressed with them. We can teach kids empathy, we can show them how good it feels to help others. Forced "volunteerism" is an oxymoron, but it's the best thing to happen to public education, in my opinion. After the kids clean up the environment, send letters to service men and women, raise money for Afghani children, sing at a nursing home, etc, you praise the heck out of them and eventually they'll want to do more.

Anyway, enough preaching, and I've got to go plan a lesson for tomorrow. But . . . I'll share a debate I was asked to comment on yesterday by a group of junior high boys, "Come on, Mrs. XXX, you think Mary Kate and Ashley are hot, don't you? (laughter) Well . . . not thaaaaaat way."

 

[Calamity Jane]

pagancowgirl & patient1--I'm not trying to attack parents with this post, at least--far from all of them. I know there are many active parents in the world. I think both of your posts reflect caring, involved parents. As such, I wonder--does this kind of blatant exploitation of parental fears for the future of their children anger you? Not effect you? What do you think about it?

And pagan, I definitely agree about the personal responsibility issue. Thank you both for your thoughts.

It does piss me off. I don't appreciate being told what I should be doing for my children. I smoke, I drink, I've smoked more than my share of pot. I can still be a positive influence on their lives, and I resent the implication that I'm not.

 

[kiwiwolf]

It is so easy to make a child, not as easy to give birth to one, and damned hard to raise one. You need a licence to drive a car, or own a gun but any idiot can have kids.

Every day I see kids who are sent to school with no breakfast and no lunch. We don't have the cafeteria system that you American folks have so these kids go hungry usually. Or they become bullies and rob other kids of their lunches. They come from poor families... it is a socio-economic thing you say. Wrong. I live in a fairly affluent part of town and these kids are dropped off in nice new gleaming $50,000 cars. They are well dressed and have all the latest in labelled gear... Reebok, Nike and Adidas logos abound. Most of these kids have thier own cell phones.

When school is over they are picked up by the doting mother or father and ferried off to tennis or swimming lessons, or to a dinner at McDonalds. Then it is home to a house with every modern gadget widget or thing that goes Ping. The kid spends a few hours playing on his playstation 2 then another couple watching TV then off to bed.

The cycle starts again next morning.

The child is surrounded by all the mod cons any kid could want. He has the best of everything except the best of his parents time. He has no one to make sure his homework is done, no encouragement on his scholsatic achievements. His folks are mired in the system that tells them that if it is bigger, brighter, shinier and costlier, it must be better. They are permanently chasing the lifestyle. It is yuppiedom all over again but without the label.

Kids need balance. They need to be loved nurtured encouraged and challenged. They need fun, discipline, and education. Above all kids need parents time. This is what is missing from our society here in New Zealand. Parents are buying off thier kids left right and centre because spending some money is a lot easier than spending some time. As a result our kids are growing up with a warped sense of values and ideals that belong in the 80s.

Respect is a thing of the past and the pursuit of the almighty buck is more important than being a kid. Don't tell me it isn't happening, I am watching it daily.

What hope do our kids have if we parents can't get our shit together?

 

[bored1]

To echo another poster.......Where to start....We <In my opinion>Live in a very shallow society, And for the past 20 years or so it has gotten worse,materialism,lack consequences for bad behavior,The deterioration of the family..........If Johnny cant read its the schools/teachers fault.....Cant be the parents fault, Well it is the parents fault.....A parent is a manager....He or she must make sure that their kids are prepared for school which in turn will prepare them for life........While I think its important to protect our children from harm,I also think that kids need to understand that life at times can be very difficult and painful..........When I was a boy several classmates were killed in a crash...We didnt have grief counslers to help us cope,We dealt with the experiance by going to the funerals and the lesson learned for me was that driving fast and reckless was not a good idea.Today its bring in the counslors and ask,"How do you feel"Kids are pampered,and by being pampered and being marketed to,gives them a false sense of self importance.......The use of kids in advertising is another issue......Kids have disposable income given to them by their parents,To advertizers this is just another market to be exploited, and so it is......Another issue is single parent homes,If your a single parent your life is pretty hectic......Job...kids.....lots of responsibility........things get done but not as well as with 2 parents......but no one wants to touch on that issue cause its not politically correct, So the benefits of a 2 parent home are never discussed in a rational manner.......The ultimate losers are The Children as they will repeat the cycle.......The powers that be could care less about the Children they exploit the Children for their own financial and political gain..........A lot of kids today<Mine included>are growing up without the benefit of an extended family.....they live in a city where there are no other relatives,therefor they do not have close relationships with cousins/grandparents etc.....those people are replaced with "things" that have no emotional value.Each generation is different, Each generation is marketed to.There has to be a balance between material things and clear cut values.......Traditional values are ridiculed in todays world,Im not convinced that is good for society.....

