I was distressed as I watched my innocent
seven-year-old daughter and her friend dance. “Where
on earth,” I asked myself, “did they learn to dance
like that?”
“Like that” is, well, not at all like what you’d
expect from a child whose innocence ought to still be
intact. Think pole dancing, not cotillion. That’s
overstating it some, but not by much.
It turns out that the parents of our daughter’s
friend, against our explicit instructions, chose to
allow the girls to watch a movie that exceeded our
movie-rating restrictions. They decided that Charlie’s
Angels: Full Throttle would be an appropriate movie
for a couple of first graders.
I suspect that most parents have faced similar
situations in which people you would deem to be allies
in your quest to raise healthy, well-adjusted children
– other parents – have let you down. But we parents
need to be very clear about who won’t be helping us
out – marketers and the entertainment industry. And,
with the introduction of Bratz dolls a few years ago,
you better pay attention to the toy industry too.
Call me old-fashioned, but please count me among those
who think that sexualizing products for children is a
really, really bad idea. Thongs for 7 to 14 year old
girls with slogans like “wink wink” and “eye candy”
printed on the front (a product introduced by a major
retailer a few years ago), is a bad idea. Pedophiles
may like it, I don’t.
Neither do I like the idea of Bratz dolls. Why on
earth would I want my daughters, still in single
digits age-wise, to be playing with dolls that make
immodesty all the rage.
The first one that appeared in my house – courtesy of
another friend of my daughter – wore a thong under the
mini-est of mini skirts.
I know that’s two references to thong underwear in the
first six paragraphs of this column, but you should
know that I have nothing against thong underwear. But
I do have something against the onslaught of images
and messages that threaten to reduce my girls to mere
sexual objects, in both their eyes and in the eyes of
their present and future male peers.
Apparently, the American Psychological Association (APA)
shares my concern.
Last month the APA released a report suggesting that
sexualized images in the media are psychologically
damaging young girls and corrupting childhood. The
panel of psychologists behind the report says that
most forms of media are promoting inappropriate images
that are harmful to girls’ self image and healthy
development.
The report specifically sites Bratz dolls which come
dressed in miniskirts, fishnet stockings and, well,
you know what. (One writer in Britain, where Bratz are
outselling Barbie two to one, recounted her thoughts
when her four-year-old daughter received a Bratz doll
for her birthday: “For a moment, I stared at it and
wondered if there was a new doll on the block called
‘Hooker Barbie.’”)
The APA report says that marketers are taking
advantage of children’s innate desire for affection
and peer acceptance, which is leading to eating
disorders, low self-esteem and depression. “The
consequences of the sexualization of girls in media
are likely to be a negative influence on girls’
healthy development,” says Eileen Zurbriggen, the
APA’s chairman.
“We have ample evidence to conclude that sexualization
has negative effects in a variety of domains,
including cognitive functioning, physical and mental
health, and healthy sexual development.”
This says nothing about boys. What are the “takeaways”
for them? We can’t discount the attitudes about women
that are forming in the minds of boys and men. Do we
want the boys who will date our daughters to have an
objectified view of women? Men have to fight this
impulse anyway, so we don’t need to feed it.
The British writer I mentioned before rightly points
out that the “bombardment of sexual images is not
designed principally to sell our children on sex, of
course. What it’s really about is selling us on
shopping. Learn early about appearance, and it turns
you into a good little consumer.”
But over exposure to sexualized images and messages
does not only have an impact on attitudes about
oneself and others; it has an impact on behavior. A
report issued by the Kaiser Family Foundation in late
2005 revealed that repeated exposure to sexual topics
on television is correlated to early sexual activity
among youth.
In other words, all this stuff matters.
This brings us to a frequent topic in this column:
parenting.
Parents, we can yell, scream, protest and boycott. But
the single most important thing we can do as parents
(noun) is parent (verb). My wife and I can’t afford to
wait for advertisers to “get it.” We have to pay
careful attention to the messages our children are
receiving and help them do two things – avoid them
when possible, and think through them when not. The
latter is as important as the former.
Our kids are going to be exposed to unhealthy and
potentially demeaning messages about human sexuality
and the opposite sex. We need to help them think
critically about those messages and help them develop
healthy attitudes about relationships, sex and genuine
human intimacy. Their health and future relationships
– marriages! – may very well depend upon such
attitudes.
Now, I know that somewhere out there someone is
saying, “Dude, lighten up. It’s all in fun.”
Look, it’s fun for the folks getting rich off
children’s need to be accepted, esteemed and loved.
But it’s not fun for parents who are trying their best
to instill self-confidence based on what really
matters – character and healthy relationships.
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