Comments on: Quelling crazed consumerism

By: mudmama

mudmama — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:59:23 +0000

Beyond the entire “Build a Bear Birthday Party” issue two years ago I kinda feel like moving away from the economic hub of the country has allowed our entire family to “opt out” of this kind of crushing consumerist culture. We moved to Nova Scotia. Not only is it economically depressed in comparison to Ontario, the whole province has the same population as Ottawa.

I’ve talked with other “come from aways” and while we are all going through “NO IKEA????” shock – you get over it! We all noticed that our kids MELLOWED OUT on the “I wants” too.

Everyone here shops at “Frenchy’s” for kid clothes – it’s like an uber cheap Value Village chain. We don’t have a tv and I know that affects things, but my kids don’t live in a culture that even has malls to hang out at! They don’t see billboards, they don’t see many big chains (let me tell you these was a BAND playing when WINNERS opened a store in the shopping mecca of the valley two towns over). The peer pressure, the marketers pressure just isn’t as intense because we don’t live in a culture that supports that level of consumerism. This applies to our 16 year old as much as the 9 and 5 year olds.

We all feel assaulted by the advertisers as soon as we hit about Quebec City (driving between Nova Scotia and Ottawa for the holidays). The number of ads, the storefronts, it all seems surreal and plastic and fake and very DISNEYOUTLANDISH once you’ve been away from it for awhile.

So, I think we have a choice in this, without being counter culture..marginalization has its perks!

By: Right, wrong and the evolution of culture | PhD in Parenting

Right, wrong and the evolution of culture | PhD in Parenting — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:18:38 +0000

[...] BlogHer there were the crazed consumers and the environmentalists. There were the moms wearing babies and the women hating babies. There [...]

By: Let me provoke you…and beg for your votes | PhD in Parenting

Let me provoke you…and beg for your votes | PhD in Parenting — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:00:16 +0000

[...] fathers and valuing parenthood. Challenging people to question things like religion and sin or consumerism. Getting people to think about our empathy deficit and lack of support for true choices for [...]

By: Explaining the Recession and Teaching Financial Literacy to Kids | PhD in Parenting

Sat, 23 May 2009 03:36:16 +0000

[...] us and our kids left, right and centre. I wrote about this in the pre-Christmas season in my post Quelling Crazed Consumerism (includes lots of links to [...]

By: Arts & Crafts Play | PhD in Parenting

Arts & Crafts Play | PhD in Parenting — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:57:04 +0000

[...] fine motor skills, and maybe create some nice homemade toys and decorations as an alternative to crazed consumerism, then this post is for [...]

By: Link Love: Celebration Time « Unconventional Origins

Link Love: Celebration Time « Unconventional Origins — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:53:10 +0000

[...] PHD in parenting has a post about a topic that has been on my mind quite a bit, quelling crazed consumerism. [...]

By: Black Zedd's Basic Literature

Black Zedd's Basic Literature — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:57:18 +0000

Advertising To Children: What Ethic?…

..into a powerful subliminal hypnosis machine- it’s called TELEVISION. And we know children love TVs a lot. And they’re easily swayed by nice advertisements….

By: Carla

Carla — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:49:15 +0000

One big thing I’ve tried to do with my children (from a very young age) is discuss commercials in the moment–explain how manipulative they are, explain that the motivation is to encourage people to buy things because the company wants to make money, explain that often the quality or characteristics of an item are exaggerated (if not outright wrong), etc. I think this has made a big difference in how my children view commercials–my 7-year-old started critiquing commercials herself around age 4 or 5, and she’s much more of an educated consumer (we research infomercial items on Google, find reviews, etc., and invariably she decides she isn’t interested in the product once she knows more about it). It doesn’t eliminate the desire for fun toys and such, but I think it makes kids a lot more self-aware as to the goals and effects of advertising, and it makes them less susceptible to unconscious influences of commercials because they (again, even at young ages) hate the idea of being manipulated as much as adults would. Just another tool…

By: ParentingHelp

ParentingHelp — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:28:18 +0000

If your child begs for something that he or she saw advertised on TV and you give in then they will beg more the next time.

It is easier to keep the kids out of these sections in the store so your child with not be begging for these highly advertised products.

This is unrelated but I wanted to tell everyone about it.
I was at a Wal-mart on Black Friday. The line was help up twice while the lighted sign by the cash register flashed. Someone had to come to the register and corrected the problem. When I got to the checkout, the cashier said that her boss was on her case(not the word she used). The battery operated Barbie Car listed in the mail-out for $88 was ringing up at $219. The cashier said that her boss was complaining because the cashier kept calling her to override this error. She said that her boss said to not ask her to over-ride another one of these Barbie Cars.

By: keagansmom

keagansmom — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:05:46 +0000

Good for you for trying to keep the consumerism down in your family! Our son is still very young, but we’re trying to keep things simple as well. It’s sad that such a wonderful time of year is soiled by this kind of attitude.