 

[freescorfr]

The thread should be an article. It’s more like a book.

As far as I’m concerned the worst thing we do for children is have the state educate them. I’m not saying that money to help children grow and develop should not come from the state but it is not the role of a politically elected body and government administration to decide how kids should spend their time for 6-8 hours a day 200 days of the year for 15 years. And 15 years when they are at the peak of their learning abilities!!

I reckon that in a few decades, the present education systems in the Western world, will be looked on as we now look on slavery – with horror and shame.

A huge proportion of what we learn at school we never use. Just one example:

In France every adult has had at least 2 years of English teaching. No of adults between 18 and 60 - 35m. – that’s 14,000,000,000 hours of teaching – at the cost of about a year’s GNP – and how many can speak English – less than 15% according to a survey in “Ouest France” last month.

So that’s a massive failure rate. But what of the kids – the homework, the arguments, the bollockings, the stress, the lowering of self esteem………For not achieving a task which millions of people achieve ( learning a second language) with relative ease, without classes, when they need to.


The kids are the pawns in a massive political game, not played as a conspiracy – it has evolved though various social needs, as did slavery, but with plenty of complicity from almost all quarters (as with slavery again). Schoolrooms are not the places in which children grow and develop best.

Tobacco smoke is much less polluting than a put down in front of a class or the humiliation of coming at the lower ranks in a test.

 

[Ishmael]

For the children

For the most part, I agree with everything that has been posted so far. RisiaSkye has indeed hit on a sore point with me, and obviously, with many others. The exploitaion of the obsession that this , and many other, cultures have with children is disgusting. Take any lunatic idea, say that "It's for the children" and all of a sudden it has credibility.

In acknowledgement of Kiwiwolf's missive about the middle class parents that don't feed their kids. All I can say is they must feel that the school system IS a day care center.

I raised four boys as a single parent. Two are now dead, nothing I could have done to prevent that from happening. Proving that feces occurs and that you cannot protect your children from life. The remaining two are college educated, successful, married, and not dependent upon me in any respect.

How did I manage that? Simple, but not so easy. The first thing I decided was that how others raised their children was none on my business. I was going to have my hands full talking care of my own house. The first thing I did was to get rid of the TV. I did not have a TV in the house until the youngest's senior year of High School. I filled the house with books. Good books. The 'classic's', contemporary literature, "How To's", reference books, etc. Only one radio, and that was MY stereo system.

They were given nothing beyond the clothes on their back and the necessities of life. Oh sure there were the Birthday and Christmas presents, but after the age of 5, if they wanted something they had to earn it. And earning these things did NOT include bribery for doing things that they should be doing to begin with. I mean real work. It kept them busy. I spent many weekends with them fishing, hiking, sailing, etc. Outdoors things with just ourselves as company.

The teenage years were a little rough. Peer group pressure set in, along with all that that implies. "But Bobbie's Dad lets him.............." To which I developed a stock speech in reply;

"My job is not to give you things, not to make your life more comfortable or to entertain you. I am not your 'buddy' or your pal, I am your father. My job is to prepare you to go out into the world as self-sufficient members of society and to make sure that you have all the tools that you need to survive after I'm dead. That will be the only measure of my success as a parent. What "Bobbies" Dad does, or doesn't, do is no concern of mine and should be no concern of yours."

