The Child Consumer

David Elkind

This review of Juliet Schor's Born to Buy originally appeared in the Boston Globe October 24, 2004.

The child is a gift of nature, but how the child is perceived is always a social construction.  During the Puritan era, the child was viewed as born with original sin, and in need of salvation. The Darwinian revolution ushered in the humanitarian perception of the child as a young organism. Like the young of other species, the child was regarded as innately innocent, playful, and in need of protection.  With the social revolutions of the sixties, the child came to be seen as competent, ready and able to deal with all of life’s vicissitudes. These included; divorce, extended day care, two parents working, media bombardment, and more.

Over the past several decades, at least in the purviews of those who merchandise to young, a new perception of the child has been promoted. This is the idea of the child as consumer. Viewing the child in this way reflects a tectonic value shift. The perceptions--misguided or not—of the child as sinful, or as innocent, or as competent arose from a genuine concern for the health and welfare of the child. In contrast, the child as consumer does not stem from any concern for the well being of the young. Rather, the perception of the child as consumer is driven by the profit motives of those who merchandise to children

Juliet B. Schor’s book, Born to Buy, echoes many of these alarms. She is particularly powerful in showing how deeply and broadly the commercialization of childhood has penetrated our society. Some of this invasion, such as trans toying, we now take for granted. Toothbrushes, watches, lunch pails, and shampoos can carry logos or replicas of popular, media related, character toys such as Shrek or Pokemon.  More insidious is the commercial penetration of once healthy youth programs such as the Girl Scouts

Beginning in 1995 the girl scouts began offering the “fashionable adventure” experience with the Limited Too, the country’s largest girl oriented retail chain. Instead of camping out or learning about nature, the girls sign up for an overnight that begins at the mall. They’re promised an experience emphasizing, ‘smart shopping tips, personal money management, and most of all how to maximize your funds to have it all.’ The girls try on clothes and return home with a discount coupon.”

Equally, if not more troubling, is the encroachment of advertising into the schools. Schor reviews the research on the effects of having Channel 1 in the classrooms and the potent effect it has upon student attitudes. She also details how schools are selling “pouring rights,” or exclusive access to their schools, to soft drink companies like Pepsi. Schools are also selling ad space in school buildings, classrooms, and buses. Free promotional give-aways, like weekly planners, loaded with ads are commonplace. As school funding dries up, administrators look to these venues as ways to make up the shortfall.

Perhaps the most disturbing facet of this intrusion of consumerism into the schools is its invasion of the curriculum. This has come about via SEM’s, sponsored educational materials. Schor documents how major food corporations sponsor nutrition curricula that support their products in misleading ways. The Kellogg nutritional curricula suggests that fat, but not sugar and salt, are the things to worry about in choosing breakfast food. Highly regarded Scholastic Magazine, claimed to be in 92 percent of US Classrooms, has sold out to the merchandisers. Schor writes that the magazine has been turned into an advertising vehicle. It now publishes special issues that are sponsored by individual companies with many pages of company ads.

While some of this material is covered in the other books, what makes this book special is the chapter in which Schor presents her own research study. Her subjects were 300 fifth and sixth graders living in or around the Boston area. Each student took a 157 item survey which assessed not only the children’s involvement in consumer culture but also measures of physical, and mental, well being. Her main conclusion is deeply disturbing. She writes, “High consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and psychosomatic complaints.”

In her last chapter, Schor takes a realistic view of the task of decommercializing childhood. She recognizes that getting the merchandisers to change their ways, will be far from easy. And, she acknowledges that parents cannot do it all by themselves. At the same time she believes parents can do something. Parents who restrict their children’s television viewing are a case in point. Such parents are less likely, than those who have not, to have youngsters resistant to high consumer involvement.

This is an extraordinarily well researched book providing abundant, evidence for commercialization of childhood in our society. Its greatest strength may also be its greatest weakness. Although Schor appears to be writing to a popular audience, her language is often academic as if she is trying to speak to her colleagues as well as to parents. This is particularly true in the last chapter in which she attempts to explain the complex statistical procedures used in her analyses. The many tables of data are also unexpected in a book of this kind.

 Nonetheless, I hope this book receives the wide recognition and readership it deserves. It offers the first hard research data on the negative effects of turning children into consumers. The child as consumer is but another example of the larger conflict within our society between human (in this case child health and welfare) and economic values. The outcome of this conflict is not insignificant. It could well determine the future of our society.

David Elkind, PhD,  is a professor of child development at Tufts University and author of "The Hurried Child" and other books.