Parental Failure

Last Tuesday in class we ended on the concept of parenting, and were beginning to analyze the extent to which parenting plays a role on children. I found this topic to be very interesting, because a semester back I wrote a paper on the disappearance of the middle class. You might wonder how that plays a role into the discussion of parenting, but in reality is very tightly connected. The reason being that with a harder economically sustainable middle class it forces dual income earning families in order to stay in that class. Now by having two parents working full-time you then see how parenting is affected.

It seems as though this might be a conundrum driven by society itself and in a way is. Without parents around the children absorb more and more advertising, while parents are off working and sometimes not really seeing much of it. This is where marketers got creative and designed advertisements for children. This goes along with Frank in the "Culture for Cool" where children are consumers, and we teach them to like brands and cultivate a particular style.

The bad thing is that dual income earning families is now a norm and that has become a mainstream culture. The counter culture that so readily accompanies it though is with the children. People began to see how important family was, with having to work forty hours a week each they start to value the family more now that it isn't taken for granted as much. By doing so they empower the kids and marketer's saw this phenomena and decided to take advantage of it.

I feel that once the "Child" independence counter culture came to be public it became a whole new marker area just like other counter cultures that seem to go mainstream themselves. Now on a daily basis it is easy to see the movement to a child controlled set of consumers. The power Children have on the parents is amazing and to see this market segment actually being taken advantage of is a little over the top. The bad thing to this is that children are the victims to societies pull into a different mainstream culture that was almost developed out of an economical and financial hardship through the nation.
The video attached is a commercial you might have seen illustrating the power children have. Children almost seem to be tools used for further consumption.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pNUxIczig