To this day the boys take a book over TV. Appreciate the need for and the satisfaction derived from a job well done. They are as comfortable in a wilderness area as they are in the city. And in general, have set their priorities in the right order.

All that I did could, and was, done without help from, or the need for help from, the government. I eliminated the "kid targeted ad machine" and dealt with the peer group issues. So my solution was to simply concentrate on my own brood and to leave the other parents to do as they wanted. I beleive that keeping your own house in order is the first, and only, priority.

Ishmael

 

[freescorfr]

That seems quite a task you've accomplished Ishmael.

It seems to me that this smoking Ad that RisiaSkye is moved to write abouty so eloquently is, as has been said, simply using children in the worst sort of emotional terrorism.

 

[RisiaSkye]

I am wonderfully impressed by the eloquence, rationality, and clear-headedness of all who've posted here. Thank you all, very sincerely, for your thoughts. ~ ~

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

It's undeniable that that this kind of commercial is banal and plays to base human instinct of wanting to do what's best for our kids, but doesn't virtually all advertising play to base instincts? Some sell by appealing to our desire to be sexually attractive, some play on our desires for wealth, social status, popularity, or patriotism. I'm inclined to wonder why you spoke up against this particular ad.

Is it really the "exploitation" of kids that has you all so upset? Or is it that people are using kids to promote an agenda that you personally find distasteful or unappealing? Could we really expect a RisiaSkye diatribe against an advertising campaign using kids to against censorship or promoting free speech or racial tolerance?

This isn't about kids at all. It's about the dominant culture that you resent. Let's call a spade a spade here. You like your cigarettes and your BDSM and you don't like being marginalized.

Fine. Those are perfectly good complaints, but there's more than a little irony when you point out the hypocrisy of "using kids to promote a particular political agenda" when your discussion of the whole issue is meant to advance another political agenda. It's the same sort of thing you claim to be complaining about.

(Except you aren't really complaining about what you claim you are. )

 

[RisiaSkye]

Could we really expect a RisiaSkye diatribe against an advertising campaign using kids to against censorship or promoting free speech or racial tolerance?

I say this with all love, OC: fuck you, Mac. It's not a diatribe. And yes, you could, if I felt like getting on that particular horse that day.

This isn't about kids at all. It's about the dominant culture that you resent. Let's call a spade a spade here. You like your cigarettes and your BDSM and you don't like being marginalized.

Why in the hell would my sexuality have *anything* to do with this? Why do you feel the need to bring that up here--does calling me a kink change the argument? I find the fact that you even mention it incredibly telling, however.

I never said it *was* about kids. Others brought that in. To me, it's only about children in the sense that lousy parents will blame anything for the kinds of children they produce--including criminals. When I wrote the original post, a year and a half ago, it was an election year, and the hysteria over high school shootings was at a fever pitch. I was getting mighty tired of hearing parents blame everyone but themselves for the deranged students at Columbine, et al.

Fine. Those are perfectly good complaints, but there's more than a little irony when you point out the hypocrisy of "using kids to promote a particular political agenda" when your discussion of the whole issue is meant to advance another political agenda. It's the same sort of thing you claim to be complaining about.

(Except you aren't really complaining about what you claim you are. )

I see your point Olly, but I disagree.

I hate advertising in general. Also, I don't enjoy or desire children. There, I said it. I have nothing against them in the abstract, but I find it repugnant that they're used to sell us everything--including politics. I found everything about that commercial idiotic on all levels: don't like the ad, don't like the message, don't like the use of kids, don't like the frantic and hysterical tone of it, dont' like the compulsory reproductive bent of our culture, don't like whiny parents who look for others to blame for their own wee-'lil failures.

However, I'm not using kids to sell you anything, am I? It's a porn board for fuckssake, obviously I'm not *really* using kids. Does pointing to a specific example constitute endorsing it? Under that logic, bringing the videotape of the Rodney King beating up would endorse racism and police brutality. It makes no sense.

