Green Options

$17 billion a year is spent by the advertising and marketing industry to shape our children’s desires and identities.

Now that the economic recession gripping the world is causing free market ideals to be questioned, it’s time to examine its effects on our children.  Henry A. Giroux writes:

While the “empire of consumption” has been around for a long time, American society in the last thirty years has undergone a sea change in the daily lives of children - one marked by a major transition from a culture of innocence and social protection, however imperfect, to a culture of commodification. This is culture that does more than undermine the ideals of a secure and happy childhood; it also exhibits the bad faith of a society in which, for children, “there can be only one kind of value, market value; one kind of success, profit; one kind of existence, commodities; and one kind of social relationship, markets.”(2) Children now inhabit a cultural landscape in which they can only recognize themselves in terms preferred by the market.

From my daughter’s very first Christmas, we have always told our children the truth about Santa Claus.  This personal decision was based upon my own experiences and reaction to finding out the reality of this icon’s existence, which also symbolized the end of my idyllic childhood.  My neighbor has warned me to be prepared for my daughter to tell me I have ruined her childhood by not making her believe in Santa, as her daughter did when she reached adulthood, and there are times we are confronted with this reality in our culture.

We live in a very small county with one weekly newspaper. It is tradition for the newspaper to print primary children’s letters to Santa.  When this time of year comes around, I know what is going to happen at school with the Santa letters, and I have to prep my daughter not to tell other children what she knows about Jolly Saint Nick.  I’ve debated opting her out of this assignment to write a letter asking for material possessions to be published in the paper, but this year, she surprised me.  Here is the text of her letter:

As my 4-year-old son starts his first year of preschool this month, my concerns for him have entered a whole new realm. School means new friends and new experiences, which are great. But it also means exposure to new habits, preferences and ideas that aren’t always good for him. Some kids might bring in lunches heavy in junk food, which I try not to feed my son. Some might be obsessed with

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