A CALL TO RESCUE CHILDHOOD

Enola G. Aird
Director, The Motherhood Project
Member, SCEC Steering Committee

Since nine o'clock this morning, we have been hearing about the parade of horribles being visited upon our children by food marketers, toy marketers, children's book producers, makers of video games, soda companies, and a wide variety of other advertisers and marketers. We have heard about the negative effects of advertising on girls, boys, children of all colors, children of privilege, and children of poverty. 

MANY PARTS, ONE ELEPHANT

Today's speakers have presented compelling evidence of the harm caused to children and youth by advertisers and marketers. But if there is one thing I hope we can all take away from here this afternoon, it is this: there may be a wide variety of products and services being advertised and marketed to children, there may be a large number of companies and advertising agencies involved in this work. Whatever their differences, however, they are all part of one huge and powerful advertising and marketing industry. As a whole, that industry is engaged in business practices that are causing profound damage to our children.

Whether your issue is food, toys, violent video games, soda, or marketing in schools, we are all fighting one common foe: the advertising and marketing industry. If we are to be effective in ending the commercial exploitation of children, we must see our struggle as a common one. Let us, therefore, work together more closely--and in coalition. Even as we fight to make progress on our separate issues, let us keep hammering home the point that there may be many parts, but there is really only one elephant.

We are challenging the practices of the most powerful industry in the world today and we need to build the broadest and most collaborative coalition possible. We must build it across race, class, disciplines, ideology, and political affiliation. The fight against the commercialization of childhood has already united unlikely partners of different races and backgrounds on the left, on the right, and in the middle. We need to build on our commonality-- and move even more aggressively to unite our efforts. And here's why.

HIGH STAKES

The advertising and marketing industry is dedicated to "owning" children and turning them into "lifelong consumers." Like most of the advertisements it sponsors, it is intrusive, it respects no boundaries, it is hostile to the needs of children, and it seeks to substitute its values and judgments for the values and judgments of mothers and fathers.

The industry has already contributed immeasurably to a toxic culture of childhood. As you have heard, the advertising and marketing industry has a profound negative effect on how our children behave, what our children eat, how they play, how they dress, how they feel about themselves, how they feel about life, and what they value. By ruthlessly promoting the ethics of self-indulgence, instant gratification, and excessive materialism, this industry is undermining parents' abilities to raise healthy and caring children.

The stakes here are very high. We have to find creative ways to help our fellow citizens understand that there is a lot more going on than just the selling of goods and services.

We must get out this urgent message: along with its products and services, the advertising and marketing industry is selling our children on habits of the mind and habits of the heart that undermine childhood, undermine democratic values, and undermine human flourishing.

THE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
 
At the end of his book , Neil Postman expressed dismay about the ways in which the media conspire to erase childhood as a protected time for children. He was pessimistic that anything could be done to rescue childhood. On bad days, I am inclined to share Postman's view.

Events of the last two weeks, however, have opened up a great window of opportunity for those of us in the struggle against the commercialization of our children's lives.

Whatever our personal views on the Super Bowl halftime show "wardrobe malfunction" may be, I think we can all agree that it has galvanized American public opinion about the excesses of the media.

We are meeting at a crucial moment in American culture and in American history. The public has probably never been more upset about the media and its negative influence on children. Our task is to take advantage of this window of opportunity to deepen our fellow citizens' understanding of the complexity of the media mess in which we --and our children --find ourselves.

We must seize this opportunity to help our neighbors understand that the advertising and marketing industry is the foundation of the media. The American public must come to fully appreciate the central role that advertisers and marketers play in creating and perverting our media.

We must help them understand that it is advertisers' commitment to bottom-line values above all else that has led to the present climate in which anything goes. Anything goes in the sponsorship of increasingly violent and sexualized programming and advertisements. Anything goes in market research on children wherever and whenever advertisers can find them, anything goes in using psychologists to manipulate children and take advantage of their needs and vulnerabilities, anything goes in hijacking school curricula, anything goes in promoting bad eating habits and undermining our children's health, anything goes in the relentless effort to colonize every available space for the purposes of selling.

We must help our neighbors see that the "anything goes" spirit is rooted in an advertising and marketing industry that has lost all sense of limits. And we must demand limits (self-imposed or otherwise) on industry, even as we work to ensure that the media industry does not continue to hurt our children.

A CRUCIAL MOMENT FOR MOVEMENT-BUILDING

Every mass movement begins with consciousness-raising. That is what we have all been trying to do for many years. Now has come the time for us to intensify our efforts. We must name-- and begin to fight-- the beast: the advertising and marketing industry.

As we wage our individual battles against the excesses of the food industry, against marketing in schools, etc., we must continue to underscore the fact that our real enemy is an industry that is bent on the destruction of childhood.

Our mission, then, must be to rescue childhood.

In the wake of the Super Bowl spectacle, the culture has turned its eyes to scrutinize the media . We must help everybody see that there is, indeed, a wizard behind the curtain. That wizard is the adverting and marketing industry.

Now is our chance to sponsor meetings in our neighborhoods, schools, faith communities, and civic groups to educate people about the relationship between the media industry and the advertising and marketing industry, and the excesses of both. Now is the time to get the phones ringing off the hook in Congress, pressing for a full investigation into advertising and marketing to children.

Let us make sure that we do not let this moment pass. Let us use this moment to insist on action with respect to the industry that drives the media industry.

Along with all that has already been suggested today, let us insist on immediate action in the form of a comprehensive investigation into the practices of the advertising and marketing industry as they affect children. Let us insist on immediate action in the form of additional research into the psycho-social and health effects of advertising and marketing on children. Let us vigorously pursue all available legal remedies. Let us take bold and aggressive steps to protect children.

Above all, at this moment, let us seize this opportunity to make the connection in the public mind between the abuses of the media industry and the abuses of the advertising and marketing industry.

Let's go. Let's set our country on a new path toward a healthy culture of childhood.

Enola Aird, JD (egaird@juno.com) is an activist mother. She is founder and director of the Motherhood Project based at the Institute for American Values in New York City. A graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School, she has worked for a variety of  media corporations, including the National Association of Broadcasters and predecessor entities of Time Warner and Viacom, as well as the Children's Defense Fund.