Yeah, I'm a smoker. So sue me--everybody else wants to already. You still won't see me using the cry "it's all for the children" to steal your rights and freedoms as an adult.

 

[lavender]

 

[Oliver Clozoff]

Lavender, I think you missed my point. I acknowledge valid points in Risia's argument. My point is that the world is absolutely full of injustice and hypocrisy and it's extremely telling which injustices and hypocrisies each of us chooses to highlight. s PP_man chooses to post threads highlighting the hypocrisies of Americans and our government. WriterDom and Sinthesist and others are quick to speak up on the inconsistencies of the political left and don't usually say much about inconistencies of the political right. You tend to do the reverse. I was irked enough by Risia's first post on this thread to respond. You were irked enough by mine to respond with morally indignant language like "truly shocked".

My point is that we all have "selective moralities" and we're all moral entrepeneurs in the public sphere. It's not enough to point out the "good reasons" behind any argument because arguments aren't entirely (perhaps not even primarily) made of good reasons. We all have finely-tuned "bullshit detectors" that are excellent at sniffing out other people's biases. If we all responded to each and every piece of hypocrisy we encountered in our lives we'd never get anything else done. Living life is a process of selective moral entrepeneurship, choosing to speak up and try to change x while letting y go.

Once you become aware of this and notice how truly universal it is that we all speak up about some injustices and ignore other injustices, you can't help but go to the next step and ask "why?" What is it about one person, argument, or situation that sets off your BS detector and not another? And what is it that causes a particular piece of hypocrisy to trigger indignation in one person while another person might just shrug or even nod?

The answer I've come up with is that we all have visions of how the world operates and we're irked when others call to our attention (intentionally or just by accident as happens on the board all the time) the inadequacy of this worldview in explaining the world around us. Nevertheless, we all stubbornly cling to our perspectives and only change with the greatest effort. Our efforts to cling to our worldviews are our agendas and we all have them.

I cling to mine as strongly as anyone, but one thing this board shows me is that discourse is virtually always shrouded in agenda and that if we're really to learn anything from each other we have a lot to overcome. I suppose I've just become jaded and cynical regarding the prospects that anyone can come to know anything completely when we're all like the blind men of the Hindu parable thinking that the elephant is only that one particular part of the animal we can touch. I get the feeling most of what goes on on the lit BB is one person touching a trunk and saying the elephant is like a snake bitterly arguing with another person touching the elephant's side who's vehemently defending his knowledge that the elephant is like a barn door.

From that perspective, all moral indignation is pretty silly. Maybe we do need to start plucking the mote from our eyes before we point out the planks in the eyes of others'. Still it serves the social function of drawing other like-blinded people to us (after all, aren't friends people who like us "no matter what"? Friends are people who buy into your self-delusions). And what's more, pointing out planks is so damn satisfying, isn't it?

However, I'm not using kids to sell you anything, am I? It's a porn board for fuckssake, obviously I'm not *really* using kids.

I don't understand. Maybe we have different definitons of "using kids" here? Was it the actual use of a child actor that bothered you in this case? I thought it was using the idea of the association between smoking and juvenile delinquency that got your dander up. If "using kids" means an appeal to people's natural affection for their genetic investments (the creation and protection of which is in the evolutionary sense our ultimate raison d'etre), then it could just as easily be pointed out that your post was very much trying to "sell something", just as the original ad was - ideas that influence behavior. Both your post share an appeal to people's ideas of how kids ought to be treated. The ad says "children shouldn't be exposed to smoke and smokers" while your post says "we shouldn't use kids to promote ideas that curtail free adults' behavior". The only difference between your post and the ad, though (other than specific content and the medium itself) is the breadth of audience. Lots more folks watch TV than read the lit BB.

You were right about the BDSM point, though. It didn't have much to do with anything. Thanks for engaging your BS detectors. As for the rest of my post, take of it what you will. Maybe there's some truth in it, but even so, it's wrapped tight in agenda shell. Extract at your own risk.

 

[lavender]